Why didn't Josh Teater WIN at Torrey Pines?

First - More Blog Posts?

Just returned from the PGA Show in Orlando.  I had the pleasure of connecting with quite a few of my instructor/clients.  I am most gratified that they all: a) read this blog avidly; and b) expressed an interest in more posts.  I discussed this with my great friend, Henry Brunton, (now a bona fide instructor/coach Rock Star) as he echoed this sentiment.  Understanding the work that goes into each blog post, Henry suggested posting weekly, but making three of every four much shorter.  As I do with all of Henry's wise advice, I will take it.  Further, if YOU have a statistical topic that you would like me to explore, please let me know!

What about Josh Teater?  

Tied for 2nd, Josh finished six shots behind Tiger.  Just try to find those six shots in the stats...

Using some of my favorite statistical barometers [Stack-18 (explained) and the 70% Rule (70% Rule explained)], Josh's performance was clearly better than Tiger's.

I can only conclude that Josh sprinkled more than a few of those pesky ERRORS into his game - the ones that cost strokes but disappear in the Tour stats.  As the Tour's Shot Tracker data also disappears from its website at some point each Tuesday night, I cannot answer my own question.  But true to my word, it certainly makes for a much shorter blog....

I really did look for clues:

1.  Missed Fairway Percent - Other:  (The % of missed fairways that result in a location other than the fairway or rough.)

Josh had one of these "Others."  If it were an OB/Lost, it would account for at least 2 of the 6 lost shots but we'll never know.  BTW, this could also have been a par 4 drive that reached the putting surface.
According to the stats, Tiger had NONE of these Others but I don't trust this stat because on the 15th hole in the 4th round, Tiger drove into an "Unknown" location and incurred a penalty (drop).  If that's not an Other, what is?

2.  Proximity ARG - (How close to the hole on average for all shots starting within 30 yards of the edge of the green.)
I generally like this stat as it tends to correlate fairly closely to ShotByShot.com's short game proximity.  Josh ranked 53rd at 8' 2" average proximity.  This compares to Tiger's 7' 1" and the field's 7' 11".  My guess: Josh made some errors in this part of his game - but again, the proof is lost in the Tour stats.

Finally, if I were Josh Teater's coach, and spent the time to go through this exercise, I would be extremely frustrated with not being able to answer the important question:  Why didn't Josh Teater WIN at Torrey Pines?     

Henley conducts How-To-Win Clinic at Waialae

In five years of studying the winners on the PGA Tour, I have not seen such pristine data that from Russell Henley's recent win at Waialae.  First, it makes my collection task much easier and enjoyable.  I actually root for my players as I follow them through their rounds and suffer along with them when trouble strikes.  As you can see from the graphic above, Russell Henley blew away my Stack-18, and on the way accomplished a number of statistical feats.  See Stack-18 Explained

GIR's:  15!  The closest that any winner came to this in 2012 was Steve Stricker's 12.75 GIR's at the Hyundai.  The only other 15 that I have seen was Martin Laird at the 2009 TPC Las Vegas.  Incidentally, these two winners also shared the unusual distinction of hitting all 18 GIR's, and coincidentally, in their second rounds.

Strokes Gained Putting:  Henley gained an impressive 3.042 strokes on the field per round, or 12 strokes overall.  Note in the chart above, the average of the 2012 winners was 1.3.  To exceed 2.0 is not uncommon, but only Keegan Bradley exceeded 3 strokes (3.001) in 2012 when he won the Bridgestone.

Errors:  NONE!  This may be Henley's most outstanding bright spot.  To put it in perspective, none of the 2012 winners avoided all errors, with the possible exception of Luke Donald whose single blemih was a 3-Putt from 50 feet - which I don't really consider an error.  Well done, Luke! 

The frequency of errors experienced by event winners that I have studied may be of interest.  I will define what I view as each error and provide the winner's frequency:

Driving:  Drive hit out of play or into a penalty situration.

One every 4.4 rounds.  The error is usually the lesser "No shot" or out of play mistake, requiring an advancement to return to normal play.  I have only seen two of the most severe driving errors (OB/Lost) among winners:  Tiger at Bay Hill and Dustin Johnson two weeks ago in Kapalua. 

Approach:  Approach shot hit out of play or into a penalty situation.   

One every 11 rounds.  This is usually a green missed in the water and is obviously course driven; however, Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar each suffered two in their wins at East Lake and TPC Sawgrass respectively.

Chip/Pitch:  Shots within 50 yards of the hole that miss the green.  

One every 2.6 rounds.  Remember, these are merely shots that miss the green and do not generally cost the winners a stroke.

Sand:  Shots within 50 yards of the hole that miss the green.    

One every 8 rounds.  

Putting:  A 3-Putt from 40 feet and closer to be an error at this level.

One every 5.5 rounds.

The frequency and severity of these errors are extremely important.  I have found that errors do far more to influence score, at every level, than do the other shots.  Obviously, the winners on Tour are at the lowest end of the scale for both frequency and the resulting severity of their mistakes.  You should see what happens as one journeys up the handicap ranks to the average golfer and higher, but that is another story.

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!

Were the Barclays greens unfair?

First, the Barclays felt a lot like a Major.  I give credit to Bethpage Black - with an assist from the FedEx Cup - for helping to insure that the top players remain engaged as the season winds down.  This course is hard.  With the rough long and thick and the greens fast and severe, it is every bit of its 78.1 course rating, and more.  My "A" group had the thrill of playing there just before it was closed down for the first Open.  We found it almost too hard to enjoy.

There was some whining about the greens being unfair this time, so I decided to dig into this a bit.  First, I have never seen a winner on the PGA Tour 3-putt SIX times as Nick Watney did.  Typically, a winner will have zero or one 3-putts.  Ricky Fowler survived FOUR 3-putts to win in a play-off at Quail Hollow - extremely unusual.  

I thought, "If the winner had six 3-putts, how did the rest of the field fare?  Were the greens unfair?"  For the answer, I re-read my recent blog, written after the 2012 Memorial, in which I discussed a reasonable measure of green difficulty - the age-old Tour stat:  3-Putt Avoidance:  The % of time 3 or more putts were taken for a hole (total 3 and 4-putts divided by the total holes played.)  To read this blog, click here.

According to my 3-Putt Avoidance barometer, Bethpage Black ranks right up there @ 3.51.  This says that the field averaged just over 2.5 3-Putts in 72 holes.  For perspective, the four Majors in 2012 averaged 3.91, with the Masters the most difficult @ 4.88; the British Open the most benign @ 2.53. 

Not quite satisfied, I dug deeper.  What about the number of players in any event that had ZERO 3-putts?  Surely this might provide a strong indicator as to the difficulty of the greens.  I looked at this stat for the 35 events in the books YTD:

# Players with ZERO 3-Putts by event

Fewest (Most Difficult Greens)

• 3 players (Augusta, TPC Sawgrass, Bay Hill)
• 5 players (Riviera, Quail Hollow)
• 6 players (Torry Pines, TPC San Antonio)
• 9 players (TPC Four Seasons, Colonial, Olympic, Congressional, Bethpage Black)

Average for all 35 events - 13 players had zero 3-putts

Most (Easiest Greens)

• 79 players (Trump Puerto Rico)
• 27 players (TPC Louisiana)
• 21 players (Waialea, Copperhead)

Two Points:

1.   Bethpage clearly did not stand out as unfair but stood up nicely with other Major venues as challanging.

2.  Wouldn't The Donald be horrified by this analysis.  To twist the blade, the field at the Trump Puerto Rico event was smaller than the average tour field at only 132 players.  So 60% of the field did not have a 3-Putt!  And dare I say that it was not the strongest field? 

  

Where has Ted Potter, Jr. been?

It was fun to see some new faces/personalities in the hunt at the Greenbriar Classic.  I recorded and analyzed Ted Potter, Jr.'s rounds and was impressed with how clean they were.  There were a couple of minor short game misses and only ONE, minor, driving error - a No-Shot result that required an advancement to return to play.  This made me wonder:  What exactly has Ted done in prior events and what suddenly changed?

Ted turned pro in 2002 and thru 2011 played in 74 events on the Web.com tour (formerly Nationwide Tour) but only made 19 cuts.  Ted's two wins in 2011 earned $439,000 and more importantly graduation to the PGA Tour.  Prior to his recent win, Ted played in 15 PGA Tour events but with little success:  9 missed cuts and T13 best finish.  What changed in Ted's game to suddenly produce a win?

Bottom line, lightning struck - he put it all together, and kept it together, for all four rounds. As you can see from the chart above, Ted's Stack-18 elements were slightly better than our 2012 Winner's profile.  For an explanation follow this link to an earlier blog:  Stack-18 Explained

As I looked at each of these key elements in Ted's 15 prior events, they were consistently below his Greenbriar performance:

Putting:   Ted's overall average is at least positive, but just (.18).  There has been a pattern of poor putting holding him back in that 7 of his 9 missed cuts featured negative Strokes Gained putting numbers (worse than the average of the entire field).  Ted had one very positive putting number (3.3) at Pebble Beach, but with only two rounds (MC).

GIR's:  Prior to this week, Ted was right at the Tour average for GIR's (62.8% = 11.3).  In his best finish (T13), Ted hit 71%.  He equaled his 72% at Greenbriar just once at the Wells Fargo, but again for only two rounds (MC).

Scrambling:  Ted's 80% this week was clearly a key factor in his success.  Saving par on 4 of the 5 missed GIR's each round is very good, even when compared to our Winner's profile.  His prior performance @54% is below the Tour avg. (56%) and in his 9 missed cuts Ted's average dropped to 48%.

If I were working with Ted and had collected and analyzed all of his 2012 rounds, I could provide clear indications of what really contributed to his lack of success before this week.  Certainly, putting is important and Strokes Gained nails that piece for us.  However, the 1.83 strokes difference amounts to only 30% of the 6.2 difference in Ted's scoring average.

What is the answer?  I have stated many times that my biggest issue with the Tour's robust "stats" is that they do not include ERRORS.  I have worked hard to find clues that allow me to infer the existence of these mistakes and have deduced that Ted's Driving and Long games have included 2 to 3 errors per round amounting to 60% of his scoring difference.