What Makes a Major Winner in '08
by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 12, 2008 1:06 AM EDT
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PrintNow that the majors are done on the PGA and LPGA Tours, it is a good time to try to see what makes a major champion in 2008.
Let's take a look.
The Masters - Trevor Immelman
- GIR - T2
- Driving Accuracy - 1
- Birdies - T4
- Driving Distance - 4
- Putting - T4
US Open - Tiger Woods
- GIR - T14
- Driving Accuracy - T56
- Birdies - T10
- Driving Distance - 2
- Putting - T11
Open Championship - Padraig Harrington
- GIR - T30
- Driving Accuracy - T35
- Birdies - N/A (made 11)
- Driving Distance - T45
- Putting - T7
PGA Championship - Padraig Harrington
- GIR - T27
- Driving Accuracy - T7
- Birdies - 1 (made 20)
- Driving Distance - 23
- Putting - 2
For the men, it seems basically that it boils down to putting. Make birdies, and don't three putt at all, and you'll win.
I'll take a look at the women in my next post.
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Hmmm
so – to win a major, it takes (a) a week of playing out of your mind, (b) being the best player in the world with heart and determination and a little intimidation thrown in for good measure, (c) patience, experience and ultimate confidence in bad weather conditions, or (d) ultimate confidence, patience, and an ability to put pressure on a fragile opponent.
Putting is always huge – but Tiger won the US Open by overpowering that golf course (on one leg – that still boggles my mind). Immelman won by playing steady and being dead on with his irons, putting the ball in the righ spots. Harrington did the same thing, hitting shots close to the hole. These guys weren’t winning by making bombs for four days. They won by keeping the ball in play (for the most part) and making putts from 15’ in.
Harrington was 35th in driving accuracy at Birkdale, but in his “Playing lessons with the pros”, he explained that growing up, he learned how to correctly miss the fairways so they would have playable shots that jump, stay low, and run out in that dicey linksland weather.
Tiger just didn’t care if he hit the fairway as long as he had a short iron in his hand OR he missed by 6 miles and had a good lie where the galleries were walking. He had at least 2 three putt holes at the US Open – just not down the stretch when it mattered most.
“You gotta have heart…miles and miles and miles of heart”
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Follow Up
I agree that there’s more to it than statistics, but they’re a good start to discussing the common threads among the major champions(hips) this year.
I don’t know that Immelman played out of his mind – he is a very capable player of contesting for majors. He got on a hell of a hot streak with the putter, though. That’s what carried him through. The others couldn’t putt and Tiger was too far back to make up ground on that Augusta layout.
Tiger hit the hell out of the ball at Torrey, but there wasn’t too much overpowering involved. The course didn’t have to be overpowered. Mike Davis did a great job in setting it up such that almost anyone could contend if they had a complete game at their disposal.
I could not agree more, though, with the positioning piece. There is almost no way to really measure positioning with statistics. You could try distance to the hole, but that doesn’t really cut it. It’s knowing where to place the ball when you’re on and where to miss when you’re not in the course of 72 holes. Every major championship had that as a key aspect – though some accomplished that better than others.
by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 12, 2008 11:37 AM EDT up reply actions
BLASPHEMER !!!
“Tiger was too far back” ??? NEVER !! (just ask Dougie Ferguson…if you can get his head out of Tiger’s bum) You could have your media card pulled for making those kinds of statements. Don’t you know that saying things like that will drive down the ratings !! :-D
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
golf digest
The current issue of Golf Digest has a piece on hitting more fairways. While the article does provide yet another swing sequence photo shoot, it also offers a method of assessing how much any particular tee shot detracts from your scoring on the hole. I took a quick look to see if it’s available online but didn’t see it. The point was regardless where your drive lands, is your ability to hit the next shot to the green (par 4) or lay up to your preferred yardage (par 5) impacted? Driving accuracy statistics treat a ball in the first cut and one that goes out of bounds equally so it’s really a bogus statistic. The author suggests rating each drive based on the impact it has on the next shot.
just pros ?
D – does the article only address Tour statistics ?
For us Joe and Jane Golfers, hitting the fairway on most courses is amost an imperitive to hitting greens. The Tour guys don’t care because they are able to put those razor sharp grooves to use in ways you and I can’t.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Another study
There was an interesting study done by a guy at Columbia on the most important aspects of the game for amateurs. He found that, for amateurs, the long game is most important. It dictates score more than anything. Makes sense because hitting the driver straight is the toughest thing for higher handicappers. But, as you improve, the short game becomes more and more imperative to improvement – and knowing how to miss when you do.
by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 12, 2008 1:44 PM EDT up reply actions
article
The article mentioned tour driving accuracy stats only to point out how unrealistic and out-of-date they are, but it’s really about golfers like me. The example they use is to illustrate the point has an index of 18.
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