Forget the Stats; Drain Your Putts Instead

Statistics are like a golfer who says he’s an 18 and shoots a 77 when the Nassau hits $100 or a tenant who says he will have the rent tomorrow or a drunk who tells a cop he only had a couple.

Statistics cannot be trusted.

Baseball players are always telling us how statistics lie. That is one reason they are so abhorred by the owners’ suggestion that younger players should be paid according to a statistical table.

Football players also say statistics lie . . . and so do basketball players.

With that as background, it seemed appropriate to take a look at the statistical leaders as kept on the PGA Tour. Maybe this would be a place where I might find truth in statistics.

Nine individual categories are kept: Scoring leaders, eagle leaders, birdie leaders, par breakers, greens in regulation, driving distance, driving accuracy, putting leaders and sand saves. There is also an all-around category which combines all of the others.

What interested me most were what I will call the specific skill categories, the ones which should manifest themselves in birdies, eagles and low scores. These would be, going from tee to green, driving accuracy, driving distance, greens in regulation, sand saves and putting.

However, a day of research at the Shearson Lehman Hutton Blacks Beach San Diego ex-Andy Williams Open told me something I should have suspected.

Golfing statistics can be mischievous devils, too.

You can’t trust them.

Peter Jacobsen, who is No. 1 in scoring and No. 3 in earnings, is not in the top 10 in any of the skill categories. As a matter of fact, he’s not in the top 10 in anything but scoring.

Indeed, Paul Azinger, No. 1 in earnings, was the only top 10 scorer (seventh) who ranked in the top 10 in as many as two of the skill categories. He is second in sand saves and tied for eighth in putting.

OK, OK, I know it is early in the 1990 season. You still have guys hitting .400 this early in a baseball season. Statistics can be warped a bit at this stage.

We’ll take a look at 1989 instead.

Calvin Peete, the driving accuracy leader for the ninth straight year, finished 175th on the money list. So much for hitting it straight.

Ed Humenik, the driving distance leader, was 168th on the money list and lost his tour card. In fact, five of the last eight distance leaders have lost their tour cards in the year in which they led. So much for wasting money on golf balls boasting of extra yardage.

Mike Sullivan, the best sand saver, finished 47th in earnings, though he did not rank in the top 50 in scoring. Sand saves would appear to be about as valuable as kitty litter.

Bruce Lietzke, who led the way in greens in regulation, may have been frustrated by finishing only 36th in money and 44th in scoring. He now uses one of those putters that looks like it’s stuck on the end of a rake, obviously thinking putting was his problem.

Not so. His problem was hitting greens in regulation. You hit too many and your putting average suffers because you don’t get those close chips to within gimme one-putts. Only one golfer, the renowned Don Shirey Jr., finished in the top 50 in both greens in regulation and putting.

The moral here? You want to putt better, miss the green more often.

Putting? Ah, putting. Steve Jones was No. 1 there, and he finished eighth in earnings and 17th in scoring. That’s still not the very top of the line, but putting appears to keep you close.

Even the “results” categories can be deceiving. You’d think the birdie and eagle leaders would be among the scoring leaders. Nope. The two eagle leaders, Lon Hinkle and Duffy Waldorf, were not among the top 50 scorers. The birdie leader, Ted Schulz, was 44th.

So what do we make of all this?

I asked Mark Brooks about his round Friday. It wasn’t too shabby. He put together a 61 on the North Course. He missed an eagle putt on No. 18 for a 60.

Among these statistical categories, Mark, where did you excel?

Driving distance?

“No,” he said.

Driving accuracy?

“No,” he said.

Putting?

“Yes,” he said. “I had three long two-putts I really needed, one from off the green.”

Wait a minute, the one from off the green wasn’t a putt . . . even if he struck it with his putter. That was a one-putt green.

Sand saves?

“I only had one bunker shot,” he said, “but I got it up and down.” He laughed. “One year I was close in sand saves. I hit it in 160 bunkers. There were probably guys who only hit 60 bunkers all year.”

Practice makes perfect, huh?

Dan Forsman shot a 63 Friday. He did not credit driving or greens in regulation or putting.

“My short chipping game was good,” he said, “but there’s no category for that. And the biggest thing may be course management, but there’s no category for that.”

So golf is like darned near everything else. Toss the statistics out the window and use the clearest common denominator as the bottom line.

At Torrey Pines, that would be 130. That was Bob Eastwood’s score through two rounds.