This past weekend at the Byron Nelson Championship, Adam Scott had a share of the lead going into the final round. Needless to say, the young Aussie didn’t hang on to that lead, enabling Brett Wetterich the opportunity to pick up his first career PGA Tour victory. Wetterich took advantage of the situation en route to victory, but I saw it as more “Adam Scott letdown” than “Wetterich surge.”
The Byron Nelson Championship was just another situation where a top-tier golfer had a weekend letdown. It has happened all too often over the past couple months. The top golfers in the world are supposed to dominate on Saturday and Sunday. That’s more often than not the way they earned that top ranking. That hasn’t been the case this year.
The following is a list of top-ranked golfers that need to start showing up on the weekend or they won’t be in the top 10 for long. Even though most of these guys are still high on the PGA Tour money list, they could actually be even higher if they played well all four days instead of two or three.
Ernie Els
It hasn’t been real easy for the Big Easy in the 2006 season. Els has put himself in contention going into the weekend on numerous occasions, only to have a letdown on Saturday, Sunday, or both. This is very surprising for a guy who has over 40 worldwide victories on his resumé.
You can blame it on his knee injury all you want, but that’s in the past. I’m officially off the “Els is still recovering from his knee injury” bandwagon, and it’s time for him to step it up in clutch situations like the Els of old. The weekend letdowns haven’t happened just once this season for Els unfortunately. The Big Easy was five over on the weekend at Bay Hill, six over at Augusta, and five over at Wachovia two weeks ago.
Ernie Els may not be playing as bad on the weekend as it seems, but the tournaments in which he is having letdowns are big tournaments. Nonetheless, Els’ third-round scoring average this season is 71.25, and his final-round scoring average is 71.375. Those statistics are the reason Els is 39th on the money list instead of being in the top 10 or 20 like he usually is.
Els will probably improve on those statistics before too long, but if he doesn’t, it will be a long time before we see him in the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour. Out of the top six golfers in the world, Els has the worst scoring average on the weekend. That’s one of the reasons he isn’t a part of the Big Five anymore. For his sake, I hope the Big Easy gets things back to good sooner rather than later.
Sergio Garcia
Sergio Garcia’s weekend play completely baffles me. It is beyond me how someone so talented can struggle so badly on Saturday and Sunday after working so hard getting into contention. The young Spaniard definitely takes the cake when it comes to worst weekend player out of the big guns on tour. It’s amazing Garcia is still ranked seventh in the world.
Sergio’s weekend scoring is much worse than any of the other golfers ranked ahead of him. His third-round scoring average is a shade over 72, and his final-round scoring average is a shocking 74.7! That terrible final-round average includes a 78 at Sawgrass where he had a legitimate shot to win. Garcia also shot a 79 in the third round at Augusta which completely took him out of contention.
Whether it’s a bad Saturday or bad Sunday, El Niño always seems to find a way to choke it off in the clutch. I’m a Sergio fan and I really hope he solves his weekend mystery. However, it hasn’t happened yet in 2006, and the forecast doesn’t show any signs of improvement.
Davis Love III
Some people, including myself, may remember Davis Love III’s second-round collapse at Sawgrass earlier this season more than his great play in the Accenture Match Play Championship. In the end, however, DL3’s fall in the world rankings comes down to his shaky weekend play. The numbers aren’t nearly as bad as Sergio’s, but they are still bad enough to earn Love a spot in this week’s Thrash Talk.
Davis Love III has a very good scoring average in the first round. That average is just a shade over 70. That number isn’t mind-boggling, but it’s much better than his weekend numbers. Love’s third- and final-round scoring averages are 73.7 and 71.8. For DL3, the third round is his achilles heel, but his Sunday numbers aren’t anything to call home about.
DL3 has fallen out of the top 20 in the world rankings, and it looks like things are only going to get worse. That’s unfortunate because Love III is one of the most popular guys on the PGA Tour. However, if DL3 continues to put himself into contention going into the weekend, he may start to score better in the late stages of tournaments. I know a lot of fans who would love to see that happen.
The New Big Five
Jim Furyk has recently made his way into the Big Five, passing Ernie Els in the process. Therefore, I’ll use Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh, and Jim Furyk in this part of the article. You may be wondering what these guys are averaging on the weekend, so here goes.
Tiger’s averages are 70 and 71.6, respectively. These are a little higher than I expected, but Tiger has only played in the toughest tournaments this season. Those averages don’t include the Sony Open and Pebble Beach Pro-Am (no disrespect to those tournaments of course). Lefty plays very well in the third round, averaging a solid 69.3. His final-round average is quite a bit higher at 71.1. Nonetheless, Mickelson still plays well on the weekend.
Retief Goosen’s numbers are solid as well. His scoring averages are 70.5 and 70, respectively. The final-round average of 70 is the best in the Big Five. Vijay Singh hasn’t played as well on the weekends as he usually does, but he averages 70.6 on both Saturday and Sunday. Last but not least is Jim Furyk. Furyk’s third-round average is 70, but his final-round scoring average is 71.5. Furyk has struggled to put tournaments away as of late and almost made this list. However, his average on Saturday was good enough to keep him out.
The Final Say
The differences between the Big Five and the golfers on my list aren’t always drastic. That being said, golf is a game of inches. The difference between a 70 and 71 is sometimes very costly. That is definitely the case when it comes to weekend scoring averages. The guys at the top of the world rankings are also the guys that get the job done in the crunch time.
Whether or not Els, Garcia, and DL3 bounce back and improve these numbers has yet to be seen. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit if all three started going really low on the weekend. They would improve their spot in the world rankings very quickly if that happened. And besides, it’s a lot less painful to watch on television. Garcia’s weekend play hurts my head.
Sound Off
That’s all I have to say this week, and now it’s your turn to sound off on the topic. Do these numbers really mean as much as it seems? Also, will Sergio ever get out of his weekend funk? Finally, name some other talented golfers that struggle mightily on the weekend? If you have anything to add, feel free to comment below or discuss it in our forum. Thanks for reading this week’s Thrash Talk!
Photo Credits: © Reuters/Aly Song, © AP.
Of course, we will always have to keep in consideration the more difficult course set up for the weekend and more specifically on sunday. I am sure the field average is at least 1 stroke or more higher.
A good measur would be to list the field differential betwee thursday / friday vs saturday / sunday and see by how much the players’ differential exceed average.