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Post by settlerofcatan on Aug 27, 2015 14:22:27 GMT -5
Hello Webbers -- I found myself wondering yesterday if I could quantify how much difference putting makes from the top players in a tournament to those that just make the cut. It makes common sense (and I've heard it said here quite a bit) that "the difference is putting". So -- I put that hypothesis to the test! Let me explain the numbers a bit before revealing the results. I took a look at three groups of five players -- the top 5, middle 5 and 5 who currently are just inside the cutline. In order to make the comparisons apples-to-apples: --I looked at average putts per green in regulation over the first two rounds for each player --I then multiplied that average times 29 GIR on average. The average greens in regulation for top versus bottom players is pretty similar and 29 GIR seems like a reasonable midpoint to see how many strokes someone would gain over two rounds if everyone hit the same amount of GIR. --Once everyone had an "expected putts per 29 holes", I can now compare how each player in each group did against the average of the other two groups, yielding some really interesting results. Take a look: As you can see, the majority of the leaders gained nearly ALL their strokes from putting. The leaders were 7 strokes ahead of the middle of the pack on average, and 6 strokes of that were gained by putting. The leaders were 12 strokes ahead of those just above the cut line, and 8 of those strokes can be accounted for by putting. Interestingly, for those just making the cut, the five strokes lost to the middle of the pack only have two explained by putting. That means the majority of strokes are lost elsewhere (driving/GIR/etc). Anyway, found this interesting and wanted to share. This does go to show - putting counts for A LOT when it comes to the leaders of a tournament. Nate
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Post by c-flo4344 on Aug 27, 2015 14:45:42 GMT -5
Love seeing stuff like this!!
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Post by misternic on Aug 27, 2015 14:56:20 GMT -5
Awesome. This is what I would expect, but not only the gains, but the length. Really shows how good Brian Turnbow, Lee Some and Jake Campbell have been off the greens... to be high mid with those putting issues.
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Post by misternic on Aug 27, 2015 15:01:04 GMT -5
Awesome. This is what I would expect, but not only the gains, but the length. Really shows how good Brian Turnbow, Lee Some and Jake Campbell have been off the greens... to be high mid with those putting issues. Also makes me wonder about their approach shots. A decent part of "few putts" is the where you putt from. the three I noted all have high GIR, but lots of putts. Could be indicitive of wind struggles or average approaches. Those are all good players, not dissing anyone for sure...
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Post by settlerofcatan on Aug 27, 2015 15:03:48 GMT -5
Awesome. This is what I would expect, but not only the gains, but the length. Really shows how good Brian Turnbow, Lee Some and Jake Campbell have been off the greens... to be high mid with those putting issues. Also makes me wonder about their approach shots. A decent part of "few putts" is the where you putt from. the three I noted all have high GIR, but lots of putts. Could be indicitive of wind struggles or average approaches. Those are all good players, not dissing anyone for sure... Absolutely. Before putting this together, I checked how the PGA calculates "Strokes gained putting", and it has to do with hitting the green AND how close you are. Unfortunately the score cards don't tell me the distance to the pin when hitting the green, so I couldn't use that metric. I would assume the data would show that better players have less putts due in part to getting shots consistently closer to the hole AND having better make percentages from longer ranges. Needz more data!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2015 16:03:18 GMT -5
Fantastic work.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2015 16:43:49 GMT -5
Fantastic work Nate. You would have to do this on the week of my worst putting performance haha.
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Post by settlerofcatan on Aug 27, 2015 17:03:16 GMT -5
Fantastic work Nate. You would have to do this on the week of my worst putting performance haha. Absolutely. I waited for you to have an off week to do this analysis
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Post by smytty66 on Aug 27, 2015 17:22:13 GMT -5
Nate, super interesting. Thanks for the research and for sharing -- certainly seems to support the old adage "drive for show and putt for dough."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2015 17:26:12 GMT -5
Haha, great putting display by you to be fair pal. Also, I was reading about FiRs and GiRs earlier today.The leading PGA Tour player each year tend to hit on average a little over 70% of greens per round. The average PGA player hitting about 12/18 greens. I'm going to hazard a guess we all hit a bit more than that on TGC, thus making putting even more important on this game compared to real life. Should we be playing on more difficult courses/slightly less realistic width of fairways etc? Or should we play on realistic fairway width in relation to real life and badger HB to make the driving a little harder?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2015 18:10:27 GMT -5
I was intrigued to see how I've played since these stats came to us. Interesting reading for how difficult/easy some of the courses were. Hickory Nut had flat greens and my putting benefited from it, whilst the wind and firmness of Crow Creek proved most difficult to negotiate. Hobble Creek was very very easy, only 1 missed fairway and 1 missed green the entire 4 rounds. The wind update didnt come into play until Loa Pali though.
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Post by settlerofcatan on Aug 31, 2015 19:21:36 GMT -5
I'm back with an updated version of the stats - complete through the end of the tournament. A few interesting stats I highlight below. But first, the chart! --For the Front Runners, 9/10 (90%) strokes gained on the middle of the pack are accounted for by putting. 16/23 (70%) strokes gained over the Cut line are accounted for by putting. --For the Middle of the Pack, 7/13 (54%) strokes gained over the Cut Line are accounted for by putting. --The Middle of the Pack put in an impressive showing on long putts, knocking in an average of 30.7 feet for their longest putt. That bested the Front Runners by nearly 3 feet on average (!) This coming week I'll add in some analysis of how folks did when not hitting the green. There are a significant enough amount of holes (~14/round) that end up off the green for everyone that taking a look at strokes gained/lost there will be interesting. More to come... Nate
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Post by settlerofcatan on Aug 31, 2015 19:43:40 GMT -5
I was intrigued to see how I've played since these stats came to us. Interesting reading for how difficult/easy some of the courses were. Hickory Nut had flat greens and my putting benefited from it, whilst the wind and firmness of Crow Creek proved most difficult to negotiate. Hobble Creek was very very easy, only 1 missed fairway and 1 missed green the entire 4 rounds. The wind update didnt come into play until Loa Pali though. Didn't catch this post the last time around. Love the idea of using the Scrambling stat...I think I'll add that into the analysis for this upcoming tournament week to look at more differences between Top/Middle/Bottom of those who make cut.
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