The US Women's Open

[BigSoonerFan]

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Obviously you are missing the point here. Someone pointed out Michelle Wie's age, much like you have, as a positive when speaking about her putting ability and the fact that she has time to improve. Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott broke on to the PGA Tour as excellent ball strikers who had to improve around the greens to fully realize the immense talent they have in the full swing. However it is several years later and neither has truly achieved that level. I'm simply saying that ability on and around the greens isn't always easily learned. So how does this not compare to Michelle Wie's situation again and how telling me she's 16 refutes the claim?

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Because (A) She's 16, which is 3-5 years younger than they were when they hit the tour and (B) she's already easily the number two player in the world, which they were not.

In other words, she doesn't have as far to go (to be the best on the women's tour) and she has more time to get there. She also doesn't have far to go to consistently make cuts on the PGA tour, considering she's barely missing them anyway.

[BadBoyBenny]

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Until they come up with a way to analyze how far players are on each putt and evaluate that against everyone else, then they don't mean much.

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I don't see why they aren't doing this. They have shotlink and can measure proximity to the hole (BTW Garcia is 75th at 31' 11"). Why don't divide the total number of putts into the sum of their proximities and come up with a metric?

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Driving stats aren't perfect, but they are a better reflection of the player's skills.

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If they took driving distance stats from every non par 3 then I would like them more.


As far as Sergio is concerned, I think the stats show that this year his general ball striking is not where it was in the last couple years, but his putter has been a problem for the entire time.

As for Michelle, if she had lost this tournament because of poor putting I would really be worried, but the fact that her putting was the only thing keeping her around Sunday leads me to believe that she might be progressing (or maybe she just had a good day).

[BigSoonerFan]

I'm not going to continue with this argument about Sergio, but just say that he obviously needs improvement in both putting and driving, especially this year.

But I do want to point out how misleading stats are. Most of the time it just depends on which tournaments you choose to play in. A few examples.

Sergio averaged 31 putts/round at the Mercedes and finished 14th out of 28 in putting there. He also averaged 31 putts/round at the Memorial and finished 70th out of 74.

Other tourneys:
Buick-28.5 putts, 8th out of 82
TPC-28.5 putts, 23rd out of 74
Wachovia-29.3 putts, 31st out of 73
Ford-29.3 putts, 61st out of 72

Fairways are the same:
Ford-58.9%, 19th out of 72
Bay Hill-75%, 22nd out of 72
Memorial-66%, 68th out of 74

It all depends on where you play, especially with driving distance where they only take 2 per round. The sample size is much too small. It's easy to say that the numbers will average out, but that's not particularly true because between players the averages are so close.