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By The Numbers
Editor's Note: With a game ruled by numbers, it's time to have a way to break down what all those numbers really mean. With that in mind, we introduce By The Numbers, a blog where you can find stats-driven stories on anything and everything from ShotLink data to the different rankings to how equipment changes factor into a player's success to, well, any and every shot taken on TOUR.
By the Numbers
By Mike Vitti Interesting 2006 ShotLink Statistics - Part Two Approach the Green
Moving from the tee to the fairway, let's take a look at some of the course statistics when it comes to hitting the green -- starting with the longest holes first. To the long-hitting pros on the PGA TOUR, the par 5s are a scoring opportunity, but even they have to think twice about reaching some of those in two. The 667-yard monster at Firestone Country Club heads the list of par 5s where pros thought better about going for it and laid up to a more reasonable distance. However, since one player actually managed to safely land his ball on the green, the 16th at Firestone was not the toughest to hit. That honor goes to three other holes on TOUR where none of the attempts to reach the green in two were successful.
By the Numbers
By Mike Vitti Interesting ShotLink statistics from 2006 - Part Three Monday, November 27th 2006
The average rate for greens in regulation on the PGA TOUR in 2006 was 65.27 percent - meaning that on average players missed the green about six times per round. Overall, the average scrambling success rate on the missed attempts was 57.54 percent, but there were some impressive individual performances.
The highest number of successful conversion attempts in a single round was 11 - an impressive feat accomplished by five players. Perhaps the most interesting aspect about this is that none of the players on this list finished better than 60th in scrambling success in 2006.
Continuing with the around the green theme, Olin Browne led the way this season in most successful scrambles in an event -- recording an amazing 30 saves of par or better over the course of four rounds at the Nissan Open. Browne was also the only player to make the top five in the event and round categories.
PGA TOUR players are extremely accurate with their irons, and fire at the pins at every opportunity. However, there are a few holes on TOUR where just hitting the green in regulation is the goal, as the scrambling success rate on these holes is low and recovering from an errant shot to save par is not an easy task.
By the Numbers
By Mike Vitti Interesting ShotLink statistics from 2006 - Part Four This final segment takes a look at a few of the more interesting ShotLink statistics from 2006 on the green. Players on the PGA TOUR are always making some pretty impressive putts, but who made the longest? Well, in 2006 the longest putt holed is credited to Simon Dyson at the World Golf Championships - American Express Championship. In fact two of the three longest putts of the year were recorded in the same round of that event and both were putts to save par.
One of the more interesting statistics to track on TOUR is total length of putts made per round. This statistic is an aggregate sum of the length of all the putts made per round. The TOUR average for this statistic in 2006 was 73 feet, 9 inches, and the leader in this category was Ben Crane at 84 feet. Usually if a player totals over 100 feet of putts in a round he has had a pretty good day on the course, but there were a few players who had really good days when it came to holing putts. Brent Geiberger, J.J. Henry and Chris Smith the highest totals for a round in 2006 as they were the only three players to hole out more than 200 feet worth of putts in a single round.
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