Like many others, I was incredibly jazzed by Tiger’s victory on Monday.
But I was frustrated that the commentators routinely failed to mention the putting distance to the hole. It would be nice to know, “It looks like Rocco has a 25-foot putt.” But I, for one, would like commentators to go further and routinely give us information about the probable outcome of the next stroke. If the golfer is putting, I want to know the probability that the put will go in.
Analogous information is an old hat in basketball. When Kevin Garnett goes to the free-throw line, we are told what his FT percentage has been this season and in the playoffs (and in this very game).
Putting is not as standardized as shooting a free throw. But it would be useful to know that pros generally only make 60 percent of five puts. At least that’s what’s shown in this article (based on pre 1995 data):
It shouldn’t be insurmountable to give player-specific probabilities conditional on distance to the hole or even real time predictions that take into account distance, player, and even place on the green. You can double check after the fact that your predictions are unbiased — simply by looking at the times when you predicted a 60 percent make probability and seeing if the ball sank 60 percent of the time.
Real time predictions could also be made about the probability of hitting the fairway on a drive or probability of hitting a green. Letting viewers know the probability that an ordinary pro (or that a particular player) will make a putt doesn’t take the drama out of the game. Just the opposite. They let us know when players make a truly improbable shot or blow what should be a gimme.
For example, I bet few in the viewing public would have been able to formulate a very accurate assessment of the odds that Tiger would have made the last putt on Sunday.
After the fact, it’s too easy to say, like Mediate, “I knew he was going to make it.”
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Like Gary said, putt difficulty is much more than just distance to the hole. Tiger would probably be pretty good at sinking 40 foot puts on ground that has absolutely no left or right break. He’s pretty good at sending the ball exactly in the direction he wants it to go. If he wants to aim 2 and a half ball lengths to the left of the hole, he can probably do it fine from 40 feet.
But an alternating left-right 10 footer with a sharp downhill beyond the hole into the water would be a much tougher putt. The read of the ground and having to judge how the speed of the ball will affect the amount of break is likely more difficult.
I suppose commentators can be consistent with describing each putt as fully as possible. Though they seem to fairly often describe what the read looks to be, estimate the distance, and mention how others had fared with similar looking putts.
@Gary- the only issue with your theory is that they move hole locations every day. on many greens, that means the look of the putts is VERY different. plus, at the US Open, they even moved tee locations on some holes to further throw the players off their game.
A good point as well. What I really had in mind was the speed of the greens which (neglecting weather) seems to be pretty consistent throughout the weekend. The greens at the Open this weekend made it look like they were putting on cement. You can read the green perfectly, but if your speed is off by just a touch on a green like that, you’re sailing the ball past the hole.
No, no stats! I think we have enough stats in golf when I get distance to hole and wind direction and speed. Do not turn golf commentators into stats spewers. What do you want, fantasy league golf?
Remember Soccer Made in Germany? I remember my first impression of that show being, “Wow, one guy covering the whole match by himself. I like this better than the tag-team football coverage in America.” And that one guy, not a flaming idiot, you could actually stand to listen to him for a whole game.
The commentators frequently commented on how players had been hitting or missing putts from a particular region of the green earlier that day. They often predicted exactly how a player would miss the shot. From that it seems that the likelihood of a player making a shot has more to do with the hole location and green shape than the general accuracy of that player at a particular distance. A more useful predictive graphic would be to show the trajectory of the previous puts from that region of the green had travelled that day (possible only if you automatically record each putt on that hole).
While a golfer might have a better feel for the green on Sunday compared to Friday, as it was stated above, the hole locations vary from day to day. Also, the time of day and how many people have been on the course ahead of you make a large difference on medium and long distance putts. Footprints that have not had time to fully rise create very bumpy conditions that cause a putt to go off line (watch the ultra close up of Tiger’s final Sunday putt and you can see it bounce like 15 times on the way to the hole).
Also, golf is extremely mental (especially putting) so the pressure of making that putt on Sunday could be far greater than any putt you have ever hit in the past which means that the sample you used to generate your percentages may have little bearing on the putt at hand.
I too heard Johnny Miller more than a few times on Sunday give probablilities to certain putts and shots. I heard him say it was 17 to 1 that Tiger could make a shot onto the green from where he was.
What I’d like to see is how the field is doing on a given putt. I think it would be easy to plot out throughout the day then by the time the leaders came through at the end you’d have a green with over a hundred dots on it and the %ages from each spot which would account for the differences in difficulty of each point on the green. Now we have a low-tech version of that with a different commentator at each green and they usually can tell the viewing audience how the field has done from that spot on the green. You’ll hear Roger Maltby say something like, “I’ve only seen one putt made from this spot today. Everyone’s been reading it as a left-right, but it never breaks.”
From the looks of this graph, 3 foot puts have about a 17% MISS rate? Is this among pros? That’s astounding, and tough to believe. Even with the bias of being more likely to remember the misses as opposed to the routine makes, that’s hard to believe.
Is the Freakonomics crowd scared to know how poor of golfers they really are?
Yes, all putts are different, they move the holes, they roll best in the morning, yada, yada yada. So Kobe’s field goal % is based on the same guy guarding him 1 on 1? Nope. Is it good to know? Yep.
So maybe you have the putting data by player, by course, by hole, by hour, by relative score, by round, by w or w/o Tiger in your group, etc. One thing for sure, it’s interesting and would bring a whole new level of understanding, respect, and passion to the game.