I scoured over the data from this weekend at TPC Sawgrass to see what it was exactly that made Henrik Stenson win The Players.  Using Many Eyes, I think I found some of the reason.

While Henrik Stenson was unbelievable down the back stretch on Sunday, it was the front nine that won him the golf tournament.  Take a look at this chart of the hole-by-hole scoring average of Stenson, Tiger Woods, and players finishing in the top 10.  Stenson beats or matches the field on every hole on the front - except the par 3 8th.  He lags behind Woods by .25 strokes on the par 5 9th.

This resulted in a huge advantage for Stenson on the front side.

In other words, Stenson gained almost 2 strokes on Woods on the front side and over a stroke on his competition in aggregate.  They played the back nine basically even all week.

The interesting thing is that Stenson didn't really outshine his competition in key stats that make up a round.  He hit about 1 more green and 1 more fairway per round than the players in the top 10.  He hit almost 3 more fairways per round than Woods and 1.25 more greens in regulation. 

That may not seemingly translate into much, but missed fairways and greens at the Stadium Course tend to result in worse than bogey.  Stenson stayed out of trouble a little bit better than his competition and was more consistent than the field when it came to hitting greens.  Over four rounds, that all added up to him becoming the 2009 Players Champion.