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The Tour Championship

Vijay Singh won the 2002 Tour Championship with a score of 12 under par. Charles Howell III came in second two strokes behind. Phil Mickelson was well back tied for fifth at minus five, seven strokes behind Vijay and Tiger Woods was even further back, tied for seventh at four under par. But these are only the obvious facts about the 2002 Tour Championship. As usual, if you look beneath the surface the story is more interesting.

Vijay’s gross negative score (GNS, the result of adding up birdies and eagles) was -17. His gross positive score (GPS, the result of adding up bogeys, double bogeys and others)) was +5, for the winning minus 12. Phil’s GNS was -12, his GPS +7 for his -5 finish. Tiger on the other hand had a GNS of -18, one stroke better than Vijay but his GPS was +14, for his -4 net. Not at all like Tiger. To what can we attribute Tiger’s erratic play? Guess what? Tiger did something he rarely does, he led the tournament in driving distance but he also tied for the lead in number of double bogeys and came in 29th out of 30 players in driving accuracy.

Tiger wasn’t his usual patient self. He played more like Phil.

Who was patient?

Vijay was. Guess what other statistic Vijay came in tied for first? The fewest number of bogeys.

What does all of this mean for your game? It means that the sooner you start playing the Colonel Bogey Way, the sooner you will shed the Duffer label.

You are probably already getting enough pars and bogeys to have you breaking 100 or even 90 regularly but you are getting too many double bogeys and worse that are keeping you on the high side of 90 or 100.