What statistics matter in the U.S. Open?  PGA TOUR Staff Tiger vs. Phil Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. They stand in first and second on the Official World Golf Ranking, on the FedExCup list, as well as the PGA TOUR Money List, but how do they compare statistically in 2007? Well, as you would expect, they are just as close in many of the statistics tracked on the PGA TOUR.  How do Phil Mickelson (left) and Tiger Woods compare in key stats? (WireImage) You can see the results for yourself in the Players section of PGATOUR.com by using the stat comparison tool (http://www.pgatour.com/players/00/87/93/comparison/), but some of the highlights from this head-to-head match-up are: • Only two yards separate the two players in average driving distance and both are right around 55 percent for driving accuracy. • Woods has found the green five percent more frequently than Mickelson, and is averaging a bit more than three feet closer to the hole on approach than Mickelson, but Mickelson has been able to convert more of his birdie opportunities than Woods (36.4% vs. 30.0%). • While both players are around 17 percent in par 4 birdie percentage, Mickelson has the advantage in both par 3 and par 5 birdie percentage. • They have both been solid around the greens, saving par on about 60 percent of their scrambling opportunities. However, Woods does have the advantage from the bunkers with a sand save percentage about 8 points higher than Mickelson. As you can see, there is not much separating the recent performances of the top two players, and both will be favored entering the second major of the season. Stats that Matter When asked, most experts identify driving accuracy and avoiding the rough from the tee as a primary key to winning at a typical U.S. Open venue, but is this really the case? Last year Mickelson almost won hitting less than 50 percent of the fairways and the winner, Geoff Ogilvy, only found the fairway 57 percent of the time. In fact, six of the top 11 players at Winged Foot last year who qualified for 2006 PGA TOUR statistical rankings finished the season ranked 75th or higher in driving accuracy. So what does matter? Players that can putt and play well from about 125 yards in seem to have an advantage at the U.S. Open. Of the aforementioned top 11 players, all of them finished the season ranked in the top third on TOUR in putting average; all of them finished in the top-50 in proximity to the hole from 50-125 yards; and seven of the 11 were in the top-40 in scrambling.
What does this mean for this year's field? Well, you probably want to keep an eye on a couple of usual suspects -- Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, and Padraig Harrington; look for Steve Stricker to have another strong showing and Justin Rose as well; and this year's surprise players could be Bob Estes or Nathan Green.
Tough Tracks
The U.S. Open course typically ranks among the top-3 toughest on TOUR every year and this year will be no different. With that in mind I thought it would be interesting to see who has played the best on the toughest courses so far in 2007. Using the five hardest courses in terms of par breaker percentage (the percentage of all scores on each hole below par), I have calculated the players with the best adjusted scoring averages (minimum of 12 rounds on the three venues).
Of the players in the field, it is no surprise that David Toms, Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, and Luke Donald all appear in the top of this list, but there are a couple of other players that have handled the tough tracks well in 2007. Boo Weekley and Brandt Snedeker have both held their own on the hardest set-ups in 2007, and maybe they can keep this performance going at Oakmont. |
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