Shot of the Year?

Rory's 5-wood to last weekend's final hole of regulation from 245 yards in the fairway was remarkable for many reasons.  Had he made the putt and won the Honda Classic, that approach shot would be in the conversation for best all-time clutch shots.

The announcers did give the shot appropriate praise, but after Rory missed the 11-foot putt and didn't win, it was virtually forgotten.  Tiger used to WOW us with just that kind of pressure shot, but more often than not finished it by making the putt.

By ShotLink standards Rory's shot was great because of its relative proximity to the hole.  The ShotLink average proximity from 225-250 in the fairway is 53 feet.  OK, 11 feet is worlds closer, but it is actually much more than that.  The problem with the "Proximity" stat is that it includes all shots - whether they successfully hit the green or not.  A ball can be 15 feet short and in the water, or 10 feet away and buried under the lip of a bunker - and still be included in the average proximity.

ShotLink also reveals that tour players will hit the green-in-regulation from 200+ yards in 43% of their tries.  This is nice but it mixes all conditions (fairway, rough, bunkers, etc.).  Further, there is a large distance span of attempts greater than 200 yards.   Players are attempting to hit greens from 260+ these days.

I believe the best way to judge Rory's accomplishment is by comparing apples to apples.  Accordingly, I have looked a bit deeper.  The 2013 tour average for greens hit from 225 - 250 yards in the fairway was 36% (just over 1 of every 3).  When successful, the average putting distance from this range was 33 feet.

So Rory's success in hitting the green was impressive, but 11'4" from the pin was over the top, especially under the circumstances, and the looming downside of water short, right and long.  Missed putt notwithstanding, I think it qualifies for Shot of the Year so far.

Muirfield brings out the worst in most - not Matt Kuchar

I have said for years that the frequency and severity of our mistakes in golf have a far greater influence on our score and handicap level than do our good shots.  Jack's event this weekend proved to be a great example of my point.  The table below displays the errors (mistakes) made by Matt Kuchar in his four rounds on Muirfield Village as compared to the average of the field.  For perspective, I added the average number of errors made by the PGA Tour in 2012 for an equivalent four rounds.

Muirfield Village is, without question, one of the most difficult courses visited by the Tour.  It is ranked the 3rd most difficult this year, based upon score over par, just behind PGA National - Champion (#2) and Augusta National (#1).  While I have yet to be invited to play Muirfield, I did walk (actually run) the course some years ago to record Shot By Shot data for Jack and his three pro am partners.  Not quite as much fun as playing but I did not lose a single ball.  

What did I learn?

• Playing is more difficult than walking.  The three amateurs, not bad golfers, picked up almost as often as they finished holes.
• Muirfield has lots of water that comes into play around the greens.  (Note the approach shot penalties are more than 2x the 2012 Tour average.)
• The greens and green complexes are very severe and present difficult short game shots. 

 In my study of the event this week, I was surprised to see that aside from the difficulty of the approach shots to the greens, it was the greens and their surroundings, especially the bunkers, that presented the greatest relative difficulty.  (Note the average number of short game errors were more than 50% higher than the 2012 Tour averages.) The Muirfield field made an error from the greenside sand 19.5% of the time - one in every five attempts.  This compares to 12%, or one in every nine attempts in all of 2012.

Matt Kuchar obviously had his sand game ready for Muirfield's test.  In seven attempts, his average putting distance was 6.7 feet (1.3 ft. closer than the field).  And he saved all seven (100% vs. 49% for the field), obviously with ZERO errors.  Well done, Matt!

How do your errors match up?  

How Important are Fairways?

One of my college coaches asked my help to provide some perspective for his players - I love when my clients do that - it's a compliment!

Thanks to my genius programmer, I was able to run a query on the last two years of PGA Tour ShotLink data - 28,272 rounds to be exact - a pretty solid sample.  I looked to see how players score from the fairway vs. rough as well as their relative accuracy from various distances from each.  To be clear, the "rough" locations that I reviewed did not include the intermediate rough, fairway bunkers or any of the many "Other" results.

Score

The cost or scoring difference between hitting the fairway vs. rough is:  .315 strokes

• Results from the fairway = -.156 (under par)
• Results from the rough = +.159 (over par)

This means that a golfer who misses half the fairways (7) in a given round loses over 2 shots to par - not counting any Penalty or No shot results driving results that we consider to be errors.

Accuracy

The affect on accuracy is even more dramatic than that on score.  Bottom line, in order to achieve the same accuracy from the rough as the tour enjoys from the fairway at 151 to 175 yards, the players must move as much as 75 yards closer to the target.    

Accuracy from 151 to 175 yards:  

• Hit Green from Fairway: 71%; Hit Green from Rough: 49%
• Average Proximity to Hole from Fairway: 28 feet; from Rough: 45 feet

To attain the same the fairway accuracy cited above from the rough, we need to get to the 76 to 100 yard range:

• Hit Green from Rough: 71%
• Average Proximity to Hole: 27 feet

Mid point to mid point of these ranges is 75 yards.

One might ask, how does this relate to amateur golfers.  I do not have that data, but my slightly educated guess is NOT SO MUCH.  Why?  Because amateurs do not have anywhere near the accuracy from any position and certainly not from the greater distances.  Thus, it can only fall off so much when faced with shots from the rough.

What effect did the wind have on the 30 champions in Kapalua?

The Plantation course at Kapalua is a bomber's paradise with ample targets and large greens.  The four par 5's as well as three of the par 4's are reachable.  It is no surprise that a player like Dustin Johnson, if on his game, would win.  I found the most interesting aspect of this event to be the severe winds and their impact on performance.

The greatest impact was on putting!

Kapalua's greens are always near the top by my measure of difficulty, but were even more so this week due to extreme winds.  [For more on my measure of relative green difficulty, see my last entry:  Were the Barclays Greens Unfair?]  I look at two stats as a measure of putting difficulty:

1.  3-Putt Avoidance - the higher the number or frequency of 3-Putts, the more difficult the greens;

2.  # of Players in the field with ZERO 3-Putts - the lower the number, the more difficult...

3-Putt Avoidance

Last year the field at Kapalua was 5.04% - the highest of all the courses that I checked in my 2012 study.  5.04% means that the entire field (only 30 player/champions) averaged 3.6 3-Putts in 72 holes.  For perspective, in a typical tournament, an average field would 3-Putt twice in 72 holes.  This year the average for the Hyundai field at Kapalua was 7.47%.  The 30 champions averaged FOUR 3-Putts in just 54 holes.  Further, Dustin Johnson (the winner) had three 3-Putts.  Most PGA Tour winners have NONE, but some sneak by with only one putting blemish.

Players with zero 3-Putts

The average for the 25 courses in my 2012 study was 12 players.  In the 2012 Hyundai, only ONE player in the field escaped without a 3-Jack.  (Guess who?*)  This year's field not only had NO such lucky players, the best were seven players that had only two 3-Putts.  None of the events in last year's study had NO players in this category.

The long game was the least affected

Greens-hit in-regulation achieved by the field were almost identical from 2012 to 2013:  14.6 vs. 14.5.  Even these numbers are high as the Tour average in 2012 was 11.3 GIR's.

Finally, I thought that approach shot accuracy would certainly be affected by the high winds - I know mine is.  Not so much!  Proximity to the hole following approach shots was also very close from 2012 to 2013:  40' 7" vs. 41' 1".  Literally only six inches or less than 1% difference in accuracy in 30 to 40 MPH gusting winds.  THESE GUYS REALLY ARE GOOD!

*Bubba Watson!

How Close is Tiger?

 

TIGER's SHOT BY SHOT.com PUTTING HANDICAPS

2012 Honda Classic

I had almost forgotten how much fun it was to see Tiger charging at the end of a PGA Tour event.  My peaked interest in this week's Honda Classic motivated me to watch the action LIVE, which I almost never do - I hate the commercials.  I prefer to record the telecast and tune in about half way.  This allows me to  fast forward through the commercials and "fluff" to finish in time to catch any playoff live.  But this event was exciting from the beginning of the Golf Channel telecast thanks to Tiger's early tee time and great play.

My extended viewing caused me to hear lots of pundit-speak about how close Tiger was, and opinions on what he needed to return to form.  I will admit that the Sunday morning experts alluded to Tiger's putting, but once again showed their lack of sophistication (or their AGE) by citing the number of putts spent in the first three rounds - COME ON PEOPLE!  Tiger's Strokes Gained - Putting stats laid it out clearly.  He gave up 2.35 strokes to the field in the first two rounds (3.6 strokes to Rory McIlroy).  His putting improved in the third round to gain 1.43 strokes on the field but still .6 strokes behind Rory.  Tiger's putting in the final round was exceptional but so was Rory's.  Overall, Tiger gained .56 strokes on the field, but LOST 3.9 strokes to Rory.  Bear in mind, this is putting alone - the one part of the game where we no longer need to guess.

Considering Tiger fell short by just two strokes, it would indicate that the rest of Tiger's game stands up well to the World's new #1.  I looked more closely and agree that it did, at least in this event.

Long Game

Tiger needed only 32.9 long game strokes to achieve 12.5 GIR's  per round while Rory needed 32.2 long strokes to reach 12 GIR's.  In addition to hitting two more GIR's, Tiger's average proximity to the hole was 20 feet - four feet closer than Rory's 24 foot avg.  I give the long game edge to Tiger.

Short Game

Tiger had 26 short game opportunities to Rory's 30.  While Rory clearly won the "Up-and-Down" battle (73% vs. 62%), as I have preached for years - that stat is a composite of short game + PUTTING.  A better measurement would be proximity to the hole.  Rory also won this one but only by one foot (5' 10" vs. 6' 11").  When I think about standing over it, that is an important 13 inches.  That said, we can give the short game edge to Rory - but not by much.

Bottom line, it was clearly Rory's putting prowess that won the day.  Congratulations Rory!  Tiger, welcome back!  Whatever you and Sean Foley worked on after Friday's round did the trick.  Keep up the good work and I look forward to  watching more live TV - it's good for the game.

Nice Short Game Bubba - NOT!

To say that Bubba's strength is his long game is a gross understatement.  While a bit sloppy on Sunday, Bubba overpowered the 7,341 yard  TPC Louisana (par 72).  He led the field in the all-important GIR stat - even with one minor driving error and an approach shot penalty that resulted in a double-bogey.  Good thing for him because as good as his long game was, his short game was about the level of your average club, 10 handicap. 

THE GOOD NEWS

Driving Distance

While leading the field in Driving Distance (331 yds.), Bubba averaged 10 of 14 fairways.  This accuracy tied for 13th and exceeds our Winner's Profile by just under one fairway per round (9.3).  Bear in mind that the prodigious 331 only represents two drives per round.  However, thanks to ShotLink,  I was able to determine that Bubba averaged 311 on all of his "measured drives."  This  includes holes where he hit irons and compares to 278 for the field and 279 for the Tour average to date.  Hugely long and accurate - I'm impressed! 

Short Game,  SCORING Opportunites
His combination of length and accuracy generated an unusual number of short approach shots for GIR's - 16 in four rounds.  To be clear, these are opportunities to hit the Green in Regulation on Par 4 and 5 holes, from 50 yards to the hole and closer.  These opportunities are generally associated with reachable par 5 holes and the occasional short par 4.  For perspective, I looked at the last seven Winners for which I have captured and analyzed their ShotByShot.com data.  This illustrious group averaged six (1.5 per round) with a high of 10 (Mickelson, on the 7,422 (72) Redstone GC) and a low of only ONE (Rory Sabbatini, PGA National 7,158 (70).   So, what did Bubba do with this plethora of scoring opportunities?  See THE BAD NEWS below.

THE BAD NEWS 

The 16 short game opportunities were comprised of 15 Chip/Pitch and 1 Sand.  As my readers know, I evaluate the short game based upon a proprietary balance of three important RESULTS:

1.  Putting Distance - How close on average to the hole.

2.  % Hit Close - % to 5 ft. Chip/Pitch and % to 8 ft. Sand

3.  % Errors - Shots that miss the green.

Based upon ShotByShot.com's analysis (graphic above), Bubba's Chip/Pitch game was that of an 8 handicap and a 15 handicap from the Sand.  I will give him a break from the sand as he only had two opportunities:  one hit to 4 ft. - very good.  The other missed the green - No so...

Below, I will offer three perspectives on Bubba's prowess in those 15 opportunities when his great drives were rewarded with chipping or pitching opportunities for EAGLE:

Category:                  Watson   Tour Winnners  10 - 14 Handicap

Avg. Putt Distance:     13 ft.            4.6 ft.                13 ft.

% to 5 feet:                3 (20%)        (57%)               (22%)

% Errors:                   4 (27%)         ( 4%)               (13%)

% Saved:                   5 (33%)        (72%)               (30%)

On a final note, it was refreshing to see the camraderie and friendship between Bubba and Webb Simpson throughout their final round.  That is a great example of how we should all compete, at every level.  Bubba seemed to be genuinely upset for Webb during the critical penalty situation - a very difficult one but perfectly handled by Webb.  More than anyone, Peter Kostis must really be enjoying the upbeat and positive post-round interviews where he need not wear a flack jacket and helmet.  More good role models - very nice to see.      

What is BALL STRIKING anyway?

Isn't it always a bit more fun to watch an event on a course that you've played?  The Copperhead course at Innisbrook is special and NOT because it is easy.  To emphasize its relative difficulty,  Johnny Miller cited the critical importance of "Ball Striking" - no, not the act of hitting the ball solidly, but the PGA Tour Stat.

Being familiar with that stat, I was interested to hear Johnny explain or elaborate, but he didn't.  Why the omission?  First, it's complicated, and my guess is that: a) it would take too long; and/or b) he did not want to get it wrong - which would be easy to do.  So I decided to refresh my memory and dig out my list of PGA Tour Stats Definitions.  (In 2009 I killed a small tree and printed the 26 pages of over 400 Tour stats.  I figured that before analyzing and criticizing, I should know the subject matter.) In fact, I counted 18 driving distance stats on the Tour's stat list - far more than one can digest. 

BALL STRIKING - Categorized as an 'Off the Tee - Other Stats,' is actually a combination of the player rankings in three other stats: 

"Ball Striking is computed by totaling a player's rank in both Total Driving [computed by totaling a player's rank in both Driving distance and Driving accuracy]  and Greens in Regulation."  This numerical total is compared to other players and the player with the lowest total rank becomes #1 and so on up the ladder. 

Greens in Regulation and Driving Accuracy are fairly straightforward stats.  They are simply the percentage of Greens and Fairways Hit, respectively.

Driving Distance, a carryover from the pre-Shotlink era, is based upon distance off the tee as measured on TWO holes per round.  As the definition states, "Care is taken to select two holes which face in opposite directions to counteract the effect of wind."  It is my guess that this stat is still used to maintain some sort of statistical integrity over time because Shotlink now captures the distance on every hole and the stat that includes "...all drives...measured by laser..." does exist.

So, how important was Gary Woodland's Ball Striking?

Not very!  According to this stat, 55 players performed better than the winner of the event.   Here is exactly how Gary earned his #56 Ball Striking ranking on Copperhead: 

Total Driving = Ranked #41

     - Driving distance:  #7 (296.5 yards)

     - Driving accuracy:  T#54 (hit only 57% of the fairways per round)
   The total of 61 found Gary ranked 41st in the field.
  

Greens in Regulation =  T#29 (12.75 per round, 70.8%)

_____________________________________________

Total of the two rankings:   70, placed Gary at #56 in the field.  For perspective the corresponding  average for the field was 192.  Helpful?  Again, not very!


OK Johnny, I apologize!  It was totally NOT worth the time to explain this stat.  I only did so because I looked it up to reconfirm my impression that it was relatively useless.  It is too complicated, not particularly relevant and almost impossible for your viewers to relate to their own games.  It is the first time that I have heard this stat mentioned during a telecast in years and probably should be the last.

So, how DID Gary Woodland distinguish himself last weekend?
In a nutshell, Long Game and Putting.  Gary hit our 70% Rule for GIR's on the button, and had only one minor error - a No Shot result from the tee on the par-5, 11th hole on Sunday that resulted in a bogey.  Putting was the difference.  Gary overcame two 3-putts from fairly close range (27 and 30 feet) with unusual accuracy from 20 feet and in.  Over the four rounds, he 1-putted 51% of his opportunities (Winners profile = 45%) and  holed 47% of putts from 11 - 20 feet (Winners = 35%).  Finally,  it was two clutch putts in this range on the final holes (16 and 11 feet) that secured his 1-shot victory.  Talk about "Putt for dough!"      

Last time with the 70% Rule - Promise!

At the risk of beating this to death, allow me to crow momentarily over the success of my 70% Rule - a simple formula for what it takes to win on the PGA Tour (originally explained here). Since the beginning of tournament golf and "stats" the experts have been searching for basic summary answers for how to describe performance that matters the most - that which wins tournaments. The old standards have been displayed and discussed FOREVER:  Fairways Hit, GIR's and Putts/GIR.  While their shortcomings are many, GIR's totally trumps Fairways Hit, and Putts/GIR leaves out all the holes where there was no GIR - consider only the Winners and this ignores a third of the holes played.  No wonder they did not work.

Over the past two months I have demonstrated that my 70% Rule, when applied to the three summary stats above, clearly works.  It is not perfect because nothing simple, or summary in nature,  could ever accurately describe the complex, multi-dimensional game of golf.  That said, it is the best I have seen.  For the last time, here it is:

The 70% Rule

The overall average of the stats listed in the graphic above should be 70%.  I give each of the three equal weight despite the fact that they do not represent equally weighted parts of the game.  To the extent that one falls below the 70% mark, the other two need to exceed the 70% mark by enough to offset the deficit.

At the same time, ERRORS must be kept to three or less in a four round event.  The Errors tend to be mistakes that result in a stroke lost:

Long Game Errors:  Balls hit out of play (requiring unusual advancements to return to play), or  any penalty situation.

Short Game Errors:  Shots that miss the green AND where the total strokes needed to hole out from the original short game shot exceed three.  The "exceed 3" is a slight modification from my earlier definition.  Why? Because further study revealed that to penalize a player for simply missing the green, if they ultimately get down in three strokes is double jeopardy - the Scrambling stat already covers it by capturing it as a failed save.  An error needs to be a shot that results in a stroke lost NOT the failure to save.

Putting Errors

3 Putts or worse from 40 feet and closer. 

Unfortunately, the PGA Tour does not provide us with the ability to gauge the errors mentioned - or any errors, for that matter.  I believe that at some point they will recognize the importance of the downside of the game as every other sport has.  Imagine the analysis of baseball without  Fielding Errors and Strike Outs or football without Fumbles and Interceptions.  Mistakes have long been recognized as the difference in the outcome of the game as are the errors in golf.  For more on the importance of avoiding Errors in your game, see my article in the July 2010 issue of Golf Digest (p. 101) REDUCE ERRORS.  The article allows readers to measure the impact of their mistakes on their handicaps.

On that note, both Justin Rose and Tiger had two errors - both in the long game.  

Just how valuable are "Fairways Hit?"

I have often written about how I believe that the age-old, stat "Fairways Hit" is the worst of all of the traditional barometers.  Recently, I recommended instead that players focus more on avoiding ERRORS off the tee.  At the risk of seeming to contradict myself, I feel the need to set the record straight.  My disdain is directed more at the one-dimensional nature of this stat than at the relative importance of having an opportunity to hit a green from the fairway.  More specifically, this stat basically asks for a T/F answer to a multiple-choice question, ignoring the important differences between the relative severity of the "Misses".  It is this myopic view that renders this out-dated test of driving accuracy and effectiveness of limited value.

Every serious golfer recognizes the importance of hitting Greens in Regulation (GIR's).  This is one of the "old stats" that really does matter!  It reflects two positives:  First, the effectiveness of the player's long game; and second, a birdie opportunity.  On the flip side, each missed green speaks poorly of the long game efforts and more often than not results in a bogey or worse.  The players on the PGA Tour average 11.7 GIR's each round (or they would not be there) and I recently calculated that the difference between hitting and missing the GIR, at that level, was worth approximately .8 strokes.

With that in mind, I decided to research the relative importance of the result of the drive and its affect on the golfer's chances of attaining that desirable GIR.  I dug into my database (now 103,000+ rounds) to see exactly how important the "Fairway" has been.  I looked across a wide range of handicap levels at Driving holes (par 4 & 5 holes) where the result was a GIR.  I learned two somewhat surprising facts:

     1.  The percentage breakdowns were markedly consistent across all of the handicap ranges - so close that there was no need to display an array of handicaps.

     2.  The "Fairway" was much more important than I had assumed - over three times as important as even a "Good lie/position" in the rough (see the graph above).

Your first question will no doubt echo mine:  "How could a player with "No shot" (a position so poor that it requires an advancement to return to normal play) hit the GIR?  It took some thought but the answer:  Easy - errant drive on a par 5 into a No shot position, effective advancement shot to return the ball to play, followed by a miraculous recovery shot that hits the green.

Check how your fairways match up to your GIR's over the next several rounds.  I know that this study will make me a bit more focused on keeping it in the short grass.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. McIlroy

 

With apologies to Robert Louis... and Charles... the Quail Hollow Championship really was the Tale of Two golfers.  I was rooting for my new favorite golfer (Phil) but could not avoid getting caught up in Rory's great charge.  His -10 course record on Sunday was magical and fun to watch.  I naturally thought it would be interesting to see exactly what he did differently in the last two rounds to account for the 16 stroke difference from the first two. 

First, let's look at his all-important ERRORS:

                         1-2          3-4

Driving:             3             0

Short Game:      3             0

Putting:              3             1 (Began the 3rd round with a 3-putt from 27 feet)

Total:                 9             1

Two points:
1.  The difference of 8 Errors, could be viewed as half of the 16 stroke margin.
2.  Rory McIlroy will be the first Winner I have seen to overcome 10 Errors.

Now, the good things:

Long Game Efficiency Index*:  Rounds 1-2 = 2.78  vs.  3-4 = 1.96.  While not a full 4 rounds, the latter is the first I have seen that betters my hypothetical "Perfect" round of 2.00.   Perfect would be 36 long strokes and all 18 greens hit in regulation (36/18 = 2.00).  Rory needed only 30.5 long strokes to achieve 15.5 GIR's.  How?  He took full advantage of the two reachable par 4's and four par 5's. - 12 opportunities!  Rory was on, or close (50 yards), to 11 of these 12 reachable greens - shaving 11 long game strokes or 5.5 per round.  Bottom line, I calculate that he saved 9 of the 16 stroke difference with his long game accuracy and efficiency.

*This is our patent pending method of measuring the overall efficiency of a player's long game. For a better explanation, log onto http://www.shotbyshot.com/. 

Putting

For those of us that watched, it will come as no surprise that the vast majority of the other seven strokes were the result of a hot putter.  With only the one 3-putt, Rory made all the short ones that he should AND holed six putts from outside 20 feet, capped off by the 43 foot birdie on the final hole.

So Much for Hitting Fairways!

I enjoyed watching Anthony Kim win in a playoff this weekend at the Shell Houston Open. Ironically, he won the playoff hole by hitting both the fairway and the green in regulation and a 2-putt par. The irony being the "fairway" because AK hit fewer fairways, by far, than I have seen from other winners on the PGA Tour - only 41% - or just over 5 of 14 fairways each round. What makes this stat even more remarkable is that Anthony started the event by hitting his first 7 fairways. After that, no so much!

AK's win dramatizes the uselessness of this ancient stat - and when will Johnny Miller get with the program because he continues to refer to it along with the other outdated measures of performance. That said, Johnny has become a fan of the Tour's newish Total Feet of Putts Made stat. While this stat is way better than the hated (mostly by me) Putts/GIR stat, Total Feet still lacks the important perspective of starting distances. It also does not account for 3-putts, or worse. I can't wait for the Tour to implement the "new" MIT approach (go to "Just a Minute MIT..." for an explanation) to see if/how the announcers explain it.

But back to Anthony Kim. Despite his apparent lack of driving accuracy, he still managed to hit over 12 Greens-in-regulation each round. So while he missed fairways, he did not miss so badly that he could not recover. In fact, he made only four Errors off the tee - two Penalties and two "No Shot" situations. (No Shot = a ball driven into a position from which one cannot proceed normally toward their next goal, requiring some sort of advancement shot to put the ball back in play.) This is still uncharacteristic as our PGA Tour Winner's Profile only records a mistake off the tee once in every two rounds, with the vast majority being the No Shot type. A Penalty off the tee creeps into our Winner's game only once every 14 rounds. For perspective, the average 10 handicap golfer drives the ball into trouble more than three times EACH round: No Shot = 2.8 per round; Penalty = .5 per round.

I submit that AK was able to survive these Errors because EVERYONE was making them. The Redstone, Tournament course has more water than my basement (Northeast joke). Taylor Vaughn tied for the lead with an identical number of tee shot errors (2 Penalties, 2 No Shots) and Phil Mickelson made light of the number of tee shots he dunked. I would like to see the averages for the field but the Tour has no such stat - yet.

On the other hand, it must be noted that the rough was cut unusually low, in part to emulate the playing conditions of next week's Masters. This helps account for how AK could hit so many greens from the rough.

Speaking of the Masters, Phil Mickelson is my pick to win. Not a great stretch as he has proved he can do it more than once. Why this year? I was very impressed with his attitude and sense of humor in his post event interview. He seems more relaxed and comfortable than I have seen in the past.

Grayhawk's Raptor Must Be an Easy Course

The "Fall Series" is clearly a chance for remainder of the PGA Tour golfers to record a win - and one of them did last weekend. Troy Matteson - a new one on me?!

The title of this article takes a snipe at Grayhawk. Underlying this is the fact that I saw something that I have yet to see in years of studying the PGA Tour's golf statistics - not one but two nearly perfect long game rounds. Rickie Fowler (one of the three golfers tied at -18 after 72 holes) kicked off the event by hitting all 18 greens in regulation. It follows that he made no errors off the tee. His one blemish was a 3-putt-bogey from 44 feet on the 13th hole. Rickie's Long Game Efficiency Index* (LGEI; go here for an explanation) was 1.66, much better than our 2.00 standard for hitting all 18 GIR's (assuming 36 long game shots). For perspective, the ShotByShot.com 2009 Winner's Profile LGEI is 2.28, averaging 13.6 GIR's and 32.8 long game shots.

Troy Matteson, the winner at Grayhawk, also managed to hit all 18 greens in his impressive 61 (2nd round). This round is the closest to a perfect round of golf that I have seen as it featured no mistakes off the tee, or in the two short game shots he faced. He had no 3-putts and made all of his short putt opportunities - those inside 10 feet. For good measure, Troy tossed in two longish putts of 18 and 27 feet respectively. He recorded 1 eagle, 7 birdies and 10 pars. Troy's LGEI was slightly better than Rickie's at 1.61 - no wonder he won.

Finally, I saw something else that I have yet to see from a player that plays well enough to tie for the lead after 72 holes. Jamie Lovemark, the 3rd almost-winner began his quest on the first hole with a most inauspicious missed par-putt from inside 2 feet - 1' 6" to be painfully exact - Ouch! I bet he sees that one in his sleep.

*Patent Pending

OK, Know-it-all: What IS Yang's Problem?

I hope you read my last entry. In it I pointed out what I believed to be Johnny Miller's mistaken assessment as to why Y.A. Yang does not measure up to the top level on the PGA Tour. I took exception to Johnny's blaming Yang's post-PGA invisibility on missed fairways. I pointed out that while Y.A. does hit the fairway just over 60% (60.56) of the time, Tiger hits only 64%. I left out a more dramatic example of just how irrelevant the "Fairways" stat is - Phil Mickelson, the #2 player in the world, hit only 52% of his fairways in 2009.

But I could not call out Johnny Miller without offering a better explanation for why we aren't hearing more about Yang. The real answer to the question was not easy to find because, unlike Tiger, whose data I retrieve and analyze after every event, I do not have Y.A.'s ShotByShot.com data. As a result, I had to dive into the massive statistical storehouse of the Tour's ShotLink database. If one is fortunate enough to have access to this robust research tool, one can retrieve more bits of data than one can possibly process, and the pieces of the puzzle are in there somewhere....

I started with the old faithful long game measure - Greens-Hit-in-Regulation - the most pertinent of all of the traditional stats, especially at the Tour level. This stat consistently maintains the strongest direct correlation to scoring and winning of all the stats on Tour. Why? Because it signals a lack of errors in the long game and also corresponds to birdie opportunities. Y.A. hit 66% of his greens, just behind Tiger at 68%, and Tiger is ranked 12th on Tour. This only confirmed that Y.A.'s long game was not his major issue.

Next, I looked at the Tour's Scrambling stat. This is the percent of "saves" (par or better) when the player has failed to hit the green in regulation. Not perfect, but a fairly good overall short game barometer. Y.A. saved 58% of these short game opportunities, ranking 91st on Tour - barely better than the Tour average (57.5%). Tiger ranks #1 on Tour at 68% - this is a significant difference.

Finally, I looked at what I believe to be the Tour's best putting stat yet: Total Putting. This stat considers the weighted average (based upon number of opportunities) of six putting stats. The first five are the % 1-putt in each of the following critical ranges: (3-5 feet, 5-10 feet, 10-15 feet, 15-20 feet, 20-25 feet). The sixth is 3-putt avoidance. This is a simple percentage of holes on which a player has 3 or more putts. Again, not perfect, but by far the most representative of overall putting skill that I have seen from the Tour. Y.A. Yang's PGA Tour ranking is 113. This is worse than the PGA Tour average in these categories. By contrast, Tiger, whose putting never looks great based upon the old and useless Putts per GIR, is ranked #8 in this stat.

Bottom line, Johnny - and I'd love the opportunity to discuss this with you - I believe that Y.A Yang has not been as visible among the winners on Tour this year because his short game and putting just don't measure up. Not only does "Average" NOT win on the PGA Tour, these players are rarely ever seen on TV. What I view to be meaningful short game and putting indicators for Y.A. Yang (approximately 50% of the game) are at best average.

Fairways Missed Y.E. Yang's Problem? NOT!

Did anyone hear Johnny Miller comment several times during the recent President's Cup telecast that the reason for Y.E. Yang's lack of visibility lately has been his inability to hit fairways? I did. In fact, I heard him say it several times. The ability to hit fairways is the hallowed traditional measure of golf driving accuracy. But it is also the most one-dimensional and potentially the most misleading of the traditional golf statistics.

Johnny Miller bemoaned the fact that Yang was only hitting 60% of his fairways, and that a tour golfer cannot win tournaments with that kind of performance. What Johnny needs to know is that the PGA Tour average for Fairways Hit is less than 63%, and that Tiger Woods hits just over 64%!

What is the matter with this statistic? Hitting the fairway is, after all, the goal when we stand on the tee of a par 4 or par 5 hole. The problem is that it asks for a simple Yes/No answer to a question that forces us to focus mainly on the Yes. Why? Because conventional wisdom has us believing that ‘Yes, I hit the fairway!’ is the most positive outcome. But think about it – is that really the case? Isn't what happens when we don't hit the fairway so much more impactful on our golf score?

Over the past 18 years ShotByShot.com has analyzed golf performance at every level – including PGA Tour players – and has concluded that hitting or missing fairways is a statistic of limited relevance. Of far greater importance is the character and severity of the miss. Did the ball land just in the light rough, in a bunker, behind a tree (with or without a shot?), disappear in a pond, or worst of all – go lost or OB?

The higher the level of the player’s golf game, the less relevant is the number of fairways hit to improvement or performance. A recent study of performance on the PGA Tour conducted by two professors at Northeastern University in Boston cited the declining importance of driving accuracy due primarily to increasing driving distances. To support this, during his 2007 seven-event winning streak, Tiger Woods hit only 61% of the fairways. In the final event of that streak at Torrey Pines, Tiger hit only 46% of the fairways en route to victory. Of far greater importance was the fact that Tiger’s tee shots resulted in an ERROR in only 2% of his total attempts. (ShotByShot’s definition of ERROR = a penalty, or a shot from which the golfer does not have a normal advancement opportunity.)

In no way do I want to pick on Johnny Miller. I enjoy his insightful and honest commentary - he is arguably the best there is at his job. Further, I had the good fortune of spending some time with him at an LPGA event in the early days of ShotByShot and found him very thoughtful and gracious. I am a fan. That said, his comment exemplifies the pervasive misconceptions that are created by "traditional" golf statistics and why I created something much better in shotbyshot.com. In a future blog, I will delve into some niblicks of truth about what really is to blame for Y. E. Yang's lack of success at the highest level.

Liberty National: Looked Like a Major

This new golf venue showed itself exceptionally well during the telecasts this weekend. Sadly, for the vast majority of the golfing public, the TV is as close as they will ever get to this ultra-exclusive, private club.

I am fortunate to have played Liberty National late last year, and can report that it is breathtaking. Once you catch your breath, however, and get down to working your way around the golf course, the design features grab your full attention. This golf course is hard!

The designers took advantage of just about every known defense against scoring. Once you are bitten, the obstacles seem to loom larger and more prominently with every hole. First, as the announcers noted, the course was built on a relatively small parcel of land so it is tight, but fairly long at 7,419 yards. (We played about 7,000 which was all we could handle and more.) The fairways are bordered by a combination of water, deep bunkers, long fescue and trees. The greens are well protected by bunkers, false fronts, sides and backs and fairly severe undulations.

Don't get me wrong. Liberty National is not an unfair golf course, but it is demanding, especially off the tees, and it punishes errors sternly. I estimate that the average 10 handicap would need at least six balls to finish a round, and would not leave feeling confident about the overall strength of their game - and that is if they play an appropriate set of tees. My group of grizzled veterans relished the challenge and thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Fortunately we had enough ammo and departed energized by the beauty and competitive experience with only minor bruises to our egos. That said, I was anxious to see how the pro's handled it and admit to taking some pleasure in what Liberty did to the best in the world.

Let's just compare the profile of the winner (Heath Slocum) to that of the winners of non-Major PGA Tournaments in 2009:

Score: Heath's -9 total is six shots higher than the -15.25 average of the 32 prior regular PGA Tour events. By comparison, the four major winners averaged -6.5. Personally, I find the more difficult tests to be much more interesting.

Driving Errors: Heath made three tee shot errors (2 were "No shot" results that required advancements to get the ball back in play and the third was a penalty). The prior winners have averaged approximately one such error in 4 rounds. Tiger, only 1 shot back, made an uncharacteristic six driving errors this week.

GIR's: Heath hit 11.5 greens which was good (tied for 6th). The field at Liberty National averaged an incredibly low 9.9 GIR's while the average of the previous winners is 13.5 GIR's.

Long Game Efficiency*: Heath needed 3+ long game strokes for every green hit in regulation. The previous winners average 2.4 long game strokes for each GIR.

*This refers to our patented method for measuring overall Long Game performance. For a better explanation, log on to www.shotbyshot.com.

As I said, the course is particularly demanding off the tee and punishes errant shots.

Here are two more Niblicks of Truth:
Last week, I wrote about Steve Marino's putting issues - especially in the 6 to 10 foot range. Steve hung near the lead this week until he shot 40 on the final 9 holes to fall into a tie for 15th. While I did not collect and analyze his data, I watched and believe that his putting frustrations finally got to him and affected the rest of his game.

Speaking of that critical 6 to 10 foot range, Tiger made only 5 of 14 (36%). His normal success in this range is 65%. His struggles were punctuated by a miss from 7 feet on the final hole to tie the lead - he really is human!

Driving Accuracy Redux

Apologies for some of the handicap coordinates missing from the chart in my last post on Driving Accuracy. Apparently the chart was too wide for my template. I published a similar article in Golf Digest, which can be found at http://www.golfdigest.com/instruction/longgame/accuracy/sanders_gd0809. It contains a simplified chart that may be helpful. If your handicap is missing and you'd like to know the average strokes lost specifically for you, please make a comment below and I will respond.

A Quick Test of Golf Tee Shot Accuracy

As I have stated previously, ‘Fairways Hit’ is one of my least favorite of the traditional golf statistics. This is because it oversimplifies the issue by asking for a true or false answer to what should be a multiple choice question. This stat would be meaningful if it were always true that hitting the fairway was better than not – but it isn’t! And the real problem is that much more information is needed about a tee shot that misses the fairway before it can be determined a mistake. Think about it: this stat does not differentiate between a tee shot that ends up 250 yards out in the first cut of rough and a drive that goes OB. Is that a valid measurement of golf performance?

A better way
The data that we have gathered over 18 years of analyzing the golf game at ShotByShot gives us a better way to look at this issue. A study of our extensive database, where golfers have always recorded the position of every shot along with a rating of its relative difficulty, revealed five basic types of results that follow a missed fairway from the tee:

LIGHT ROUGH
HEAVY ROUGH
NO SHOT
PENALTY (1 Stroke: hazard or unplayable)
XX PENALTY (Stroke + Distance – OB or Lost)

We applied the TEST described below to each of the handicap levels in our database to determine the approximate cost, in stokes, of the missed fairways. You can use this test to see the approximate strokes that you are losing per round. You can also compare your results to your handicap group to determine whether this is a strength or weakness of your golf game.

Try this test

Step #1
In your next few rounds, track your missed fairways. On a typical golf course you will have 14 driving opportunities on the par 4 and par 5 holes. On a blank line on your scorecard, rate each missed fairway on the scale of 0 – 4: LIGHT ROUGH = 0; HEAVY ROUGH = 1; NO SHOT = 2; PENALTY = 3; XX PENALTY = 4.

Step #2
At the end of each round, add up the points and divide the total by 2. This number will approximate the number of strokes that your missed fairways cost you in that round. Average a few rounds see how your average strokes lost per round relates to your handicap group.

For more specifics on the strengths and weaknesses of your golf game relative to yor handicap, go to www.ShotByShot.com

The Long Game in Golf: How Good is Good Enough?

OK, enough about Henrik Stenson’s long game. Let’s talk about Average Joe’s (or Josephine’s) long game. They stand up on every tee with a (wo)manly driver in hand, heads filled with thoughts of hitting the golf ball farther and straighter than ever before. This can make the tee shot much more difficult and stressful than it needs to be. Think about it – the tee shot in golf should be the easiest shot on the course. First, the lie is always perfect. And second, the target (fairway) is very unspecific and much less tied to distance and direction than any other shot.

How many times per round do you hit your driver? Or more to the point, how many times do you choose something other than a driver off the tee on a par 4 or 5 hole? Here’s a niblick of truth: Did you know that less than 10% of golfers consistently hit their driver farther in the fairway than their 3-wood? (And trust me, there is an inverse correlation between driver success % and handicap.)

If you really want to improve your golf score, perhaps it is time to re-think your driving club selection. If tee shots are a problem for you then your card is probably showing more than its share of double and triple bogeys. (DUH?) Here are a few statistical niblicks about the game played by the single-digit handicappers that Mr. or Ms. Average Golfer should be emulating:

• They record double bogey or worse in 1 out of 10 holes
• Over 70% of their double bogeys or worse start with a problem tee shot
• Their odds of recording a double bogey or worse plummet to 1 out of 35 holes when the tee shot is successful!

The point is that simply getting a tee shot in play not only creates the opportunity for good things to happen, it dramatically reduces the likelihood of disaster. The bottom line is that if you are setting realistic goals, the golf tee shot should not need to be great in order to be "good enough" to achieve your goal.

A Better Way to Track Long Game Improvement

How Good Was Henrik Stenson’s Long Game Last Weekend?

He may have won the recent TPC golf tournament, a “mini-major.” But according to the PGA Tour’s stats, Henrick's long game did not rank in the top 10 in the field. I strongly disagree! Here are his long game statistics as displayed on PGA Tour.com:
Driving Accuracy – T11 (73.2%, or 10.24 of 14 fairways hit)
Greens in Regulation – T12 (68.1%, or 12.25 of 18 GIR's)

What’s wrong with these stats?

As I've commented previously, the Fairways Hit stat is by far the weakest performance barometer of all traditional golf statistics for two reasons. First, it ignores driving distance. But most importantly, it ignores the differences between the relative severity of the fairways missed. By this measure, a drive hit OB counts the same as a "miss" sitting up nicely in the first cut. That is so wrong!

Greens in Regulation (GIR’s) is the best of the “old school” golf stats because it means two positive things. First, the long game was efficient enough to achieve the green in regulation. Second, it identifies that there was a birdie opportunity. Its shortcoming is that it does not measure or describe what happened on the holes where the golfer did not hit the green in reg. On the PGA Tour, this conservatively leaves out 33% of the holes and, by the way, the holes where not-so-good things happened. For most amateurs, this golf stat is really a waste of time for tracking improvement because the average 15 to 19 handicap golfer hits only 4 greens a round.

A much better Long Game barometer

I put Henrik Stenson’s long game to a better test – his Long Game Efficiency Index (LGEI - patent pending). This simple test adds up his total Long Game strokes (all strokes from outside 50 yards), divides that number by his GIR’s to arrive at his Efficiency Index.
What makes this statistic better? Because it combines the best of what GIR’s tell us with everything that happened in the long game on all 18 holes. As such, penalties, flubs and miss-hits on the non-GIR holes are all counted.

Henrik’s LGEI in the 2009 TPC:
Total Long Game Strokes per round: 33.7 / 12.25 GIR’s = 2.75 LGEI

Now, to put this into perspective, the hypothetical “perfect” long game round would be:
Long Game strokes 36 / 18 GIR’s = 2.00 LGEI

Winners on the PGA Tour:
Long Game strokes 33.5 / 13 GIR’s = 2.58 LGEI

The BEST I have seen – Tiger Woods in his 2006-07 streak of Seven Consecutive Wins:
Long Game strokes 32.75 / 13.75 GIR’s = 2.38 LGEI

Bottom line, I’d bet that if we calculated a LGEI for every player in last weekend’s TPC event, we would see Henrik’s Long Game ranking jump to #1 or very close to it. His performance was remarkably efficient. Think about it – on a tight Pete Dye golf course full of hazards, he had a total of two Long Game mistakes in 72 holes. One drive resulted in such a poor position that he was forced to simply advance the ball, and one approach shot found a water hazard.

I agree that it can be painful to re-live penalties, flubs and mishits, but here's a niblick of truth: owning up to them and committing to reducing them is critical to improving your golf game. For the most complete picture of the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of your golf game, log on to www.shotbyshot.com.