[Mike_Young]

Did you guys see that in golf magazine...five guys lead from 88.96 to 89.36.....
I somehow had no idea this was happening.....I mean you miss one out of ten putts under 10 feet.....sort of says it all......as long as guys putt like that driving takes a back seat.....

[Ian_L]

That's kind of a misleading statistic.  You'd have to look at how frequent each length putt is.  That stat is counting a large amount of tap-ins and knee-knockers as well as the 7-10 range.

I'm not saying they're not amazing, just that it shouldn't be read that pros make 89% of 10-footers.

[Mike_Young]

Ian,
It doesn't say they make that many 10 footers.....seems to me that however you cut it..you can only miss one putt under ten feet out of every ten putts you have of that length or less....if you miss a two footer then you have to make the next nine putts of ten feet or less....right?

[Peter Pallotta]

It is a very striking stat, Mike.

It turns upside down the old rule of thumb about hard pars and easy bogies. For putters like that, no par is hard.

Peter

[Wyatt Halliday]

Mike,

I think it would be interesting to see the stats of first putt makes inside of ten feet. Building from Ian's inquiry, it would also be interesting to find out those players average distance to the hole after approach.

[John Moore II]

Just think about it. If you watched the Mercedes last week, how many times did you see those guys miss a putt from 10 feet or less? Not often.

Also consider the condition of the greens they are playing. Those greens are nearly perfect all the time on the tour. That helps a lot. Take the tour guys to the average public course that most of us play, and the numbers aren't as good.

But a number the really strikes me, the average putts per round has not gone down that much since 1980. The PGA Tour website has stats back that far. The leader in putts per round last year had 27.92 ppr. In 1980 the leader had 28.81. And putts per GIR has gone down only a little bit as well. Last year, PPGIR was 1.718 and in 1986 it was 1.736. The difference in those numbers strike me considering how much everyone harps about how bad greens were and such when we used steel spikes more.

[Anthony Fowler]

My guess is that that stat is more a measure of good chipping.  The last time I saw the stats, tour pros were about 99% from 3 feet and 50% from 6 feet.  This means that very small marginal improvements in chipping can really drive down their (and our) scores and putting statistics. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
That's an amazing number, thankfully the other variables conspire to keep players out of that 20' circle.   

At the Mercedes(2008) the average number of putts per green was 1.80, or 32.4 per round.

   

[Wyatt Halliday]

That's an amazing number, thankfully the other variables conspire to keep players out of that 20' circle.      

Jim,

My thoughts exactly. Thank you for making it more concise.

WH

[Jason Topp]

The aggregate percentage of putts holed inside 10 feet is misleading because nearly all of the putts are very short putts.  For example, in the last tournament:

Ogilvy was 100 percent on putts under five feet - 56 of 56  (38 were inside 3' and 18 were between 3' and 5' ).  He was 44 percent on putts between 5' and 10'(8 of 18)
If you combine them he was 64 of 74 or about 86%

Els had two dreadful short putting rounds.  He was 58 of 61 inside of 5' (41 of 42 inside 3') and 9 for 18 between 5' and 10'.  In other words 67 of 79 inside of 10' (around 85%).

These numbers are very impressive.  (try to replicate them on a practice green).  Nonetheless, I think they are dramatically lower than the average player guesses they are.  If you make half of your putts from 10 feet you probably are the best putter on earth.  If you make half of your putts between 5 and 10 feet you are performing as well as tour pros.

[Jim_Kennedy]

In 2008:
-players who led the field in putting won six times.
-players who led in scrambling won five times.
-players who led in GRI won twice. 
-most accurate driver won twice.
-longest driver won once.

You can win many ways, the best is sticking it inside 10' all day. 

[Jonathan Cummings]

But a number the really strikes me, the average putts per round has not gone down that much since 1980. The PGA Tour website has stats back that far. The leader in putts per round last year had 27.92 ppr. In 1980 the leader had 28.81. And putts per GIR has gone down only a little bit as well. Last year, PPGIR was 1.718 and in 1986 it was 1.736. The difference in those numbers strike me considering how much everyone harps about how bad greens were and such when we used steel spikes more.

Agree 100% John.  Your stats above sum up nicely how little putting has changed over the years on tour.

JC

[Brent Hutto]

Putt per round and putts per GIR are poor measures of putting success. So poor as to be almost useless for comparing across players, across years, across situations because they have a huge assumption of with everything else being equal which is invalid pretty often. If you have a bunch of players on the same course (i.e. in the same tournament field) and you ignore the few who are hitting the ball much worse than the others then either of those stats will reflect success in scoring. But then again so does the stat called "Score". Without reference to the length of putts they are facing you have to assume that the length of putts averages out across the field, which is a terrible assumption. Worse than that, the weighted average of length of putts has to average out because the odds of making one 59-footer and one 1-footer are not the same as the odds of making two 30-footers (the former is more likely BTW).

But the stat that Mike is quoting is so much worse that I can't imagine any reason that number is even computed by the Tour, other than to generate Gee Whiz huge percentages made. A gentleman how makes 90% of his putts under 10 feet over four rounds of golf has probably faced something like 20 1-footers, 20 2-footers and 10 3-footers (all of which are made nearly 100% on Tour) and anywhere from 8-12 putts between five and ten feet. He could quite possibly miss every putt over four feet long for a whole tournament and still achieve that 90% number, especially if he's hitting fewer than usual iron or wedge shots to within 10 feet of the hole.

If they want to salvage some meaning from that stat they could at least make it "first putts inside 10 feet" but that still suffers from the same distributional problems, just attenuated slightly. Given the availability of Shotlink (tm) data over the last few years the Tour has the ability to publish almost any conceivable statistics, including some very insightful ones. Yet they and the media keep pushing garbage stats. Amazing.

[Jeff_Brauer]

My guess is that that stat is more a measure of good chipping.  The last time I saw the stats, tour pros were about 99% from 3 feet and 50% from 6 feet.  This means that very small marginal improvements in chipping can really drive down their (and our) scores and putting statistics. 

I think that old Dave Pelz stat of the "50%" distance is the most telling as to how a player is putting. 

For PGA tour stats to mean a lot, I agree that they should state it that player X made 30 of 31 under 3 feet, 12 of 20 under 5 feet, etc.  I know they have detailed distance to pin stats for various lengths of approach shots, so it could be done.  And that would be a better guide to approach shots and chipping, as well.  With all the computing power at hand today I think the public could stand to see better stats, even though they have been upgraded over the old days.

BTW, if there is about a 1 stroke improvement per round in the average putts, which basically accounts for the lower scores today, I guess that means that the huge increase in driving really hasn't paid off in terms of lower scores, eh?  Of course, the venues are getting longer and I supsect if they played 7000 yard courses rather than 7300 yard courses, the scores would be somewhat lower still.

I know Colonial at 7000 gets lower scores than it ever had.  I don't know how Harbor Town and other short courses are holding up.  But, as Yogi Berra used to say, "You could look it up!'  Or was that Casey Stengal?  Well, you could look that up, too!

[PThomas]

all i know is that a year or so ago Tiger did not miss even 1 putt of 3 feet or less the entire season!!!!!!!!!

[jeffwarne]

BTW, if there is about a 1 stroke improvement per round in the average putts, which basically accounts for the lower scores today, I guess that means that the huge increase in driving really hasn't paid off in terms of lower scores, eh?  Of course, the venues are getting longer and I supsect if they played 7000 yard courses rather than 7300 yard courses, the scores would be somewhat lower still.

Jeff,
perhaps longer driving means closer approaches and therefore better putting?
The lower scores aren't going to show up any other way unless they're holing drives

[Brent Hutto]

perhaps longer driving means closer approaches and therefore better putting?
The lower scores aren't going to show up any other way unless they're holing drives

My point exactly. Anything that results in the player hitting the ball closer to the hole will make for fewer "putts per round" or "putts per GIR". So basically those stats are just an overly specific way of describing scoring, at least for Tour players.

Now for me I can shoot 110 with 30 putts or 85 with 30 putts depending on how many full shots I foozle or how many strokes I piss away around the green. But for guys who are hitting 13, 14, 15 GIR and getting up and down >50% of the time (most rounds) when they shoot 66 they make more putts than when they shoot 70. It's just about that simple.

And what slays me is the Tour knows exactly how long every putt taken is to the nearest inch or two, yet they still promulgate these ridiculously uninformative factoids about putting.

[PThomas]

whos the pro who, to win the putting title or something, purposely missed a lot of greens in a tournament ...it was something like that.......

[Greg Clark]

The thing that jumps out at me from the numbers Jason posted on last week, is that Ogilvy and Els were a combined 35 for 37 on putts from 3 to 5 feet.  As someone who can struggle on occassion from that range (huge understatement), those type of results are mind boggling.

[Brent Hutto]

Greg,

Playing at the top levels definitely selects out those of us who miss a 4-footer or two on occasion. Unless maybe you have Tiger-esque ballstriking ability I don't think anyone is talented enough to make it on Tour putting 3, 4, 5 footers like a typical 6-handicapper (i.e. you usually make them but on a really bad day you might miss two or three of them in a round). On the perfect greens these guys play every week if you can't consistently make the short putts, darned near every single time, there are a hundred other guys in the field who can. And unlike a bad tee shot or sloppy approach, there's no way to make up for a little cleanup putt that stays out of the hole.

[George Pazin]

Wonder how it would change if they played contoured greens instead of flat greens....

[Tom Huckaby]

Wonder how it would change if they played contoured greens instead of flat greens....

One does wonder about such things, huh George?

These guys suck anyway.  I have NEVER missed a putt under 10 feet.  Oh some don't go in the hole in actuality, but they all do in my mind.

 

[BCrosby]

Jeff/Brent -

Exactly. We had a thread on the advantage of long driving/short approaches and putting a couple of years ago.

The real lesson (and deep irony) of Pelz's book is that you need to be very, very long off the tee. Nobody sinks 20+ putts on a regular basis.

Bob

[Jim_Kennedy]

Something's amiss with that Putting from 10' or less stat.  The Putting from 4-8 feet leader was Corey Pavin, at ONLY 76.96%
As mentioned earlier by Ian, it probably takes into account all the clean-up putts, and the Pros stay well under 3' for those. Another stat, Putts from 10-15 feet shows the leader already down to 39.77% of his attempts.

Corey once again ruled the roost at 25' or greater with 10.57%.  

[Kalen Braley]

Jim

If you go back and look at Jasons post #9, he explains it pretty well.

Its akin to why Shaq always has great field goal conversion numbers, even though he's the worst shooter in the league.  Half of his shot attempts are dunks/layups and most of the rest are within 6-8 feet of the basket.  Its not often he attempts shots further than this and we all know how abysmal he is from the free throw line.

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