Total feet of putts made is pretty much the nuts for telling you how well you putted in a round... anything over 100' is a great day putting.. like once in five rounds. 80' is avg and less than 60 ft is just terrible.

It's ok, but it's not nearly as good as strokes gained putting. Looking at Rory and Tiger's Sunday is a perfect example of it. They both putted about equally great, Tiger slightly better. It wasn't nearly as lopsided as the feet of putts made would lead you to believe. Tiger made more long ones and missed some shorter ones while Rory made a ton of middle ranged putts. Statistically they were about even on how much more they made compared to what they were expected to make.

As a poker analogy, for those that know about all-in ev.... Tiger hit a few 80/20s but lost some 60/40s, where as Rory won a ton of flips but at the end of the day they both ended up about the same about above EV.

3 shortest misses:
McIlroy: 10'7", 10'10", 15'4"
Woods: 9'8", 13'7", 17'4"

3 longest makes:
McIlroy: 13'1", 12'1", 9'10"
Woods: 27'2", 24'8", 14'3"

It appears you've reified the strokes gained stat.

UGH. FYP first of all.

2nd of all. The stat speaks for itself if you understand how it works.

Thanks for the pick-up on the bad data point. It's trivial to understand it. Top notch on the poker analogy.

One question: If pros are better at some distance, x, when they are putting for par as opposed to birdie, should the strokes gained for a miss or make at x be the same regardless of whether it is for par or birdie?

where are you getting this from?

That stat is true, it is from Scorecasting

And yes it should be different, again I'm not saying the statistic is perfect but it paints the best picture of all putting statistics.

Thats really interesting. Ive been meaning to read that book for quite awhile now

Whatever truth there is to it being the best putting statistic aside. Claiming that TW's putting yesterday accounted for .2 of the difference in his relative score is laughable.

No it isn't.

LOL.

Maybe you don't understand how the stat works.

Unsure how that could reflect on my understanding/appreciation of the statistic. I thought that was the sort of claim you were making based on the statistic.

That is the claim I was making. It reflects on your understanding/appreciation of the statistic bc you apparently have none....

If Tiger and Rory each just picked up their ball every time they got on the green and took the PGA Tour average for strokes taken from their respective distances Tiger and Rory would have ended up with a 65.196 and a 72.028 respectively

Here are my estimations for Tiger's round on Sunday. First column is hole. Next column is his expected score on each hole from where he started on the green(I also counted the 2 putts he had from the fringe, not sure if PGA Tour does or not, but that would actually lower his strokes gained bc he missed somewhat makeable putts from the fringe both times).

For example on the 1st hole he hit his 2nd shot to 10 feet. Tour players on average make 10 footers 40% of the time. So to get the Expected Score you do 40% of the time he makes 3 and add that to the other 60% of the time he makes 4.
= 40%*3 + 60%*4 = 3.6

So if Tiger picks up and takes the average score he makes a 3.6 on the hole, he missed his putt however and made a 4. Therefore he lost .4 shots. If he had made it he would have gained .6 shots.

The rest of the holes are in the spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...lE&output=html

*This was done very quickly, using quick/nonexact EV estimates on putts but illustrates how the strokes gained stat works(obv why I didn't get what PGA Tour listed as SGP) Also for simplicity I didn't account for 3 putts at all.

It seems highly likely (haven't put a probability on it) that you'll never appreciate how awesome it is that you are explaining the strokes gained stat to me.

It is apparently beyond comprehension to you that mastery of that statistic, which is indeed a useful tool to have in your toolbox, doesn't earn you a seat at the kiddie table.

And here is an estimation of Rory's round added to the mix. *again not super accurate but gets the point across

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...lE&output=html

What I don't understand is how you find it laughable to think that Tiger could have possibly hit the ball 6 shots better than Rory on Sunday. If you look at each players "expected score" by the time they made it to the green, Tiger's is 5.5 shots better than Rory's. And from the looks of it my EV estimations(and in turn my strokes gained stat) would appear to be a little off off which, would bring the pre-green difference up to at least 6. I'm sure I'm missing some from not accounting for 3 putts, especially since Rory had multiple 2 putts from 50 feet+

Could the targets Rory picked throughout the round have been much more conservative than Tiger's leading to some of the difference. Sure. But the putting is plain and simple. They each gained relatively the same amount of strokes vs the field, the entire rest of the difference in their scoring came before they stepped foot on the greens. I mean just early in this thread there was a report posted about how strokes gained from the long game make up the biggest difference between Tour players and looking at Rory and Tiger's round it is easy to see that.

How could somebody who says the have a graduate degree in math not understand how absurd it is to argue against a statistic that they don't even understand? The putts gained stat is as good a tool as you can use for the comparisons. The only issue that can't be eliminated is the fact that you do not have the exact same putts for each player. Aside from that it is a very useful statistic to analyze putting and long game performance. NXT has given extremely high level analysis to the facts of this particular tournament and you can't even take the time to understand the stat, let alone the analysis.

I don't get it.

Too weird. I don't know how it is you've come to know the things you know:

1. I don't understand strokes gained.
2. I'm arguing against strokes gained.
3. NXT has given extremely high level analysis.

This is why I don't engage on these subjects.

I know why I rounded from .168 to .2-- I'm lazy. Why did you round from .2 to 1?

In any case, the simple and extremely useful model of putting performance provided by the strokes gained statistic abstracts away information, when you are talking about a single round, there isn't a need to abstract away-- especially when it is useful.

Shemp, I'm confused at what your argument is at this point. Can you clarify?

I might later tonight. I'm busy for now, and this looks like way too much work.

I was lazy as well in saying 6. I should have said higher, even higher than 7 because Rory's scrambling also saved him quite a few points of EV.

And the stat doesn't abstract away anything. It gives you as clear of a picture as you can get at this point in golf information.

Sure Tiger made some longer ones but the differnce in expectation between Tiger's longest putts and Rory's isn't gigantic.

Tiger strokes gained on 3 longest putts
28 footer- +.97
25 footer- +.95
14 footer- +.75
Total- +2.67


Rory
13 footer- +.7
12 footer- .+65
10 footer- +.6
Total- +1.95

So on their 3 longest putts Tiger only got a .72 advantage on Rory. However if memory serves me right Rory made 1 more mid range putt on the day compared to Tiger and that would account for an extra .5-.6 strokes gained.

So again, like I have already shown Tiger and Rory putted just about the same. Tiger edged him by .2ish.

To sum up Sunday. Tiger crushed Rory in ball striking, edged him in putting, but Rory scooped up a ton of EV with his scrambling.

And anyone expecting to see any work from Shremp is kidding themselves.

Cliffs: I can't.

i have a question for the tiger lovers. if tiger goes winless again for this entire season. i mean 0 official wins on the us or european tours. will it change your opinion of him as a golfer? will you abandon ship?

I re-read the past couple of days. Is the below what the basis for your argument is?

Define abandon ship?

I'll always be a fan of Tiger. He's the most compelling figure on Tour, although Rory is doing a good job of becoming #2 in that category.

If he played the entire season, was healthy, and never won, then I think his stock has to drop a ton. He's only going to get older and if he fails to close tournaments in 2012 and people just best him event after event, then it'll surely lower people's expectations of what he can do for the remainder of his career.

I'll always stay a fan and will watch him when he's on tv until he starts regularly missing cuts etc.