Adam Scott beat Jason Dufner in a playoff to win the Crowne Plaza Invitational. In regulation play, Scott and Dufner gained 2.44 strokes per round on the field, or just under 10 strokes for the tournament.
The key to Scott’s victory was his approach play, shots starting outside 100 yards from the hole excluding drives, where he gained 1.67 strokes per round on the field, or 68% of his total gain. Scott continued his excellent putting for the season. He gained 0.66 strokes per round on the greens, or 27% of his total gain.
Scott’s putting has improved every season for the past four seasons. According to pgatour.com, in strokes gained putting Scott lost 0.7 strokes per round (rank 186) in 2010 while for the current season, Scott has gained 0.5 strokes per round from his putting (rank 18). That’s a remarkable 1.2 stroke per round improvement on the greens, with 0.45 of those strokes gained coming in the last year alone. Coincidentally or not, this season Adam Scott has been using the Aimpoint Express method for reading greens (www.aimpointgolf.com).
It is typical for the winners and top finishers of tournaments to gain most of their strokes on the field from approach shots and putting. The top ten finishers (and ties) at the Crowne Plaza gained 44% of their total strokes from approach shots, 36% from putting, and 20% from driving and short game shots. Here’s a strokes gained box score for the Crowne Plaza Invitational:
| Rank | Strokes gained per round |
|||||||||
| Golfer | Total | Drive | Appr | Short | Putt | Total | Drive | Appr | Short | Putt |
| Adam Scott | 1 | 19 | 3 | 56 | 26 | 2.44 | 0.38 | 1.67 | -0.27 | 0.66 |
| Jason Dufner | 2 | 5 | 10 | 41 | 37 | 2.44 | 0.91 | 1.13 | 0.06 | 0.34 |
| Freddie Jacobson | T3 | 11 | 55 | 49 | 1 | 2.19 | 0.61 | -0.18 | -0.06 | 1.82 |
| Nicholas Thompson | T3 | 17 | 24 | 55 | 10 | 2.19 | 0.43 | 0.83 | -0.27 | 1.19 |
| David Toms | T5 | 64 | 29 | 17 | 8 | 1.94 | -0.48 | 0.71 | 0.49 | 1.22 |
| John Senden | T5 | 33 | 50 | 39 | 2 | 1.94 | 0.22 | -0.14 | 0.12 | 1.74 |
| David Lingmerth | T5 | 40 | 22 | 32 | 24 | 1.94 | 0.07 | 0.91 | 0.22 | 0.75 |
| Ryan Palmer | T5 | 3 | 32 | 25 | 41 | 1.94 | 0.98 | 0.55 | 0.38 | 0.03 |
| Brendon Todd | T5 | 70 | 19 | 14 | 11 | 1.94 | -0.70 | 0.93 | 0.53 | 1.17 |
| Michael Thompson | T10 | 42 | 2 | 68 | 39 | 1.69 | 0.03 | 2.00 | -0.48 | 0.14 |
| Jimmy Walker | T10 | 15 | 26 | 57 | 25 | 1.69 | 0.44 | 0.79 | -0.28 | 0.74 |
| Kevin Chappell | T10 | 29 | 11 | 6 | 61 | 1.69 | 0.30 | 1.07 | 0.85 | -0.52 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | T10 | 16 | 14 | 24 | 43 | 1.69 | 0.43 | 0.98 | 0.38 | -0.10 |
Thanks to the PGA Tour, CDW and the ShotLink Intelligence program for access to the ShotLink data used in this analysis.
May 28, 2014, addendum posted by Mark Broadie
Adam Schupak wrote about Adam Scott’s use of the AimPoint Express Read in this article: http://bit.ly/1irJzmK