He”s an exempt member of the PGA Tour for 2009. Not exactly the straightest of ball strikers, his tee shots find the short grass of the fairways just 56 percent of the time. That means close to half of his tee shots find their resting place in the rough or among the trees. His driving accuracy skills place him in 148th place among his PGA Tour peers. The best of the bunch is former PGA champion Mark Brooks, who hits fairways 80 percent of the time.
Missing all those fairways makes it tough to hit greens in regulation. Hitting greens is a very good thing as it sets you up for birdie putts. Our golfer of note hits just 63 percent of his greens in regulation, which ranks him in 109th place. Camilo Villegas is the best at hitting greens on tour, doing so some 71 percent of the time.
Our golfer hits the ball on the average some 292 yards off the tee. While that might seem pretty impressive to you or to me, it does put him some 21 yards behind the tour”s top long ball knocker, namely Bubba Watson. There are 37 regular members of the PGA Tour who hit it farther than our guy. On top of that, the tour has a total driving statistical category that weighs distance and accuracy. Jonathan Byrd is the tour”s top total driver. Our man is in 88th place.
Of course, by now you”ve figured out that our golfer must have a pretty good short game to be able to compete with guys like Phil, Padraig and Angel, and that is definitely the case. He is ranked fifth in scrambling statistics on the PGA Tour. Sure, he misses a lot of green for a top-notch professional, but when he does, he gets up and down for par a very impressive 62 percent of the time. He seems to chip in a lot, too.
He”s also a very solid putter and is No. 13 on the tour”s putting list. Averaging 28 putts per round is pretty darn good, especially when you consider how tough it is to save par at places such as Augusta National, Doral and Bay Hill. That pencils out to eight one-putt greens for every 18 holes.
In a nutshell, our golfer is very erratic off the tee, misses his fair share of green because of his errant driving, can get up and down with the best of them, and putts lights out. Such statistics show our golfer to have a creative short game as well as sound course management skills. It makes it tough to win major title or the Players or a World Golf event, but the short game skills are so profound that one can sometimes rely on them to scratch out a win at a place such as Bay Hill or at the Memorial, venues where a brilliant short game can go a long way.
If I were writing this column in 1995, you could probably guess that I was talking about San Luis Obispo”s Loren Roberts, the Boss of the Moss. Roberts made a career out of his short game and putting dynamics. Had I written this column in 1985, you might figure out that our golfer of note was Texan Ben Crenshaw. Crenshaw has two Masters titles to his name although his game in its prime wouldn”t fly at the new Augusta National, a power player”s playground.
Since we happen to be talking about 2009, our golfer of note is Tiger Woods, the world”s top-ranked player for now. Yes, Tiger Woods, the guy who had minor knee surgery following the 2008 Masters and major reconstructive surgery after his historic win in the 2008 U.S. Open. For the 2009 season, Tiger hits about half his tee shots astray, misses approximately seven greens every 18 holes, and has to chip and wedge close and make putts to stay near the leader board. Averaging eight one-putts per round is pretty good stuff, but it sure puts a lot of pressure on his blade for him to be successful.
With all of this statistical analysis, I contend that the post-knee surgery Tiger Woods is not a new and improved model. While I am nowhere near the same caliber of golfer as the Great Striped One, I am the victim of four major surgeries on my left knee. After the first surgery as a 17-year-old, my knee made a so-called full recovery. In all honesty, it was about 80 percent. Every subsequent surgery repaired the ligament and cartilage damage, but the knee got progressively weaker and weaker.
Because of his short game skills and his ability to manage the course coupled with a tenacious competitive nature, Tiger will always be a threat every time he tees it up, just like Phil Mickelson or Padraig Harrington, winners of three career majors. However, he will not win five more majors over the remainder of his career and eclipse the record of 18 major titles held by Jack Nicklaus. His reconstructed knee won”t allow him to hit the ball any farther and it certainly won”t allow him to practice to the extent he needs to in order to make his swing more consistent.
Of course, I do think that Tiger will break through and win a couple more majors. He might prevail when the U.S. Open returns to storied Merion with its wicker-basket flags and 6,600-yard length. Yet he”ll be at a decided disadvantage at major championship sites such as Bethpage, Turnberry and Hazeltine, hosts of the three remaining 2009 grand slam events. Those courses will force its eventual champion to hit the ball a long way and to avoid the pitfalls of punitive rough off the fairways and around the putting surfaces.
Hall of Fame writer Dan Jenkins, one of the last journalistic links from the era of Ben Hogan, once wrote that the only thing that could stop Tiger Woods was a bad back or a bad marriage. The bad knee is the problem and Tiger is much like the power pitcher after arm surgery. He must relearn to pitch as he nibbles at the corners and tries to keep the batters off balance with junk pitches and varied speeds. Tiger must learn how to keep his drives in play and he must take full advantage of his short game prowess.
As things stand now, Jack Nicklaus” record of 18 major championships over the course of a career is safe. Blame it on the knee.
