Testing Tee-to-Green Play Instead of Putting

[Brent Hutto]

For purposes of discussion let us stipulate that tournament golf, in general, is a test of putting as well as ball-striking. Maybe not in equal measure (who knows what scale that would be on) but to win requires both good ball-striking and good putting.

Two questions I'll pose today:

1) Does the Open Championship on average present more of a tee-to-green test and less of a putting test than the other three major championships. Year in and year out, overall.

2a) Does this year's venue Royal St. George's more greatly emphasize tee-to-green play relative to putting than almost any other Open venue?

2b) And does Royal St. George's emphasize tee-to-green play to a very great extent as compared to other championship venues generally?

I believe the answer to #1 is yes and that the answers to #2a and #2b are yes with particular emphasis on driving skill. In fact I thought about making driving vs. the rest of the game a question #3 but wanted to keep it simple.

[Richard Choi]

Shouldn't this be pretty easy to figure out just by looking at stats to see which tournament tracks more closely with GIR? Any tournament where there is very high correlation between the person with the best GIR stat winning the tourney would fit this bill.

[Steve Kline]

1. Yes for several reasons - you must be swinging very well to hit of tight Open turf, the wind is always a factor and that requires very good control of your swing and your ball, conditions can change not just daily but during the round several times, more central hazards and penalizing fairway bunkers, and the greens generally have less internal contour.

I haven't played Royal St. George's so I can't really answer #2.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Brent,

I'd say,

1) Yes
2a) Probably
2b) Probably, but I'm not sure.

I'd say that long range putting is more of a factor with the Open Championship. The greens are usually large and with the presence of wind, you tend not to see so many shots peppering the pin.

[Giles Payne]

I played RStG's a week after the last Open. I got there early so I went into the pro shop to have a chat with the pro and see if he had any good stories. I was fascinated to learn that only four or five of the tour pros had had the courtesy to introduce themselves to him. Even fewer had talked to him about strategies for playing the course.

It turned out that the person who had spent the most time talking to him was Ben Curtis. He had told him not to out drive the natural landing areas on the fairways (not try to over power the course) as this would give him the best options for hitting the greens. I remember the comentators questioning why he was someetimes taking three wood rather than driver. The end result was that he won.

Therefore, yes, I believe thast the course very much tests driving, but also intelligence and strategy rather than sheer power.

Maybe some of the pros should be a little more humble and talk to people with real knowledge of the courses, especially where they are more strategic average.

[Steve Kline]

Maybe some of the pros should be a little more humble and talk to people with real knowledge of the courses, especially where they are more strategic average.

This is very interesting. Pros with their own caddies rarely seek local advice from people who have played the course hundreds of times. Despite how good the pros are they will never be able to learn in a few days what a top amateur or club pro knows about the course from playing hundreds of rounds.

My college coach was Mason Rudolph - a long time tour player in 60s and 70s. The first thing he did at every college tournament I played was go in and talk to the professional staff regarding anything the team should know about the course.

[John Kirk]

Wow.  The last two comments are terrific, an unexpected detour from the subject at hand.

I looked around on Google for a study that discussed GIR correlation with victory for professional golf events and came up empty.

[Steve Kline]

I looked around on Google for a study that discussed GIR correlation with victory for professional golf events and came up empty.

In a grad school statistics my project was too correlate PGA Tour stats with the money list (the money list being a decent approximation for the best, most successful players). There was not a single stat that correlated very well or better than others with money won.

[Kalen Braley]

So I went to PGATour.com and looked at the stats section for the last 5 years.

Specifically I wanted to see of the players who finished the year in the top 10 in GIRs, how many wins did that group of 10 guys have in that same year.

2011 - 3 wins total between 2 guys, the other 8 have 0 wins, (2 by Bubba Watson, 1 by David Toms)
2010 - 0 wins total between 10 guys
2009 - 0 wins total between 10 guys
2008 - 0 wins total between 10 guys
2007 - 8 wins total between 2 guys, the other 8 had 0 wins, (7 by Tiger, 1 by Jim Furyk)

In general, other than 2007 and this year, the top 10 guys in GIR were at best "tour veterans".  Lots of made cuts, but effectively no wins or top 3 finishes for that matter. 

So perhaps it could be said that in general, hitting lots of GIRs does not equate to very many wins.....with the one notable exception of Tiger in 2007.

[Richard Choi]

If statistics don't bear it out, you cannot say that the Open tests tee-to-green any more or less than any other major. If it did, we would be able to see the difference.

[Tom_Doak]

Brent:

I would say that the Open Championship DOES test tee-to-green play more than the other majors.

But I would attribute that to the greater influence of the WIND in links golf, more than to the architecture.

[Jed Peters]

Professional golf, and high caliber amateur golf, tests putting.

There was a guy in my club (ex Nike Tour player) who would hit 16 greens a round and regularly lose money.

He didn't 3 jack hardly at all, but he didn't convert many birdie opportunities, either.

I'd imagine this is even more prevalent at the Tour levels than at my local country club.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Brent:

I would say that the Open Championship DOES test tee-to-green play more than the other majors.

But I would attribute that to the greater influence of the WIND in links golf, more than to the architecture.

Good point. Which is why it's a shame they play it in July and not October.
.


RSG is interesting because the greens offer smallish targets.  They have flat spots where the pins tend to be placed, but with big fall aways if you miss the right spot.  On a windless day I can see these guys (Ok Rory) dismantling the records, and Mr Arble will shortly be hearing from my lawyers on this very point.

[Richard Choi]

Jed, I don't know about that.

There is a great article about statistical analysis called MoneyGolf on Slate.com (http://www.slate.com/id/2266651/).

In it, they talk about exactly what contributed to Tiger winning 2008 Bay Hill.

In Broadie's final analysis, then, it was Tiger's long approach shots and midrange putting that "won" the tournament. So, it is ultimately fair to say that Tiger's win at Bay Hill can be partly attributed to his clutch putting—clutch putting on every single one of the 34 putts he took between seven and 21 feet. That last putt he rolled in from 24 feet just brought him closer to being an average golfer. And where did he pick up the most ground on his competitors? It wasn't on the green; it was far away from the hole, with an iron in his hands.

...Putting, we're told, is a dark art of willpower and focus. But putting has accrued such mystique in large part because the stats are a mess. On Tuesday, I explained how Mark Broadie's shot value allows us to precisely measure how much putting or driving contribute to a player's score. A team from MIT has built on Broadie's work by developing a new putting stat for the PGA Tour called "putts gained per round." It's similar to Broadie's shot value but makes a few different decisions in how to set a benchmark putting standard for pro golfers. Putts gained per round is likely to be the stat that brings "moneygolf" to the masses—if all goes according to plan, it should be part of golf's television broadcasts starting next season.

The authors underline the starkness of these results: "All the top 20 golfers are better than average off-green performers, while roughly a third are worse than average putters." Three-time major champion Singh, for example, drops one-third of a stroke per round with his putting but gains 2.3 strokes with his other shots. While it certainly wouldn't hurt Singh to perform better on the greens, his superior shot-making more than makes up for any weakness with the putter. The opposite scenario doesn't hold: Great putting will never make up for not being able to consistently crush the ball into the horizon. A golfer's power also gives his long-iron shots a higher trajectory, allowing him to land the ball more softly on the greens, which in turn allows for greater accuracy.

It's not that putting doesn't count. It does. But a golfer without a world-class long game simply can't be world class. The importance of power is confirmed by Mark Broadie in a forthcoming paper. Thanks to his shot-value analysis, Broadie is able to isolate particular skills. The areas that have the most influence on a golfer's score, Broadie found, are long-distance tee shots, shots from 200-250 yards, and shots from 150-200 yards. It's these locations on the course—not the greens—where golfers are most able to distinguish themselves from the pack.