TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2017

Long-time PGA and Web.com Tour pro Jeff Gove helps us sort out what matters when it comes to statistics and the better game we all want to play. (Photo: Jennifer Perez/PGA TOUR)
 
Your career spans the traditional stats era and now the Statcast era. Are stats your friend? How deep do you dare dive before you drive yourself crazy with all that?
“I think it’s good to look at. I like some of the new stuff, like proximity to the hole. I think that’s very telling. I’m not sure I like just greens in regulation and fairways hit, because sometimes you may hit it where you’re looking, even though you’re not in the fairway and you think, Oh, that was a good shot. Even though your statistician might not say it’s a fairway, it might be where you were trying to go. So those can be a little misleading. But I like proximity to the hole for sure, because obviously the closer you are, the more chances you have. And then, scoring average is always the barometer that we need to go by.”
 
The hard part for the average player is that we can’t get those stats. I sure don’t want my buddies pulling out a tape measure to figure out how far away from the hole they are all the time! So what stats are good for us?
“I think birdie opportunities, if you’re inside of a 15 handicap and you have the ability to hit some shots in there. Every time you’re within five or six steps from the hole, that’s a good opportunity. For us pros, the guy who makes the most birdies usually does pretty well, so I try to pat myself on the back if I make six or more birdies in a round. That’s one of my goals. But if you could say at the end of the day, “I had five good chances today,” I think that could be good. That’s a better way to look at it than saying, “I hit 18 greens, but I was 50 feet away every hole.” Those aren’t birdie opportunities. If you’re within five or six steps of the hole, that’s a realistic chance where you’re trying to make the putt instead of just two-putt.
“I don’t know that tracking three-putts is really the best stat, but maybe how many putts I left short today. Did I get every putt to the hole? Did I give every putt an opportunity? I had a coach several years ago who asked me, “What if you got every putt to the hole throughout the year? What if you gave every putt a chance?” Let’s say you made 20 more putts, but you three-putted five more times. You’re still a positive 15 makes.
“Trying to get every ball up and down is a great stat, too. Whether you made the putt or the chip, just try to challenge yourself every day.”
 

 
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2017

 
Christian comedian Jon Crist has caused much laughter by mimicking football coaches, NASCAR drivers, Walmart workers, pastors, and missionaries. Today, get a laugh out of his hilarious bit on professional golfers.
 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2017

The newest golf job to elicit jealousy is this one: TV rules monitor.
 
Monday’s announcement from the USGA and R&A that call-in “gotchas” from overly enthusiastic television viewers will no longer be permitted during tournament play means that a rules official (or maybe more) will be assigned at each event to watch TV coverage and keep an eye out for any untoward actions.
 
Call it “the Lexi rule” if you want, after the brouhaha over Lexi Thompson’s mismarked ball and subsequent four shots of penalty that led to her losing 2017’s ANA Championship (a major). In that case, video showed Thompson had been too loose in replacing a marked ball on the green–we’ll never know how intentional this was. She was assessed two penalty shots for the violation and two more for having signed an incorrect scorecard–all a day later than the mismark occurred. Perhaps the better addition than a video official is that players will not be assessed that extra penalty when they signed a card that should have included a penalty they did not know about. In a day when every viewer and broadcaster knows the score in real-time, a faulty card doesn’t needs to be considered the honest accident that it always is on tour.
 
That said, little changes for the rest of us. With no cameras recording our play, self-policing remains the bedrock of the game’s integrity. Slow motion and still capture will never be called in after the fact for us (even these are inconclusive, as we found out with Sergio Garcia in the final round of the 2017 Masters). If we think we’ve done something wrong, we need to call the penalty on ourselves–or at least ask a fellow competitor or official whether we should.
 
Of course, if that kind of self-scrutiny doesn’t appeal to you, you might want to start compiling your resume. You can start here: “I’m great at sitting on the couch and watching golf on Sunday afternoons. I even know how to use a remote.”
 
-Jeff Hopper