Nissan Open 2003: Even Tiger Cannot Escape Impact of GPS Column

A strange thing happened at the Nissan Open. Tiger Woods came in #1 in Gross
Negative Score (GNS) (-21) and did not win the tournament. Why not? The reason,
as you can see from the table below is that Tiger had a Gross Positive Score
(GPS) of +15. In his first 3 rounds, Tiger had 10 bogeys and two double bogeys.
Very un-Tiger-like. Fred Funk was also very un-Fred-like. He was second to Tiger
in GNS (-19) but had a GPS of +12. But, as is discussed below, we cannot consider
either Tiger or Fred losers, not by a long shot.

And what two players tied for first after 72 holes? Mike Weir and Charles Howell
III who also tied for first with the lowest GPS with +7’s. So, once again, the
GPS column determined the winner.

The table below reveals some other interesting facts. The "winner"
in the long driving contest was Chris Smith who tied for 51st overall and cashed
a check for $10,732. Anyone think he might like to trade places with Fred Funk
who came in 65th in driving distance but cashed a check for $261,000. Note also
that Chris didn’t fare badly in the GNS column (-18) but had a killer +23 in
the GPS column.

Another major lesson we weekend golfers can take from the play of Woods and
Funk relates to putting bad shots, bad holes, and bad scores behind us and playing
the next shot, hole, round. After three rounds Tiger was tied for 28th and Fred
for 10th. Both could easily have just gone through the motions in the fourth
round or even worse dwelt on the number of bogeys and worse they had in the
previous three rounds and as a result do the same on Sunday. Instead, both returned
to their normal steady, smart play and moved up the leader board significantly.

I don’t want to finish on a negative note but feel compelled to point out that
the real "losers" at the Nissan are not mentioned above because they
did not make the cut. At the end of two rounds the GNSs for the final top ten
ranged from -5 (Campbell) to -10 (Howell, Funk and Mattice). So how would you
feel if at the end of two rounds you had a GNS of -9 (Tom Pernice), -8 (Carl
Paulson and Tom Levet), or -7 (Eduardo Romero, Carlos Franco, and Matt Gogel),
and you didn’t even get to play on the weekend. I won’t tell you what the GPS
was for these players but you can pretty well guess since the cut was at +3.
Looks like there are a lot of strong, long ball hitting, young players on the
PGA Tour who need to learn the value of a par.

Any player who is good enough to make it onto the PGA Tour can have reasonable
success on the tour by playing for safe pars and keeping themselves in position
to capitalize on birdie and eagle opportunities. By capitalize I mean they should
take full advantage of whatever negative number they shoot, rather than just
using it to offset a bogey or double bogey. But most will shoot for birdies
and eagles no matter how high the risk and then toil away on many holes trying
to save par or bogey.

If your goals are not more lofty than breaking 100 (or even 90), then shoot
for bogey and accept the occassional double bogey. Keep yourself in position
so that when a par or birdie opportunity presents itself you will be there to
take advantage of it. Then as soon as you have your par (ocassional birdie),
bogey, or double bogey, walk to the next tee with a strategy to get a bogey.

Name
Finished
Winnings $$$
Net Score
GNS
GPS
DD
GNS
(After 2nd Round)
Weir
1
810,000
-9
-16
+7
13
-7
Howell III
2
486,000
-9
-16
+7
17
-10
Funk
T3
261,000
-7
-19
+12
65
-10
Price
T3
261,000
-7
-15
+8
T23
-9
Woods
T5
171,000
-6
-21
+15
T4
-9
Choi
T5
171,000
-6
-14
+8
T10
-7
Couples
7
150,000
-5
-17
+12
40
-8
Campbell
T8
135,000
-4
-16
+12
6
-5
Micheal
T10
96,428
-3
-16
+13
15
-7
Smith
T51
10,732
+5
-18
+23
1
-10

 

Legend:
GNS (Gross Negative Score) – this statistic looks only at holes where
the player scored below par. This number is the total number of strokes
below par from all of the sub-par holes for the tournament.

GPS (Gross Positive Score) – this statistic looks only at the holes
where the player scored above par. This number is the total number of
strokes above par from all of the over par holes for the tournament.

DD (Driving Distance) – this statistic ranks the players by average
driving distance. In all situations, other than longest drive contests,
this statistic is the least relevant in predicting the outcome of golf
tournaments.

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