SLOW PLAY is alive and its poster boy is J.B. Holmes

After some research, I determined that JB’s glacier-like pace in the quarterfinals of the Accenture Match Play Championship was not simply a failed attempt at gamesmanship.  As I looked for material on the Tour’s Slow Play rules online, I found more than a few articles or blogs that singled out JB Holmes as a culprit.  It was mentioned in the telecast that he is know for his “deliberate” pace but I think that he single-handedly forced the change in the format from the usual 36 holes to an 18-hole final.  Bad weather was the stated reason but I believe the decision was made when JB was 5-up on Bubba Watson after 10 holes and the Tour realized that, should he make the finals, 18 holes would require the normal time allotted for 36. 

If you did not see it, JB Holmes could do nothing wrong and was killing Bubba Watson – 5 up after 10 holes.  Match over right?  Not so fast – Ha Ha.  JB hit an errant drive on the 10^th hole and slowed down dramatically.  Peter Jacobson quipped:  “He’s gone into a 4 corner stall.”  In spite of it, JB won the 10^th and it only got worse.

As I watched, thankfully on DVR, I thought that he was purposely stalling in an attempt to alter Bubba’s tempo and charge.  I know I have run into more than my share of opponents that have this strategy in their competitive arsenal – I loath it AND them and have learned how important it is to ignore it and rise above it.  Thankfully, Bubba was undaunted and I believe spurred on by it to win.  Further,  JB’s unusual slow play, and the apparent lack of confidence and focus, had to play a large part in his undoing.

How slow was he?

For perspective, the PGA Tour allows 40 seconds per shot and the LPGA Tour has recently stepped that up to 30 seconds per shot.  It is a bit more complicated than that but those numbers set the standard for how long it should take from the time it is determined to be a player’s turn for him/her to hit the shot.  Obviously, it behooves players to have their “homework” done and be ready to play before it actually becomes their turn.  If so, 40 seconds is more than enough time, or is it?

JB’s abuse of EVERYONE’s time was so much the story that I put a stopwatch on him and Bubba.  Thanks to my DVR, I was able to time eight of JB’s normal shots.  To be fair, I selected only those that were not “trouble” shots but were either tee shots, shots from the fairway following good drives and one approach shot from the rough in a JB-described “good lie.”  I also needed to be able to capture the start time when it was clearly JB’s turn to play, which further limited the number.  For these eight, JB averaged an abysmal 70 seconds including the quickest at 58 and worst 154 seconds.  Remember, these were not the really demanding ones.  I’m not counting the 8:13 it took to take two drops on the 18^th hole or the 8:42 to drop on the play-off 10^th.  Incidentally, the time to execute his shot following both of these drops exceeded 60 seconds.   

  

On the other hand, Bubba Watson is anything but a dawdler.  A typical tee shot took 20 seconds from the time he pulled the club from his bag.   One of his slowest times involved a trouble shot through a bush on the play off hole that took 29 seconds from when it was determined to be his turn.

Finally, to my amazement, on the 19^th tee and after Bubba had hit a drive into trouble, JB altered his routine and let fly in only 36 seconds?  Unfortunately, the result was terrible and cost him an unplayable penalty and the match.  JB, please get your routine under control and in much less time!  You, the game and those of us that enjoy it will be better for it.

 

Where is Tiger's Game Now?

There has been quite a bit written, and discussed on TV, of late on the state of Tiger's game.  Not to be left out, I decided to compare his most recent three rounds from Torrey Pines to a representative sample that I have of his 2009 performance (33 rounds).  The recent sample is only 3 rounds but it is all we have since ShotLink only captured those rounds on the South course.

As the graphic above shows, Tiger's game is off everywhere EXCEPT PUTTING!  This goes against the pundits but bottom line Tiger's performance on the greens, when analyzed the ShotByShot.com way, - by DISTANCE - is not bad and equivalent to that of his remarkable 2009 season.  Further, Tiger's putting performance at Torrey Pines was as good as Bubba Watson's.  We all saw Bubba make some heroic putts down the stretch to secure his victory, but his total body of  work was not up to  that of our typical PGA Tour Winner.  Our 2010 Winners averaged a +5 Putting handicap while Bubba was at +2.  Why?  He made three putting ERRORS (3-Putts from inside 40 feet).  Tiger had only two 3-Putts, but both were outside 40 feet (44 and 54 feet).  Further, with all Bubba's much-touted work on the 10 foot and in range, he only made 5 of 9 (56%) in the critical 6 to 10 foot range.  Tiger made 7 of 14 (50%) and our 2010 Winners 62%.

Driving - Tiger's decline in performance obviously involves missed fairways.  His Fairways Hit was down from 9.6 in 2009 to 6.7.  More important are the ERRORS, or drives hit into NO SHOT positions that require advancements to return to normal play.  Tiger had six such errors in the 3 Torrey Pines rounds.  This compares to less than one driving error per 4-round event in 2009.

Long Game - From where he drove the ball, Tiger actually recovered fairly well to average 11 GIR's.  This is a far sight from the 12.9 GIR's in 2009.  We have consistently seen that averaging 70% GIR's (12.6), while avoiding driving errors, is a must for Tour Winners.  Witness, this was obviously Bubba's strenght as he averaged 14 GIR's with only one driving error.

Short Game - Tiger has long been renowned for having one of the best short games ever BUT, not so much at Torrey Pines.  He averaged eight short game shots per round (Chip/Pitch & Sand combined) and his numbers were a long way from his usual high standard:

• Avg. Putting Distance:  10.5 feet vs. just outside 6 feet in 2009.
• Errors (shots missing greens):  3 (12%) vs. 5% in 2009.
• % Saved:  44% (thanks to fairly good putting) vs. 69% in 2009.

It will be interesting to see how quickly and how far Tiger comes back to his form.  I have no doubt that he will but also find it hard to see him winning six events in a given year as he did in 2009.  No fault of his but there are just too many young stars on Tour and a new crop emerging every year.  further, they don't appear to be intimidated by anyone or anything.

How hard is it to WIN on the PGA Tour?

Just ask Martin Laird!  While he did not have a great round on Sunday of the Barclays, he did everything required to secure the win until the unfortunate 3-putt on the final hole.  How unfortunate?  Here is some perspective on the relative difficulty of "just 2-putt" from a mere 23 feet.

Distance control

A few years ago I conducted a study of some of the top players on the PGA Tour  (Tiger, Phil, VJ, +) to learn that on average they lag to approximately 7% of their starting distance.  This means that a 40 foot putt would be lagged on average to just inside 3 feet.  If Martin had performed to their level, his 23 foot putt would have finished inside 2 feet.  Not so!  Martin's lag effort, and we all know that it was intended to be a lag, flew 7' 1" past the hole - 30% of his starting distance - OPPPS!  No worries, he had made four putts of seven feet+ already, including a 7' 6" putt for birdie on the prior hole to carry the one shot lead into the 18th.  

I have written previously that I recommend a 10% lag rule for amateurs.   First, there is the obvious skill difference and second, the math is way easier.  What would Martin Laird give to have achieved this result of just outside 2 feet?

More on the 20 to 25 foot range

After 75 rounds this year, Martin is slightly better than the Tour average from this distance.  He averages 1.87 putts, so 1-putts with a greater frequency than he 3-putts.  The Tour avg. is 1.90.  By contract, the 18 handicap will 3-putt over four times as often as 1-putt to avg. 2.12 putts from this range - 3-Putting 17% of their opportunities.

The Tour average for 3-Putts from this range is 2.4% - just over 2 out of every 100 opportunities.  Martin Laird was slightly better than this average PRIOR to the Barclays but is now 2.9% or 3/101.

We have heard it said hundreds of times: "The hardest thing to do is just 2-putt" - How true it is! 

Scholarship recipient makes good!

Meet Turner Southey-Gordon - A 17 year old, accomplished golfer from Ontario, Canada.

When the RCGA asked me to provide the tournament statistics for the Canadian Future Links, 17 and under Junior Championship this May, I jumped at the chance.  I knew it would be an ambitious, but worthwhile undertaking to capture the data, post-round for 99 top juniors.  After all, many of them would be playing in their most important event of their young lives.  I wrote about this in my June 2nd entry:  "Jr. Golf is Alive and Well in Canada." 

In order to help the participants become familiar with the program, we created an account for each player and gave them access a full month prior to the event.  Further, we encouraged them to use it as much as they wanted.  While I did not publish it, I decided to award the player that took the best advantage of the offer (entered the most rounds) with a lifetime scholarship to the program.

On site, and the day of the practice round, I made a brief presentation to the golfers and their parents on ShotByShot.com and what we expected them to record during their rounds or at least be thinking about in preparation for their post-round data entry.  At the end of my presentation, I asked if Mr. Southey-Gordon would please stop by to see me.  Up walked a shy young man obviously nervous as to why he had been singled out.  I informed Turner that the seven rounds that he had entered had won him the "scholarship" and he beamed with pride.  It proved particularly appropriate because Turner was not one of the 30+ players that were being provided the program through the RCGA or their local coach, at no cost.  For the next three days whenever I saw Turner I gave him a hearty greeting as "My Scholarship Player!" and he would give me a giant smile and blush.  Turner finished 18th out of the 72 boys in the event - not bad.

Fast forward to the recent Ontario Summer Games - Ontario's version of the Junior Championships - where I was fortunate to provide the tournament stats again.  Who should be in the field and greet me with his giant smile but my "Scholarship Player," Turner Southey-Gordon.  It was like seeing an old friend.

To make matters even better, Turner shot a terrific 68 in the first round and had a 4 shot lead.  I could not show my enthusiasm, nor could I go out on the course and watch the 2nd round - I had more than enough to keep me busy.  However, the OGA has set up a live leader board on a big screen TV not far from where we were set up for data entry.  It enabled me to keep an eye on his progress and pull for him in silence.

Not only did Turner record another 68 to win the event by seven shots, in his brief acceptance speech he thanked me and ShotByShot.com.  Congratulations Turner!  You are a very good player and a delightful young man.  I will be watching your progress both in the headlines and through ShotByShot.com.           

Perspective on Appleby's 59 and Overton's 4-foot Miss

I was able to watch last weekend's PGA Tour event as it happened and was glued to Stuart Appleby's every move.  I have long found him to be a compelling, classy player and was rooting hard for both the 59 and the win.  Jeff Overton made it interesting but I felt showed his immaturity (and not-yet-ready-to-win attitude) with his mini-tantrum after missing the 4-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole.  Ian Baker-Finch was generous in agreeing that the ball hit something because I watched the replay a couple of times and saw no bump or change of direction.  It looked like a nervous "get this over with" pull.  We all know that stroke.  Jeff's "not my fault" reaction was way over the top and he clearly never recovered until his desperation putt on 18 - which was impressive.   More on the unfortunate 3-putt later.

The Old White Course
As I analyzed the performance data, I was reminded of a great friend's story:  While on a joint family vacation with another close friend, the two Dads snuck out for an early round while their families slept in.  They had a great match and both played exceptionally well, recording 68 and 69 respectively on a really tough golf course.  Back in the hotel, Dad #1 enthusiastically relayed the story of the two sub-par scores to his family.  His son, a young athlete and golfer, barely looked up from his TV show to say:  "It must be an easy course!"  

I do not want to detract from Appleby's great performance BUT the scoring and data could lead one to say: "It must be an easy course!"  Appleby blew away my 70% Rule with a combined average of 80%, but the field's 65% came closer than I have ever seen to the magic 70% Rule for Winners on the PGA Tour.  For more on this see my June 10th post - Last Time on 70% Rule.  The major difference was in the important GIR %.  Appleby hit 79% but the field was close behind at 77%.  This is considerably above the Tour Avg. of 65%.  The relative length of the golf course (only 7,020), and damp, windless conditions made the greens both accessible and receptive.  I hope that next year the weather and course conditions will better protect this great old design.

The 3-Putt    
Jeff Overton was on track to tie for the lead when he hit the par-5, 17th hole in two.  A 2-putt for 49' 4" was all he needed to go to the short par 3, 18th tied with Appleby.  His lag was appropriately described as "a difficult 2-putt" by David Feherty.  More than the length, it was down-hill, side-hill to the hole.  Jeff's lag was a good one to leave the ball 3' 8".  Why?  Because my study of Top-10 performers on the PGA Tour revealed that they tend to lag within 7%* of the original distance.  In this case anything inside 4 feet qualifies - well done on the first part Jeff.  Here's the problem, and why I don't accept that Jeff was blameless in the subsequent miss.  He had already missed a 3' 6" putt in the 3rd round.  Could that have been a nagging, negative memory as he stood over a putt that he needed to  have a chance for his first win on Tour?

Finally, the Tour average for holing 4 foot putts is 91%.  Jeff's YTD average is slightly better at 94% but, tragically for him, a dismal 60% for this event.  For perspective, the average 10 handicap makes 75% of their 4 footers.  

*On distance control expectations, I recommend that we amateurs think in terms of 10% lag distances for two reasons:  First, we are a long way from the Tour level and second, the math is considerably easier.