Useless “stats” (continued)

Let’s talk some golf…

First of all, a little background.  I grew up in Augusta.  When you grow up in Augusta (the “mecca” of golf) you play golf.  Actually I was introduced to the game by my grandfather in S. Illinois, but that’s a story for another day.  The net, net is that I’ve played golf and followed it closely since the age of 7.  The game fascinates me and I find the traditions, history, etc just as exciting today as ever.  In fact, I’m a big fan of Tim Finchim even if others are not.  I think he’s acting as a great caretaker for the “greatest game ever invented”.  I also think that the Masters is not only golf’s greatest spectacle, but probably the greatest spectacle in sports and certainly the hardest ticket in sports to acquire.  I’ve been fortunate enough to attend roughly 30 Masters golf tournaments and I still get the “goose bumps” up and down my body when I step on the premises.  For those of you who are wondering, I play once every 6 weeks or so, but still maintain a solid 12 index.

So yesterday was not only the conclusion of the English Premier League (which was completely crazy and awesome by the way), but it was also the final round of the players championship at the TPC Sawgrass.  Commonly known as golf’s “fifth major” and broadcast around the world just as a major, it is a great tournament to watch.

Just as I admire Mr. Finchim and his leadership of the PGA I absolutely hate to watch any tournament where Johnny Miller is commentating.  I have the pleasure to know several club pros and a few golf course superintendents and Johnny, NO the ball does not break “away from the setting sun”.  Maybe your early exit from the world of professional golf involved watching the setting sun and focusing on “grass” too much (“yips” anyone?).

Mr. Miller aside, today let’s talk about some of the “useless” stats related to golf.  Let’s start with one of Mr. Miller’s favorites is number of putts per round.  Golf is an easy game, you hit your drive to the fairway (on par 4s and 5s) hit one or two other shots, hit two putts (no more) and you’re going to shoot par or somewhere thereabouts.  On the par 3s you hit one shot, two putt and repeat.  Nonetheless, 36 putts for 18 holes is considered excessive (except maybe for a US Open) and anything around 20 putts is viewed as pretty good.  Now, why does this NOT make sense?  Let’s have a short story…

A few years ago I attended a friend’s wedding in Chicago.  It was bitterly cold, but he insisted on playing golf so out we went (with some liquid antifreeze in tow of course).  The “game” we were playing that day involved a deck of cards.  Essentially, if you one putt a green you got a card, two putts nothing and three or more putts you had to throw $5 into the kitty.  At the end of the round, you took the earned number of random cards from a standard deck and played straight poker for the money in the pot.  In our case it was around $200.

What I observed during this game is that the really good golfers would NOT play for the flag.  In fact, they would try to pick a nice landing surface just off the green, play to that, chip up close and try to make their one putt (for a card in the poker game).  Guys like me that were trying to hit to the center of the green and two putt ended up with only a couple of cards.

See my point?

Who cares how many putts you had?  You could have 18 putts, have missed every single green, some of those putts might’ve been for par, many might’ve been for bogey (or worse), but you had a great putts per round stat!  Johnny will love you if you average 18 putts per round!  (even if you shoot 82)

How about another short game statistic – greens in regulation (GIR).  My problem with GIR is that some of these greens are HUGE.  You could be just off the green and 10 ft. from the hole (collar) and NOT have a GIR or you could have a GIR but 70 feet from the hole on the wrong side of the green (a.k.a. three putt city).  GIR is supposed to be a metric to show how well a golfer is hitting his irons into the green.  In my opinion it is anything but.

I can say the same thing for driving distance.  Who cares?  If driving distance really mattered then Zach Johnson, Mike Weir and Fred Funk wouldn’t even be on tour!

Here’s two that I do like. (let’s try to end on a positive note)  I do like driving accuracy, you obviously need to hit the fairway to win tournaments (most of the time).  I also like how “putt feet” is starting to be analyzed to show how well someone is making putts.  (It’s taking the measurement of all the putts made and adding that number up over the round – obviously the higher the number the better the putter).  I’d like to see more of “average distance away from the hole for birdie” – that would be a pretty cool stat.

The surprising thing in all of this is that there are people doing golf broadcasts that I really like and who really know the game (Nick Faldo, Kelly Tilghman, Roger Maltbie, Gary Koch) – why don’t these guys think of this?  With systems like “shotlink” in existence it’s extremely easy to get the measurements of where the ball is all of the time.  Define where the ball “should be” on the different holes and measure how well the players hit those targets.

I’ll happily volunteer my services to help by the way!  Keep it in the short grass everyone!