Strokes Gained-Putting: A truer statistical measure

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The PGA TOUR is introducing a new primary statistic Monday called Strokes Gained-Putting. For those who like using numbers to enhance their enjoyment of watching the world's best golfers, this is important because it's a more accurate measure of a player's true performance on the green.

Consider this startling example:

In 2008, there were eight players who ranked in the top 10 in each of these two key putting categories, Putting Average and Putts per Round. One of those players just happened to be Padraig Harrington, who won two majors that summer and eventually was named the TOUR's Player of the Year.

But after going back and calculating Strokes Gained-Putting for 2008, here is how those eight players ranked overall in the new statistic that year:

Corey Pavin ... No. 1 overall in Strokes Gained-Putting (No. 1 in Putts per Round; No. 10 in Putting Average)
Bob Tway ... No. 2 (No. 5 in Putts Per Round; No. 1 in Putting Average)
Aaron Baddeley ... No. 3 (No. 8 in Putts Per Round; T5 in Putting Average)
Daniel Chopra ... No. 4 (No. 3 in Putts Per Round; No. 3 in Putting Average)
Nathan Green ... No. 13 (No. 6 in Putts Per Round; No. 4 in Putting Average)
Brian Gay ... No. 15 (No. 7 in Putts Per Round; No. 7 in Putting Average)
John Mallinger ... No. 43 (No. 4 in Putts Per Round; No. 9 in Putting Average)
Padraig Harrington ... No. 118 (No. 2 in Putts Per Round; T5 in Putting Average)

Don't know about you, but my first inclination was to scratch my head and say, "Huh?" How could Harrington, a player who had such a dominant year, rank 118th in this new putting statistic? Isn't the ability to putt -- and putt better than your opponents -- directly reflected in how much success you have in winning tournaments?

Harrington himself won just as many times as the seven other listed players combined that year (and neither of those two wins by "the others" were majors). The old stats reflected a great putting year by the Irishman; how come the new statistic doesn't?

The number-crunchers at the TOUR tell me the reason is simple -- Strokes Gained-Putting takes out the bias of the old stats. In other words, the new statistic isn't impacted by how you got to the green; it only reflects what you did (against what your opponents did) once you got there.

I asked Steve Evans, the TOUR's Senior Vice President of Information Systems, about the Harrington example. He replied: "This does point out how the traditional putting statistics have a bias. A player who misses greens in regulation and then chips close gains an advantage over players who hit more greens in regulation and have longer initial putts. Strokes Gained-Putting removes this bias.

"Based on your analysis, I suspect that Padraig didn't fare that well in GIR (Greens In Regulation)."

Indeed, Evans looked it up and noted that Harrington was 186th in GIR that year but 21st in Scrambling. In other words, he missed a lot of greens but had such a productive short game that he managed to save strokes and cut down on his putts needed by chipping close to the pin.

That's not to say Harrington didn't have his moments with the putter. In the final three holes of the PGA Championship that year, he rolled in a 12-footer to save par at 16, an 10-footer for birdie at 17, and an 15-footer to save par at 18. For those three pressure-packed holes, no player was better with a blade in his hand. But as Harrington himself said after his win at Oakland Hills, "The tougher things get, the more I'm going to hole putts."

In essence, his consistency fluctuated in 2008 while the others ahead of him simply had better putting years -- something that Strokes Gained-Putting will reveal that other putting stats won't.

Evans called the new stat an "evolution in the way we understand the game." Brad Faxon, long known as one of the TOUR's best putters in recent memory, said the statistic "moves us well beyond where we have been in the past in our ability to measure, teach and explain putting performance."

Essentially, the statistic measures putting proficiency from various distances while also measuring a player's performance against the rest of the field in a particular round. If a player putts well, he gains strokes on the field; if he putts poorly, he loses strokes. Fairly simple.

In addition, you'll be able to know the average success rate from a certain distance. Last year, for instance, 75 percent of all putts on TOUR from 5 feet found the bottom of the cup. But add another 9 feet, and just 25 percent are making it from 14 feet. Next time you hit the practice green, drop 20 balls from 14 feet and see if you can make five of them. Of course, you're probably not feeling the heat of competition, or dealing with a high Stimpmeter reading, but you get the picture.

Of course, as anybody who's ever played undulating greens knows, putts from the same distance don't necessarily have the same degree of difficulty. Depending on where your ball is in relation to the pin, you could have an easy straight uphill putt or a twisting, tricky downhiller.

The team that spent the last 1-1/2 years working on this statistic -- including professors Mark Broadie of Columbia University and Stephen Graves from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- debated this very topic and whether it was possible to account for the condition variances from the same distance.

"We recognize that some situations are more difficult than others and that distance is only one of the metrics," Evans said. "While the data exists to bring more variables into the equation, we felt that it wasn't necessary -- especially when focused on the finished year-to-date stat over an entire season.

"This received significant discussion with Broadie and Graves, who both agreed that if we brought additional variables into the equation, the resulting ranked list would be marginally different. Thus from a standpoint of administration and explanation, we opted for the one variable methodology."

The TOUR's Kin Lo, who was also part of the statistical team, added that "distance was far and away the dominant factor in determining the difficulty of the putt -- much more so than speed, break, etc. This is one of the main reasons we are presenting the stat relative to the field, e.g. putts gained against the field.

"So if a particular course has difficult greens, the stat represents how the player performed against everyone else who played on the same putting surfaces. It's the same concept as how we calculate Scoring Average."

So there you have it, a new way to view a player's performance with a putter in hand. Being a great putter, of course, in and of itself doesn't guarantee you success. At the end of the day, the great golfers measure themselves by one simple statistic -- number of tournament wins.

I suspect Harrington -- who knows his way around numbers, having completed his accountancy degree before turning pro -- will echo that. After all, his ranking in Strokes Gained-Putting following his 2008 season were vastly improved. He ranked 25th in 2009 and 47th last year. And this year? He currently ranks 12th.

The numbers indicate he is a better putter now than in 2008, yet he has not won a TOUR event since draining those last three putts at Oakland Hills, his swing changes unfortunately having slowed his return to the winner's circle.

Winning, you see, is not solely about putting. But Strokes Gained-Putting is only about putting. Try those putts from 14 feet and see how you measure up.