{"id":810,"date":"2005-06-30T09:57:28","date_gmt":"2005-06-30T14:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/uncategorized\/the_most_important_stats_yours\/"},"modified":"2005-06-30T09:57:28","modified_gmt":"2005-06-30T14:57:28","slug":"the_most_important_stats_yours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/b\/the_numbers_game\/the_most_important_stats_yours","title":{"rendered":"The Most Important Stats: Yours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to The Numbers Game<\/strong>. Over the following weeks I will try to extract some sense from all of the numbers in golf. There is more to golf than just +1, -1 or for the less fortunate, quad, triple, snowman… well, you get what I’m talking about. No need to bring those things up. I’m going to look at statistics such as Greens in Regulation<\/em> (GIR), Driving Accuracy<\/em>, Putts per GIR<\/em>, etc. and others in future articles to dig deeper into the players on tour and how they are performing. I may extrapolate some data to make predictions or I may look into the history and leave the conclusions to you. Hopefully we’ll all have some fun doing it.
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\nWho am I? Just a golf nut… and not unlike most people who are addictive in nature. I live in the great golfing state of North Carolina (by way of Pennsylvania… the weather drove me south). I’ve been playing golf since I was about 11 and have finally got my handicap down to 0. It only took me 20 years. I often add a couple to my handicap for mental deficiencies that come out during the course of play, but I’m probably preaching to the choir now, so I’ll move on.<\/p>\n

I am a golf nut, but one who loves to look at stats. Growing up, I use to look through all the MLB box scores in the newspaper and follow who was leading in average, home runs, and ERA. It was always an attraction for me and something I always found interesting. Then the Internet came along.<\/p>\n

Now you can get to-the-minute updates on everything. I started looking at golf statistics for the guys on tour. Here is a list of the commonly referred stats and what exactly they mean. The PGA’s official definition is in quotes.<\/p>\n

Greens in Regulation<\/strong> – “A green is considered hit in regulation if any part of the ball is touching the putting surface and the number of strokes taken is 2 or less than par.” This is most commonly referred to as GIR. The “touching the putting surface” is an important distinction when we look at putting.<\/p>\n

Driving Accuracy<\/strong> – “Driving Accuracy is the percent of time a player is able to hit the fairway with his tee shot.” It doesn’t matter if you use an iron, 3-wood or putter. If it is in the fairway after your first stroke, it counts as hitting a fairway. If you hit it OB and then put your third in the fairway, it doesn’t count.<\/p>\n

Total Putts<\/strong> – “Putts per round is the average number of putts per round played.” Putts from the fringe do not<\/strong> count. This goes with the GIR comment above. If you putt it in from an inch off the fringe, you had 0 putts for the hole. Congratulations.<\/p>\n

Putting Average<\/strong> – “Putting Leaders measures putting performance on those holes where the green is hit in regulation (GIR). For these holes, the total putts are divided by the total holes played. By using greens hit in regulation we are able to eliminate the effects of chipping close and one putting in the computation.” This is the stat used by the PGA tour and others to determine the best putter for the reason mentioned above.<\/p>\n

Sand Saves<\/strong> – “Sand Saves is the percent of time a player was able to get ‘up and down’ once in a greenside sand bunker. Note: This up and down is computed regardless of score on the hole.” Doesn’t matter if it is for par or quad.<\/p>\n

Scrambling<\/strong> – “This is the percent of time that a player misses the green in regulation, but still makes par or better.” This is a good short game stat that combines putting, sand and wedge play.<\/p>\n

You can get other stats at PGA Tour.com<\/a>. To find how they are computed, click on the stat you want and scroll to the bottom of the list. A definition is provided for each of them.<\/p>\n

Keeping Stats<\/strong>
\nA while back I thought it would be a good idea to keep my own to review after a round. I didn’t start keeping my own seriously until a few years ago. For every round of golf I played, it initially started with just score, greens and fairways. It looked like this:<\/p>\n