Aside from his final round 73, Webb Simpson dominated the field at TPC Sawgrass this week, finishing 18 under par, and four shots ahead of his nearest competition. This was even after he made double bogey at the last.
Simpson is one of the shortest hitters on tour, ranked 148th, but he ranks 5th in strokes gained putting. Still, great putting is not enough to offset his mediocre accuracy statistics, where he is ranked 99th in driving accuracy and 69th in greens in regulation.
So what happened this week? He hit over 82% of his fairways and over 76% of his greens, and made miles of putts. In other words, he put it all together this week.
By contrast, Tiger Woods, who had a decent tournament, averaged 17 more yards off the tee than Simpson, but only hit 62.5% of his fairways and 69.4% of his greens. He actually had his second best week on the greens this year.
What do we learn from this?
You don’t have to bomb it 325 in the air to win golf tournaments at the highest level, which means you don’t need to in your local tournaments either.
What you really need to do to be successful is keep the ball on the short grass. Yeah, it’s fun to bomb it. But, I think it would be more fun to shoot lower scores.
I’ve read that Jim Furyk figured that out in college. After his first year or two at Arizona, he learned to dial it back and keep it in the fairway, and he started to have more success.
I remember playing with Furyk in a U.S. Amateur qualifier and him hitting a 2 iron off the tee on a fairly long par 5. He knew he couldn’t reach it in two, so he played to his strengths…his wedge game and putter.
Needless to say, he beat me like a drum that day!
So yes, you do have an advantage if you can hit the ball a long way, but it doesn’t help if you are hitting it long and crooked.
Learn to hit more fairways off the tee and you’ll shoot lower scores. That will make the 19th hole a lot more enjoyable at the end of every round!
