2011 PGA Tour Adv. Total Driving Rankings 5.10.11

We are at about the halfway point of the PGA Tour season. I think the big surpise here is how much Bubba is dominating this statistic. Brian Gay is also having a great year driving the ball, hitting 79.2% of his fairways. Probably the disappointing players in this category are Anthony Kim (#184), Jamie Lovemark (#180) and Padraig Harrington (#161)

1…Bubba Watson
2…Boo Weekley
3…John Merrick
4…Tom Gillis
5…David Toms
6…Nick Watney
7…Ben Curtis
8…Bo Van Pelt
9…Brian Gay
10…Hunter Mahan
11…Webb Simpson
12…Joe Durant
13…John Rollins
14…Heath Slocum
15…Chez Reavie
16…Chad Campbell
17…Brandt Jobe
18…J.J. Henry
19…Jason Dufner
20…Billy Mayfair
21…Ben Crane
22…Justin Hicks
23…Keegan Bradley
24…Graeme McDowell
25…Peter Tomasulo
26…John Senden
27…Dustin Johnson
28…Bill Haas
29…Scott McCarron
30…Tommy Gainey
31…Brandt Snedeker
32…Matt Kuchar
33…Jerry Kelly
34…Chris Couch
35…Jason Day
36…Charley Hoffman
37…Scott Verplank
38…Martin Laird
39…Spencer Levin
40…J.B. Holmes
41…Blake Adams
42…Steve Elkington
43…Pat Perez
44…Gary Woodland
45…Brian Davis
46…Stephen Ames
47…Brendon de Jonge
48…Robert Allenby
49…Justin Rose
50…Mark Wilson
51…Zach Johnson
52…Bill Lunde
53…Adam Scott
54…Steve Marino
55…D.A. Points
56…Jeff Maggert
57…Ryan Moore
58…Jeff Overton
59…Charlie Wi
60…Vijay Singh
61…Josh Teater
62…Steve Stricker
63…Brendan Steele
64…Nick O'Hern
65…Robert Garrigus
66…Jason Bohn
67…Jim Furyk
68…Rich Beem
69…Angel Cabrera
70…Ryan Palmer
71…Ian Poulter
72…Charl Schwartzel
73…Bobby Gates
74…Y.E. Yang
75…Jonathan Byrd
76…Roland Thatcher
77…Garrett Willis
78…K.J. Choi
79…Rory Sabbatini
80…Jim Herman
81…Steven Bowditch
82…Johnson Wagner
83…Geoff Ogilvy
84…Nathan Green
85…Kevin Stadler
86…Ernie Els
87…Carl Pettersson
88…Kyle Stanley
89…Kevin Chappell
90…Stewart Cink
91…Scott Stallings
92…Rocco Mediate
93…D.J. Trahan
94…Kevin Sutherland
95…George McNeill
96…Colt Knost
97…Kevin Streelman
98…John Daly
99…Tag Ridings
100…Andres Romero
101…Hunter Haas
102…Alex Cejka
103…Chris Stroud
104…Lucas Glover
105…Rickie Fowler
106…Marc Turnesa
107…Paul Goydos
108…Jesper Parnevik
109…Zack Miller
110…William McGirt
111…Jhonattan Vegas
112…Ricky Barnes
113…Troy Matteson
114…Sean O'Hair
115…Vaughn Taylor
116…Billy Horschel
117…Alexandre Rocha
118…Cameron Tringale
119…Cameron Beckman
120…David Mathis
121…Lee Janzen
122…Davis Love III
123…Aaron Baddeley
124…Kent Jones
125…Nate Smith
126…Justin Leonard
127…Tim Petrovic
128…Charles Howell III
129…Chris DiMarco
130…Joe Ogilvie
131…Ryuji Imada
132…Luke Donald
133…Fredrik Jacobson
134…David Hearn
135…Alex Prugh
136…Scott Gutschewski
137…D.J. Brigman
138…Jim Renner
139…J.P. Hayes
140…Phil Mickelson
141…Chris Riley
142…Dean Wilson
143…Fabian Gomez
144…Matt Bettencourt
145…Michael Bradley
146…Troy Merritt
147…Ben Martin
148…Chris Kirk
149…James Driscoll
150…Daniel Summerhays
151…Joseph Bramlett
152…Bryce Molder
153…David Duval
154…Steve Flesch
155…Sunghoon Kang
156…Kris Blanks
157…Michael Putnam
158…Trevor Immelman
159…Richard S. Johnson
160…Camilo Villegas
161…Padraig Harrington
162…Tim Herron
163…Stuart Appleby
164…Arjun Atwal
165…Jimmy Walker
166…Matt Jones
167…Michael Thompson
168…Marc Leishman
169…Brad Faxon
170…Jarrod Lyle
171…Matt McQuillan
172…Paul Stankowski
173…Michael Connell
174…Derek Lamely
175…Martin Piller
176…Greg Chalmers
177…Kevin Kisner
178…Kevin Na
179…Harrison Frazar
180…Jamie Lovemark
181…Michael Sim
182…Shaun Micheel
183…Chad Collins
184…Anthony Kim
185…Bio Kim
186…Mike Weir





3JACK

Seve

It was very saddening to hear that Seve Ballesteros passed away this past weekend. To me, Seve WAS ‘80’s Golf.’ He had that aura about him of the ‘every girl wants him, every guy wants to be him’ type of vibe, much like Fred Couples has. But Freddie is more of the laid back, ‘natural’ type whereas Seve was this fiery, brilliant artistic type…in a game that tend to try and suppress brilliance and artistry.

A friend of mine who used to play football at Florida State was talking to me about a round he recently had at a tournament. He said that the really different part for him with golf is that it’s at its most fun for him when it is ‘boring.’ Meaning, it’s a blast when you can just hit drives in the fairway, approach shots on the green, and make the putt for birdie. Nothing too enthralling about watching that, but it’s what golfers aspire to achieve.

While I agree with him, as I was watching some old video on Seve, I couldn’t help but think of the times when I’ve had those crazy, tough shots that require you to manipulate the ball around a tree and you pull it off and just how exhilarating that feels when you do it right.

As golfers, we aspire to be almost robotic. But Seve seemed happiest flying by the seat of his pants and being alive.

Like Magic Johnson once said, ‘there will never be another Larry Bird’…there will never be another Seve Ballesteros.

























3JACK

O'Hair Splits With Foley

The big golf instruction news this week is that Sean O'Hair has parted ways with golf instructor, Sean Foley.





O'Hair and Foley started working together right before the 2009 season. Here's a look at O'Hair's rankings over the years:

Drive = 3Jack's Advanced Total Driving Ranking
DZone = 3Jack's Adjusted Danger Zone Ranking
Sgame = 3Jack's Adjusted Short Game Ranking
Putt = 3Jack's Putts Against Average (3-25') Ranking

Categ……2008……2009……2010……2011 YTD
Drive……....77………....41………....64……...…..119
Dzone……...68………...29……….....98……….…95
Sgame……..123…..…..112…...…..129…….…..166
Putt………...119…..…..121…...…..130……..….130

O'Hair had a very good 2009 season from a ballstriking perspective. 2010 he was above average driving and average in the Danger Zone (typically, there's about 190 players that qualify for these rankings each season).

This year tells a different story. I also notice that his short game (shots 20 yards or less from the green) has taken a noticeable dip...going from below average to the bottom 10th percentile on Tour.

That regression in the Short Game may be due to bad misses, although it is measuring shots only 20 yards and in and my formula does take out some of the effect that distances within that 20 yard range can have.





3JACK

The Flaw In Strokes Lost

‘Tiger made his name on the PGA Tour with long drives, but at Bay Hill his driving cost him 2.4 strokes to Bryant and Co. throughout the four days of play. (Indeed, just like last week at Firestone, Tiger's driving was disastrous in the early rounds.) He also lost 2.8 strokes on approach shots from 100-150 yards out. His layup shots were also slightly subpar, dropping him another eight-tenths of a stroke. That puts him six strokes down.’- http://www.slate.com/id/2263079/pagenum/2

One of the threads in the forum (http://richie3jack.proboards.com) is discussing how golfers tend to hit a wall with lowering their handicap. That has morphed into ‘does Danger Zone performance affect the average golfer?’

The first thing I want to address here is that the Danger Zone will change depending on the length of the golf course. This chart helps with this

Yards……DZ1……DZ2

7600……185……235

7500……175……225

7400……175……225

7300……175……225

7200……175….…225

7100……175….…225

7000……175….…225

6900……175……225

6800……175……225

6700……165……215

6600……165……215

6500……165……215

6400……165……215

6300……150……200

6200……150……200

6100……150……200

6000……150……200

5900……150……200

5800……140….…190

5700……140…….190

5600……140….…190

5500……140……190

One thing to understand about Danger Zone play is that normally the Danger Zone WILL come into play because of the par-3’s. The only time it wouldn’t is if you have a player who hits it long on a course that has very short par-3’s and ‘makes up that distance’ on par-4’s, but they hit it ‘too long’ for the given total yardage of the course. But, 9 times out of 10, the Danger Zone will come into play.


Here’s part of what the poster had written.

I keep a personal stat which I call "shots lost to par". For every hole that I do not par, I document why I didn't. IE: three putt, bad iron shot, tee ball that left me no shot to the green or penalty shot. In my last round, I shot par on the back 9, no shots lost to par. One the front, I had horrible tee shots on 1 and 8, which costs me 3 strokes, and one iron shot (was in danger zone) which cost me two strokes, and a three putt.

So in this example, driving hurt me more than anything

The problem with ‘shots lost to par’ is that it does not tell the whole picture.

How come?

Because it neglects the other shots and how they affected the golfer’s score.

Let’s use this example and we’ll say that the golfer hit those 2 poor drivers that cost him 3 strokes. But, we’ll also hypothetically state that the other 5 drives went 280 yards and in the middle of the fairway. We could call those other 5 drivers on the front 9 ‘shots GAINED to par.’

Now, part of the issue is that the golfer wasn’t playing in an actual tournament so you really can’t measure the strokes ‘gained’ versus the field. And thus, it’s really difficult to accurately determine how much the other 5 drives (280 yards, down the middle) helped his score.

But, let’s say the other 5 drives (280 yards, down the middle) help him for a combined 1.5 strokes. Thus, the total for those combined 7 drives on the front 9 is 1.5 strokes lost to par.

However, let’s say that the golfer had 2 shots from the Danger Zone. The one shot mentioned cost him 2 strokes to par. Let’s say that he’s ‘broken even’ on the other Danger Zone shot. So that means that when he was in the Danger Zone, he lost 2 strokes to par. Thus:

Driver = 1.5 strokes lost to par
Danger Zone = 2.0 strokes lost to par


Another example is Bubba Watson. Using the stats:

- Driving Distance
- Fwy %
- Proximity to Edge of Fairway (on shots that miss the fairway)

I’ve come up with a formula to determine what I call ‘Advanced Total Driving.’ Watson is now #1 in that category.

Watson is:

#2 in driving distance
#66 in fwy %
#157 in proximity to edge of fairway

In other words, when he does miss the fairway, he’s missing it by quite a bit.

Let’s say Bubba plays a round where he hits 14 drivers off the tee. Let’s say he hits 9 out of 14 fairways.

Let’s say on the 5 fairways missed, 3 of the drives miss by a mile and cost him 3 strokes total.

It would be inaccurate for him to state ‘well, my driver cost me three strokes today and that’s what I need to work on.’

Why?

Because Watson may have hit 11 drivers that either put him in birdie range or practically took bogey or worse out of the equation. And in the end, he may have ‘GAINED’ 5 strokes to par when all is said and done.

EX: 3 badly missed drivers = 3 strokes lost
11 drivers in fwy or just off of fairway = 8 strokes gained

8 – 3 = 5 strokes gained

Obviously, if the poster lost the hypothetical 1.5 strokes with the driver they would want to get better in order to improve their score. But it shows *why* Danger Zone play is important to any golfer of any handicap. With the driver, you have more opportunities to make up for the shots you lose on the course because you’re likely to have 10-14 driver shots a round. With ‘Danger Zone’ play, you’re likely to have 4-6 shots from that range and it’s difficult to make up the shots you ‘lost’ because you have lesser chances and the shot difficulty doesn’t change much.

I think the higher the handicap, the more that driving, putting and short game start to get closer to being equally as important (not more than) Danger Zone play. The lower the handicap, the more Danger Zone play becomes a factor to their score over driving, putting and short game.

However, if you can get better at any category, that will obviously help your scores.






3JACK

Swing Update 5.6.11

Here's a swing video update from the Face On View. Still lots of work to do, but massive improvements being made. If you would like to learn more, I recommend getting a lesson with George Hunt at www.moradgolfgeorgehunt.com







3JACK

Anthony and Bubba, What's Goin' On?

A reader asked me statistically what’s going on with Bubba Watson and Anthony Kim.

Here’s a look at their scoring and money stats


KIM

7/11 cuts made (64%)
$565,652 earnings (66th)
$51,423 per event
82nd Adjusted Scoring Average



WATSON

8/10 cuts made (80%)
$2,904,817 earnings (2nd)
$290,481 per event
58th Adjusted Scoring Average

But, take a look at a few of their rankings:

Category……………Kim……….Watson

Danger Zone…………40………….103
Short Game…………..24………….137
Putt vs. Avg………….83…………..141

So, why is Watson doing so much better than Kim, despite Kim being much better in Short Game, Putts Against Average, and in particular, Danger Zone rankings?

Well, take a look at my Advanced Total Driving Rankings

Watson – 1st
Kim – 183rd (out of 185)

Still though, typically Danger Zone play has the most influence over a PGA Tour golfer’s success. So what’s going on between these two?

Well, let’s delve into the driving a bit more. Here’s a look at their rankings in the categories I use in my formula to determine ‘Advanced Total Driving.’

Category……………Kim……….Watson
Distance.....................82……………2
Accuracy…………….......179………….66
Edge of Fwy……….......185…………157

Remember, these rankings are based out of 185 players. Thus, Kim finished last in Proximity to Edge of Fairway (on drives that find the rough) and was almost last in driving accuracy percentage.

Still though, why does this help Watson so much compared to say…Boo Weekley?

Bubba is incredibly long.

Not only with his driver, but with every club in his bag.

There’s two other statistics that Bubba is #1 on Tour with as well.

A. Going for Par 5’s in two
B. Par-5 scoring average

Bubba is going for par-5’s in two a whopping 80% OF THE TIME

In fact, take a look at the current standings of ‘Go For Its’

1. Bubba Watson 79.5%
2. Dustin Johnson 74.7%
3. Robert Garrigus 74.4%
4. Aaron Baddeley 68.3%
5. Charley Hoffman 68.1%

Not only is Bubba leading the Tour in ‘Go For Its’, he’s dominating the stat at an astounding rate.

Here’s a look at Bubba’s percentage of Go For Its over the years (ranking in parentheses)

2007 – 63.2% (19th)
2008 – 68.2% (3rd)
2009 – 67.3% (6th)
2010 – 61.7% (16th)

Bubba is doing by far the best he’s ever done in this category. In fact, the highest percentage of Go For Its since the PGA Tour started tracking that stat was Tiger Woods in 2002 with 78.7%. Usually the leader in this stat is around 72%. And here’s Bubba at 80%.

Meanwhile, Anthony Kim is ranked 46th in Go For It Percentage, but is at 53.5%. But, this is still a big step down from Kim in previous years

2008 – 61.9% (15th)
2009 – 66.2% (10th)

But, that’s not all.

The great thing about ‘Go For Its’ is that golfers, particularly PGA Tour golfers, tend to make LEGITIMATE efforts at going for a par-5 in two. Meaning, if they have a pond that is 270 yards carry and they can only carry their 3-wood 260 yards, they are typically smart enough to not go for the green in two.

With that, Watson is leading the Tour in par-5 scoring average 4.44 strokes. Over the course of a 4 round tournament (provided there are 4 par-5’s on the course), that’s averaging approximately -9 to -10 on par-5’s for the entire tournament. Kim is actually doing well here, too…ranked 39th with a scoring average of 4.62. But, that’s an average of approximately -6 on the par-5’s for a four round tournament.

However, that’s still below Kim’s performance in ’08 where he finished 3rd and ’09 where he finished 11th in par-5 scoring average (for some reason, his 2010 results are not on PGATour.com)




CONCLUSION

Bubba Watson is winning due to his phenomenal driving of the golf ball. He’s #2 in driving distance and 66th in driving accuracy. Out of the currently players on Tour in the top 10 in driving distance, the player with the best driving accuracy ranking is Keegan Bradley…ranked 105th.

At this point I believe that Watson is gaining a lot of strokes versus the field off the tee on par-4’s and par-5’s. Because of his new found accuracy off the tee, he’s able to go for par-5’s in two at a record rate and thus have the lowest par-5 scoring average on Tour. Even though his Danger Zone ranking is very average, because of his power and accuracy off the tee, he’s able to minimize the times he’s in the Danger Zone. And while his iron play has not been stellar, because he’s so long and he’s finding the fairway he’s putting himself in place to hit shots where at least finding the green in regulation is a high probability. Thus, he’s leading the Tour in Greens In Regulation even though his iron play has been average. And because his GIR % is so high, his below average short game play is not impacting his score very much.

Kim’s play has been marred by poor driving of the ball. Not only is his accuracy at an all time low, but it appears that he’s struggling with his swing mechanics as he’s lost power as well. He finished 11th and 16th in driving distance in ’08 and ’09 respectively. Now he’s ranked 82nd in driving distance.

In fact, it’s safe to say that his Danger Zone, Short Game and Putting have saved him from probably losing his card.

For Watson, I do not believe he’ll be able to keep this pace up. If he does, he’s got as good of a shot as any of winning a Major. However, the best Bubba has ever finished in driving accuracy for the year was 176th and I believe he will eventually gravitate back towards that rather than continue to hit the fairway.

I’m more concerned for Kim even though he has the better stats in the Danger Zone, Short Game and Putting. Mainly because it’s obvious he’s not swinging the driver well and I think that can lead to him not swinging his long to mid irons well when he’s in the Danger Zone.







3JACK

2011 PGA Tour Putts Against Avg. Rankings 5.3.11

Here's my 'Putts Against Average' rankings. I tweaked it a bit to just represent putting from 3 feet to 25 feet since PGATour.com doesn't split distances beyond 25 feet.

1…Nick Watney
2…Lucas Glover
3…John Merrick
4…Brandt Snedeker
5…Kent Jones
6…Bill Haas
7…Greg Chalmers
8…Steve Stricker
9…Luke Donald
10…David Toms
11…Roland Thatcher
12…Jimmy Walker
13…Padraig Harrington
14…Brian Gay
15…Aaron Baddeley
16…Brendon de Jonge
17…Y.E. Yang
18…Chris Couch
19…Geoff Ogilvy
20…Ben Crane
21…Ian Poulter
22…Carl Pettersson
23…Jesper Parnevik
24…Vaughn Taylor
25…Bryce Molder
26…Michael Putnam
27…Tom Gillis
28…Ryan Moore
29…Jason Day
30…Fabian Gomez
31…Kevin Na
32…Matt Bettencourt
33…Angel Cabrera
34…Charlie Wi
35…Martin Laird
36…Graeme McDowell
37…Marc Leishman
38…Rickie Fowler
39…Jim Renner
40…Shaun Micheel
41…Webb Simpson
42…David Hearn
43…David Mathis
44…Tommy Gainey
45…Cameron Beckman
46…Fredrik Jacobson
47…Marc Turnesa
48…Kevin Kisner
49…Blake Adams
50…Lee Janzen
51…Arjun Atwal
52…Cameron Tringale
53…Scott Stallings
54…Joe Durant
55…Martin Piller
56…Zach Johnson
57…Bio Kim
58…Pat Perez
59…Alexandre Rocha
60…Harrison Frazar
61…Charl Schwartzel
62…Trevor Immelman
63…Jeff Overton
64…Matt Kuchar
65…K.J. Choi
66…Jamie Lovemark
67…D.A. Points
68…Zack Miller
69…Ben Martin
70…Jason Dufner
71…Justin Leonard
72…Brendan Steele
73…Jarrod Lyle
74…Steve Marino
75…Tag Ridings
76…Steven Bowditch
77…Jason Bohn
78…Stuart Appleby
79…Chad Collins
80…Phil Mickelson
81…Vijay Singh
82…Brian Davis
83…Anthony Kim
84…Mark Wilson
85…Michael Thompson
86…Michael Connell
87…Garrett Willis
88…Steve Elkington
89…Jim Furyk
90…Robert Garrigus
91…Tim Herron
92…Hunter Mahan
93…Troy Matteson
94…Steve Flesch
95…Chris Kirk
96…Kevin Streelman
97…Dean Wilson
98…John Senden
99…D.J. Brigman
100…Peter Tomasulo
101…Brandt Jobe
102…Tim Petrovic
103…Scott McCarron
104…Rory Sabbatini
105…Chris Stroud
106…Kevin Chappell
107…Matt Jones
108…Hunter Haas
109…Gary Woodland
110…Charley Hoffman
111…Richard S. Johnson
112…James Driscoll
113…William McGirt
114…Jerry Kelly
115…Keegan Bradley
116…Alex Prugh
117…Justin Hicks
118…Andres Romero
119…Chez Reavie
120…Ben Curtis
121…Ricky Barnes
122…Nate Smith
123…Davis Love III
124…Bill Lunde
125…Jhonattan Vegas
126…J.B. Holmes
127…Charles Howell III
128…Nathan Green
129…Robert Allenby
130…Sean O'Hair
131…J.J. Henry
132…Spencer Levin
133…Stewart Cink
134…Ryan Palmer
135…Chad Campbell
136…Michael Bradley
137…Johnson Wagner
138…Daniel Summerhays
139…Stephen Ames
140…J.P. Hayes
141…Bubba Watson
142…Chris Riley
143…Chris DiMarco
144…Jonathan Byrd
145…Camilo Villegas
146…Rich Beem
147…Kyle Stanley
148…David Duval
149…Paul Stankowski
150…Troy Merritt
151…Dustin Johnson
152…Scott Verplank
153…Joseph Bramlett
154…Shane Bertsch
155…Scott Gutschewski
156…Sunghoon Kang
157…John Rollins
158…Bobby Gates
159…Michael Sim
160…Joe Ogilvie
161…Matt McQuillan
162…Colt Knost
163…Rocco Mediate
164…Justin Rose
165…Derek Lamely
166…Kris Blanks
167…Kevin Sutherland
168…Josh Teater
169…D.J. Trahan
170…Jeff Maggert
171…Ryuji Imada
172…Bo Van Pelt
173…Mike Weir
174…Billy Horschel
175…Billy Mayfair
176…Jim Herman
177…Boo Weekley
178…John Daly
179…Paul Goydos
180…Kevin Stadler
181…Adam Scott
182…Alex Cejka
183…Nick O'Hern
184…Ernie Els
185…Heath Slocum




3JACK