How to win a Tour Event

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
1

Shell Houston Open Anthony Kim’s weekend

Scorecard: Round 4 - Redstone Tournament Course
Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 OUT 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 IN TOT
Par 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 5 3 36 4 4 4 5 3 5 3 4 4 36 72
Rnd4 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 3 33 5 4 3 5 3 5 3 4 5 37 70
Status -1 -1 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2 -3 -3 – -2 -2 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -2 – -2

Scorecard: Round 3 - Redstone Tournament Course
Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 OUT 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 IN TOT
Par 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 5 3 36 4 4 4 5 3 5 3 4 4 36 72
Rnd3 5 4 5 5 3 4 3 5 3 37 4 4 3 4 3 4 3 3 4 32 69
Status 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 – 1 1 E -1 -1 -2 -2 -3 -3 – -3

Scorecard: Round 2 - Redstone Tournament Course
Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 OUT 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 IN TOT
Par 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 5 3 36 4 4 4 5 3 5 3 4 4 36 72
Rnd2 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 4 3 35 4 4 4 4 3 4 3 5 3 34 69
Status -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -3 -3 – E E E -1 -1 -2 -2 -1 -2 – -3

Scorecard: Round 1 - Redstone Tournament Course
Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 OUT 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 IN TOT
Par 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 5 3 36 4 4 4 5 3 5 3 4 4 36 72
Rnd1 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 4 3 35 3 3 3 6 3 4 3 3 5 33 68
Status E E E E E E E -1 -1 – -2 -3 -4 -3 -3 -4 -4 -5 -4 – -4

STATS Rnd1 Rnd2 Rnd3 Rnd4 TOT RANK*
EAGLES – – – – 0 N/A
BIRDIES 6 4 5 4 19 T5
PARS 10 13 11 12 46 T42
BOGEYS 2 1 2 2 7 T56
DOUBLE BOGEYS – – – – 0 N/A
OTHER – – – – 0 N/A
DRIVING ACCURACY 57 50 21 36 41.1 72
DRIVING DISTANCE 285.5 306.5 310.5 321.5 306.0 8
PUTTS PER ROUND 27 30 27 27 27.8 T2
PUTTS PER GIR 1.692 1.846 1.583 1.727 1.714 T7
GREENS IN REG 72 72 67 61 68.1 T50
SAND SAVES 50 50 100 50 60.0 T18

  • Ranks are computed at the end of each round.
2

Exactly why PGA Tour golf bores me to death.

Here is some very mediocre ball striking… hitting only 41% of his fairways. Obviously not that big a penalty for errant tee shots if you can then recover and hit 68% of the greens…

Either way… 72nd in fairways hit and 50th in GIR respectively.

However, the putting stats tell a different story…

PUTTS PER ROUND 27 30 27 27 averaging 27.8 for the week ranking T2

You always have to putt well to win of course, but again, this wasn’t a tournament won with masterful ball striking.

3

oh for f’s sake :unamused:

4

I can see it now…

28 double faults
1 ace
47 unforced errors

Wimbledon Champion

The tennis world would be in uproar if such a crap statistic won a big tennis event…surely you should not be rewarded by serving double faults and missing volleys and hitting balls out all day long…why should golf make mediocre striking like this permissible?

5

Heck, I don’t fault the guy for being a great putter, and winning. I envy him. But I hate it for Vaughn Taylor, who would have earned a spot in the Masters.

Even the USA Today…sort of a color coded, dumbed down , but enjoyable, newspaper noted that Kim had the 4th worst G.I.R. since 1983.

Must not take a rocket scientist to see “something ain’t right”.

6

Hmmm…I heard from a rather unreliable source (1 in 265) that this was a singularly “exasperating” thread. I just don’t see it.

Captain Chaos

7

Not at all, Kim was obviously chipping well so he was playing to his strengths :confused:

8

Let me just say this…

The name of this site is ADVANCED BALL STRIKING
further more, this forum area is named “Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking”

For a reason…

we are primarily here to study, and introspectively look at the fine art of striking a golf ball. We focus mostly on tee to green, a bit on chipping, and some on putting… and Al has written a wonderful book on putting.

The majority of content on this site will be aimed at learning a proper golf swing, studying great ball strikers, and Twomasters and I are here to help you the best we can to get students here understanding golf swing feel and dynamics, and how to incorporate the concepts that have been used by the games greatest ball strikers.

Now… if this site and forum were called, Concepts in Advanced Putting Techniques, then we would be applauding the modern players much more for their prowess rolling the rock around perfectly manicured carpets, and probably not discussing the putting strokes of Ben Hogan, George Knudson, and Sam Snead’s desperate attempt at side saddle putting to conquer “the yips”.

I do find enjoyment in putting personally, and I do tinker with it often, and I have studied with one of the great putting instructors (Alvie Thompson) who is very respected and well know in his home country of Canada. I credit Alvie for much of the success I had later in my career.

I spoke again today with Paul Henrick who is a highly regarded teaching pro around the Toronto area, and a fine player who competed on the Canadian Tour back when I was playing, and still occasionally competes. He knew Moe very well, his father played head to head with Moe and Knudson, Al Baulding and Alvie back in the 1950’s and 1960’s and I have invited Paul to visit our forum here and share his insights into these great players, and he will have a lot of interesting things to say and reflect upon.

He was telling me about how when George finished second in The Masters, George hit 70 out of 72 greens at Augusta that week. This is the kind of thing that I find most inspiring. Paul was telling me that back then, George was really a much more compelling and complete ball striker than Moe. And from my own experiences and discussions with Moe, it was very apparent that Moe deeply respected George’s ability to flush it…and really looked up to him as a role model. Moe never said he struck the ball better than George. Al Barkow has confirmed to me that George was considered the most Hogan like of all the players of his time, and even Hogan himself acknowledged George as a premier striker and respected his abilities.

It’s tempting to say this is only the mystic stuff of legend, but we have more than stone tablets or tales from the round table… we have some really wonderful footage of Hogan in the Shell’s match, we have Knudson setting the course record in San Paulo with a near perfect ball striking round. There are other wonderful examples preserved for posterity so I don’t think we are necessarily talking tall tales here.

When I watch modern professional golf, I expect to see ball striking far superior to what I do as a once a week non practicing player. But I don’t see that, and I find it very disappointing because I would like to enjoy sitting down and watching a few regular tour events. So as it is, I find my enjoyment in playing golf with proper gear, on golf courses that require a vast array of shot making options, and a premium upon driving accuracy.

9

Well said Lag…

70 out of 72 greens!!!..holy smokes…never knew that…sounds impossible by todays standards. Who won that event and what was their GIR percentage…anyone know?

I’m continually amazed how in today’s game the “best players in the world” miss greens from the short grass with a wide open look at it. You would think at that level, hitting a green would be nearly automatic…now what part of the dance floor might be a different story.

70 out of 72 greens at Augusta…wow!! :slight_smile: RR

10

Steb,
Poor journalism on my part…My apologies. Your post prompted me to see that I had inaccurately relayed what the USA Today had said. The correct version is that Kim had the 4th worst number of fairways hit of tour winners since 1983. ( not the 4th worst G.I.R.)

Draw your conclusions form there.

Let me add, that while I envy Kim’s chipping and putting, I envy Hogan, Snead, Nelson, Knudson, and Trevino more. And it is ironic that this happened in the state of Texas, where Hogan,Nelson, and Trevino are from. Additionally, the tournament was sponsored by the same company-Shell, in Houston, the same town where the Hogan -Snead Shell match took place in 1965, with Hogan hitting every fairway and every green I believe.

Hogan was 53 years old at the time, no spring chicken. I guess you can conclude he had more time to develop and perfect his technique than Kim.