DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS … ALMOST

Want to know why the World Golf Championship Match Play Championship shouldn’t count in the rankings.

Simple. Almost every other event in the world is a stroke play event and there are lot of other variables in match play. Like, how your opponent plays.

Below, is a list of my top-10 and bottom-10 players from this week based on a simple ranking. Birdie percentage. How many birdies did the player make. Then they are standardized based on how the field average (23.90%) would do for the number of holes the player played for the week. That’s why Westwood (30.49% over 82 holes) is ahead of Manassero (33.33% over 33 holes).

Player (Top 10)	Bird %	Holes	St. Dev.	Wins
Hunter Mahan	36.46%	96	2.886	6
Martin Laird	33.82%	68	1.920	3
Lee Westwood	30.49%	82	1.400	4
Matteo Manassero	33.33%	33	1.271	1
Graeme McDowell	35.29%	17	1.102	0
Peter Hanson	29.51%	61	1.028	3
Keegan Bradley	31.25%	32	0.975	1
Rickie Fowler	33.33%	18	0.939	0
Rory McIlroy	27.72%	101	0.902	5
Dustin Johnson	29.17%	48	0.856	2

 

Player (Bottom 10)	Bird %	Holes	St. Dev.	Wins
Tiger Woods	16.67%	36	-1.017	1
Greg Chalmers	12.50%	16	-1.069	0
Sang-Moon Bae	17.91%	67	-1.149	3
K.J. Choi	11.76%	17	-1.173	0
Aaron Baddeley	11.76%	17	-1.173	0
Kyung Tae Kim	6.67%	15	-1.565	0
Robert Rock	11.76%	34	-1.659	1
Jason Dufner	5.88%	17	-1.742	0
Fredrik Jacobson	0.00%	13	-2.020	0
Francesco Molinari	6.06%	33	-2.403	1

This isn’t perfect, because it’s possible in the short term for someone to do something like make 8 birdies and 8 bogeys in a round (Gary Woodland was close). However, over the longer run, good players shoot lower scores. There is not a tradeoff between a player who makes a lot of birdies making a lot of bogeys also.

The basic point is golf is mostly a sport about what your individual skill can do on the course. When you play match play, it often becomes more about what your opponent does, which isn’t really meaningful to anyone.

Here’s a look at the final 8 finishers and their “defense” for the tournament.

Player	Bird %	Holes	St. Dev.
Hunter Mahan Opponent	21.88%	96	-0.464
Martin Laird Opponent	25.00%	68	0.213
Lee Westwood Opponent	26.83%	82	0.623
Peter Hanson Opponent	14.75%	61	-1.674
Rory McIlroy Opponent	18.81%	101	-1.198
Matt Kuchar Opponent	20.97%	62	-0.541
Mark Wilson Opponent	21.52%	79	-0.495
Sang-Moon Bae Opponent	23.88%	67	-0.003

As you can see, most of them played fantastic defense for the tournament. Rory McIlroy, for the first four rounds, and Peter Hanson were particularly tenacious around the hole. They simply did not allow their opponents to make birdies.

Take a look at Rory’s first four matches compared to Steve Stricker’s first three:

Round	Player	Birdies	Holes	Delta
1	George Coetzee	3	18	-1.30134
2	Anders Hansen	2	16	-1.82342
3	Miguel Angel Jimenez	2	17	-2.06238
4	Sang-Moon Bae	1	16	-2.82342
Total	Rory McIlroy Opponent	8	67	-8.01056

The Delta Column is the difference between the number of birdies Rory’s opponents made and the number of birdies they would be expected to make going by the field average. I know: It’s quite possible Rory’s birdie defense is explainable partly because none of those players are above the field average for this event.

Round	Player	Birdies	Holes	Delta
R1	Kevin Na	4	17	-0.06238
R2	Louis Oosthuizen	3	18	-1.30134
R3	Hunter Mahan	9	15	5.41555
Total	Steve Stricker Opponent	16	50	4.05182

Hunter Mahan had more birdies against Stricker in 15 holes than all of Rory’s opponents before Sunday had against him.

Player	Bird. %	Holes	Delta
Steve Stricker	28.00%	50	2.052
Steve Stricker Opponent	32.00%	50	4.052
Rory McIlroy	22.39%	67	-1.011
Rory McIlroy Opponent	11.94%	67	-8.011

Stricker had the fourth most birdies in the field on Friday when he lost to Mahan. So, it’s totally his fault that he ran into a buzzsaw. He should probably work on his ability to deny his opponents birdies.

So Striker birdied more holes, had a lower score for the first three days and ends up with a lot less OWGR points than Rory. How does that make sense?