47 statistical categories for the die-hard number cruncher

With an extra hour on my hands this Sunday morning, I chanced upon the myriad statistics available on each tour player on the PGA Tour’s official website. Driving distance, accuracy and greens in regulation percentage are fairly standard, long-ball categories. Putting average, sand save percentage, and birdies and eagles are other aspects I would expect to be covered. Total driving is my personal favorite, as it reminds me of Thurman Thomas with the Buffalo Bills in the 1990s. He never led the league in rushing or pass catching yards, but he was always number one in total yards. I like to see a guy in the top 40 in total driving…actually, I’d like to be that guy.

We reach the top of the roller coaster, and encounter the following, nose-bleed statistical columns on our hair-raising descent: Left and Right rough tendency; Greens in regulation from other than fairway; Scrambling from greater than 30 yards and from the rough; Going for the green; and Approaches from greater than 200 yards. Well, I guess if he’s your favorite player, you had best have the capacity to back it up!

Here’s where it gets mind-numbing. Enter a category called Fairway Proximity, and you get the following statistical lines on Tiger Woods:

ThisWeek//LastWeek//PlayerRounds//Value//Attempts//TotalDistance (feet//Relative to par
1//1//Tiger Woods//55//27′2″//162,587//498//13,548.917

What does the Value category collect? Attempts at what? Total Distance of what? Relative to par of what?

There are many other anesthetic categories to tax your brain, such as Rough Proximity and Proximity to hole. However, the one that holds most importance for me, now, is three-putt avoidance. Brian Gay leads that one, and is near the top at the Chrysler this week. We’ll see if he stays true to form. In the meantime, if you want a guy to one- or two-putt to save your life, you could do worse than Brian Gay.