Hasn't driving technology improved a lot since those days? And now he's off the Nike clubs, gotta imagine he can get it straightened out without giving up the distance where it would help. Kinda weird if he can't fix that.

He'll get the driving thing figured out. Given that he has a lot of speed, seems to be pain free, and his short game is looking good he should be contending before too long.

Seriously, how much confidence does it have to give him knowing he can drive it sideways on a course like Torrey of all places and still finish in the 20's?

He was using that weird new twist face driver too which might be hard to get the hang of if he hasn't practiced much with it. DJ figured it out obviously but he practices a ton these days. Tiger only has up to go from here, looking forward to it.

Should probably let him play competitive golf for more than 2 weeks in a row without being out for 9+ months recovering from an injury before we start claiming he's "still always" doing something terribly.

But I agree with your last point and I've said it all along. If Tiger can play multiple years straight without injury he's going to win a lot of tournaments.

Or if he didn’t have his short game on, he would have shot 80...

This was a spectacular start though. His wayward driving won’t hurt him that much at Augusta. He won’t be able to get away with it at the US Open.

If he wins just one tournament, it would be epic.

U guys are aware Tiger gained strokes vs the field off the tee? Or have you been blinded by "fairways hit %"?

His driving this week was worth more than his short game.

Still was a terrible week off the tee for him. We have known that at his worst he is usually positive in strokes gained in most areas anyway

NXT, he gained more strokes around the green and with his putting than he did with his driving. His driving was atrocious, don't try and defend it.

Yes you must pair his around the green with his putting to get the result of it being better than his driving. Here's the breakdown for the week (3 of the 4 rounds with shotlink)

SG Off the Tee - 38th +.56
SG Approach the Green - 30th +1.26
SG Around the Green - 46th +.04
SG Putting - 16th +2.74
SG Total - T20 +4.6

Not sure how you can conclude his driving was atrocious without also stating his around the green game was even worse which clearly is not true. He beat the field(a relatively tough field) in every single facet of the game.

In 2013 when he was world #1 he was averaging -.14 SG off the tee/rd or close to -.6 per event. To conclude a positive SG off the tee is a terrible week is loltastic.

But he was T76 in fairways hit at 30% BURN HIM.

Better off burning that stat tbh.

Except that some things are qualitative, in particular if you actually watched him play. If he hit a couple of terrible tee shots to the eye, that in fact bounced off of a tree and kicked in the fairway, he might have a nice SG for that hole. And, if this happened a few times over a tournament, you can be fairly confident Tiger wouldn't be happy with his 'off the tee' game. But, the stats would still be showing us everything is great. If an observer watched and saw him making 'pretty bad mistakes' , I'm confident Tiger would feel the same, and be addressing these areas, not simply having his head in the sand because his SG off the Tee stat is looking swell.

I guess a poker analogy would be if you saw some getting it in with 22 verse AK multiple times.. You run the twodimes, and it tells you that he was in fact +EV for those plays.. A seasoned observer can still say that's not great play. In fact, PokerStove would give a more accurate result of how he does getting it in with 22 verse his opponents range. In the same respect, we know those great drives that bounce in the fairway, or don't end up behind a tree, in the long run will be punishing shots..

Take an example where someone 'skulls' two or three shots in a round that end up perfectly in the middle of the fair way. I don't think there's a stat that tells us that's a bad shot, but if we were a college coach , we wouldn't recruit a player that hit that many bad shots to the eye.. Regardless of what the statistics tell us.

This proves you drive for show and putt for dough.....

But seriously, I had assumed his SG driving was terrible this week.

I usually think there is a lot to be learned from stats, but him being +SG off the tee really points to taking that stat with a grain of salt. He hit the fewest fairways in a full tournament in his career, on a course that has relatively small and tough greens, was windy, and has some of the worst rough of any courses they play outside of the majors. He was consistently in terrible positions.

He drove it like crap, even by his standards.

It is actually the complete opposite of this. This is what makes the stat so incredibly good. You are looking at raw fairways hit as an indicator of how he drove the ball? On one of the toughest driving venues on the PGA Tour in windy conditions? The field barely eclipsed 40% of fairways hit on Sunday.

You cannot "consistently be in terrible positions" without getting murdered in the SG off the tee stat. It is simply not possible. Nor was his SG off the tee the result of a handful of wayward drives that miraculously bounced back into the middle of the fairway.

Raw numbers are worthless much the way raw hand values are worthless in poker if you want to make analogies. I have a straight, is it any good? Nobody knows based on that information because they do not know what the board looks like or who you are up against. Same thing if you just tell someone you hit 75% of fairways. Context is very very important.

For fun take a peak at 2005. Tiger was 191st(!!) in driving accuracy but 2nd in distance. The completely worthless total driving statistic which just aggregates the two ranked him T86 on tour for the year. SG off the tee had him ranked 4th raking in a pretty ridiculous almost .9 shots per round(his best driving season of the shotlink era).

Cliffs: Driving accuracy is up there with putts per gir in the most worthless stats that exist.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all SG stats measured against multiple years worth of data from all events? If it's just against past rounds at Torrey, it would make it more relevant.

I think it's a good stat in general, but definitely lacks nuance since it can't really say how bad missing it in the rough on certain holes is, nor at certain courses. Consistently hitting balls deep into the rough at Torrey is going to be worse than hitting it in the "rough" at the course they play before the masters in Houston (too lazy to look up the name of the course). At Torrey, you can't get it close to almost any pins from the rough because of how severe the greens are, and how thick the rough is.

Seems like pounding it 320 on the fly into the rough on every hole at the US open might net you a positive SG off the tee, but will completely destroy any chance you have at making the cut. That's the nuance it seems to be lacking here. Pounding it 320 into the rough at Augusta, or even the pine straw, isn't going to kill you since the rough is short, and there's a lot of room for foul balls.

Once again, if it's somehow based on data at the specific venue (which I don't see how that would be the case), then it says more. But otherwise it's definitely kind of a "dumb" stat, that has a lot more value over the course of 20+ events than at one specific tournament.

So looking at it more, it does seem like there's an adjustment after comparing the average of the field on a given day, compared to the player. So Tiger being positive at Torrey, could actually be a -2 or something on a day, but the field also drove it terribly.

I still think Tiger drove it terribly, and that certain parts of how bad he drove it aren't going to be well captured by SG off the tee. Particularly when a lot of players missed fairways by a very short distance, having it roll just into the rough on a tight/fast course. So it definitely mutes the importance of his accuracy since a lot of accurate players got jipped by the wind and narrow fairways, and gives a higher weight to his power. Missing a fairway at Torrey by a short distance is still going to give a lot more playable angle than a lot of the spots he missed it.

I'll be more interested in looking at his SG off the Tee after a few more tournaments, since I feel like this week was probably an outlier.

Just for a thought to consider - he also drove it so far off the fairways sometimes that he was in trampled down rough and hit some pretty great shots out of it. Some of the lies for the drives that just missed the fairway were way worse. Mostly evens out - but Eldrick was definitely in some decent spots to recover as he was so far offline.

You are partially correct. SG/rd is calculated by taking each player vs the baselines(that are created from years of data) and then adjusting the entire field to get the overall average back to 0.

Ie its pretty likely Tiger was losing SG off the tee vs the baselines bc Torrey is a much more demanding driving track however he was losing less than the field was vs the baselines so he ends up with a positive for the week.

You seem to be missing the "nuance" of how SG works. If you hit a bunch of tee shots that destroy your chance of making the cut then you aren't gaining shots off the tee. To gain a shot off the tee you have to be in a better position relative to the field compared to where you were when you were standing on the tee.

It works by taking how many shots it takes the average tour pro to hole out from where your shot starts, then looking at how often it takes the average tour pro to hole out from where your shot finishes.

Ie on a typical 450 yd par 4 it takes the average tour pro 4.13 shots to hole out. If you hit a drive into the rough and leave yourself with 120 yd the average tour pro is going to hole out from there in 3.08 shots.

So 4.13(start) - 3.08(finish) - 1(shot it took you to get from A to B) = .05 shots gained

The situation you are describing in a US Open cannot exist. In a US Open all of the above baselines would likely receive a huge bump in difficulty. So a 450 yd par 4 may now average 4.3 shots. And due to the penal nature of the rough, it may take the average tour pro 3.5 shots to hole out from 120 yds in the rough. The new calculation would be

4.35(start) - 3.5(finish) - 1(shot it took you to get from A to B) = .15 shots lost

I see what you are saying, you're saying just take that +.05 from the baseline every time at the US Open and voila you are gaining massive strokes. I believe the way the tour adjusts the data fixes this in the above fashion. Otherwise what would happen is if you think Tiger's driving was super inflated at Torrey then his SG APP must be way under represented. There is no doubt about how many total shots he gained vs the field for the week, how they are divided up can be a bit tricky.




Definitely wouldn't call it a "dumb" stat. It's not perfect but it is infinitely better than relying on fairways hit.

The problem with SG off the tee is it doesn't distinguish between a bad lie in the rough with trees to navigate from 30 yards off the fairway and a perfect lie a foot off the fairway with a good angle in if the two are the same distance from the hole.

All SG categories suffer from these issues

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Strokes Gained stats are approximations of expected gain/loss based on averages of aggregated data across all PGA Tour courses, using fairly easy to gather metrics (e.g. distance from hole, distance away from fairway, etc.) So, a yard from the hole at Pebble Beach equals a yard from the hole at Waste Management, a yard off the fairway at Riviera equals a yard off the fairway at Kapalua, etc.

So situations such as a player short siding himself with a close to impossible chip even though he may be close to the hole, or hitting a tee shot into a terrible position even though it may be somewhat close the fairway and/or closer to the hole will be "washed out" in the averages.

Observation of play is qualitative, that is it does not allow for scalar comparison between players, but it is generally a better technique for determining if a player executed his/her game well for a given round. (based on the skill of the observer, of course)

Also, Strokes Gained are zero adjusted only for the field making the cut. Those who miss the cut are not included in the zero adjustment. So generally a player making the cut actually performed better than the stat indicated.

Over time metrics will improve which will allow for more substantive conclusions on quality of an individual's play.

That's kind of what the whole discussion has been about. A missed fairway isn't a foul ball.

two key things that seem to be missing from this TW driving discussion:

Sometimes bombing a drive down near a short par-4 leaving 30-40 yards in, but being in the rough, is going to be a fairway missed but a pretty significant SG bump.

Having a bad two-way miss is not really workable in the long run. That's why his driving was so bad. If he hit 30% of fairways, but only had a one way miss and was able to play the course in such a way to take trouble down one side out of play, that would be a very different situation that what happened.

All that said, Tiger in his prime used to bomb it all over the planet and hit miraculous recovery shots to save pars and grind out a few birdies... and when he would find fairways, he'd leave himself with a lot of birdie opportunities. Missing the fairway "too much" may not kill him like people think. But I maintain that at this point in his career, he needs to really be confident in at least a one-way miss.

He just needs to spend two minutes with Brandel Chamblee.

T9 through 9 holes in day 2 - look out!

nice par save too