Ben Coley asks the question, how exactly do you win the Masters? 15th Club and their performance stats say taking the right approach is vital...
"Drive for show, putt for dough."
It's golf's oldest maxim, still used up and down the land, from club locker rooms to commentary booths, on Twitter and off the cuff. It's even painted across the wall at the back of the driving range near me, the artist oblivious to the fact that while the driving range is packed, the putting green is empty.
Amateur golfers, it's fair to say, would benefit from spending more time working on their short games - but that's because so few of them do. To make the leap from 18 handicap to 12, putting might well be the quickest route - most 18 handicappers miss half a dozen putts they might've made during the course of a round. Plus, putting is the easiest thing for us amateurs to measure. "I three-putted six times today!" is a line you'll hear more often than "I missed on the wrong side of the fairway."
At the highest level, however, the maxim has been proven to be misleading. There has been a statistical revolution in golf, led by Mark Broadie's work, in turn on the shoulder of the Moneyball philosophy which revolutionised baseball while helping elevate the career of Jonah Hill. There is work still to do, but at the very top of professional golf, more and more players are learning about what separates them. They know that putting comes and goes and that quality ball-striking will earn them long-term success, and with that the opportunity to take advantage when they do capture lightning in a bottle.
Putting is a very important aspect of the sport, and we saw how valuable it can be when Rory McIlroy won at Bay Hill recently. Previously out of sorts, McIlroy burst into life after a conversation with Brad Faxon which had helped free up his stroke; suddenly, he was able to produce the putting performance of his career, and the returns were both immediate and explosive.
As at Bay Hill, when it comes to the crunch on Sunday, it can often appear as though putting is decisive and there's some truth in that. Certainly, it was the case for Rory, but would it have mattered had he not set up chances with an elite ball-striking performance? No.
The psychological impact of good putting can also be huge. And, unlike putting itself, this is something we cannot measure: how much Rory benefited from that performance, beyond the reaches of the tournament itself, we will never really know. But were he to win the Masters, even putting badly, I suspect some of the credit would have to go to Bay Hill. Putting well can have a profound impact on a week, even a season, whether fleeting or not. Making putt after putt is probably the quickest way to get confidence into the blood stream and that will never change.
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15th Club have remained ahead of the curve with their golf data analysis, working with the European Ryder Cup team to cap a memorable 2016.
Head to the testimonials section of their website and sitting proudly at the top is a message from Danny Willett, the Masters champion of the same year. "Thanks to 15th Club for helping me and John prep better for course strategy this week!!!"
John, aka Jonathan Smart, Willett's then-caddie, adds: "Thank you for everything it was a great team effort!"
The maxim of 15th Club is very different to that which sits at the top of this preview. No cliche, just a simple mission statement: "We help professional golfers to win by applying intelligence to data."
Perfect. So, with the help their performance data, I want to find out what it really takes to win - specifically at Augusta National, where Willett famously secured a green jacket two years ago.
What the numbers tell us are that 85 per cent of strokes gained from the 72-hole leaders since 2015 - Jordan Spieth, Danny Willett, Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose, the latter ultimately beaten in a play-off - came from two departments: approach play and putting.
Masters winners: Strokes-gained statistics
Spieth, 2015: Driving = -0.0 (53rd); Approaches = +2.3 (1st); Short game = +0.0 (50th); Putting = +2.4 (2nd)
Willett, 2016: Driving = +0.1 (35th); Approaches = +1.8 (1st); Short-game = +0.4 (20th); Putting = +1.2 (12th)
Garcia, 2017: Driving = +1.1 (12th); Approaches = +1.0 (19th); Short-game = +0.8 (12th); Putting = +0.9 (20th)
Spieth led the field in approach shots in 2015, as did Willett in 2016, and while Garcia ranked 19th, Rose was first. In other words, we were a missed putt away from the last three renewals of the Masters being won by the leader in approach shots. We knew already that hitting greens is key at Augusta - the median rank of winners in terms of GIR from 1997 to 2017 was third, with 10 finishing first or second. But now, thanks to modern data techniques, we can be even more specific.
Putting has also been significant, and that shouldn't surprise us on the undulating, lightning-fast surfaces designed by the legendary Alister MacKenzie.
Yet when it comes to successfully predicting events, rather than analysing them, would putting have really helped? In two of these three renewals, the answer is yes - Spieth ended the 2015 season ranked ninth in putting, and Willett had been impressive with the flat-stick in the run-up to Augusta. However, few would've forecast Rose ranking seventh and Garcia 20th and if we look further back, being a good putter has seldom been the key Masters pointer. Think Adam Scott, Bubba Watson, Charl Schwartzel and Angel Cabrera.
In 2015, Dustin Johnson led the field in both driving and putting, yet finished sixth. Symptomatic of a player still working out how to do it for 72 holes? Yes. But also evidence that failing in one specific key category - approach play - is almost impossible to overcome. Last year, Rory McIlroy led the field in strokes-gained around-the-greens, but he too failed to launch a meaningful challenge for the title.
Analysis of both 15th Club's strokes-gained data and every winner since the PGA Tour began collecting it in 2004 confirms that the key to winning the Masters is approach play. Find the right part of these difficult greens regularly enough and you will have a chance to win if, of course, you make enough putts, and avoid such disasters as the three- and four-putts which have stopped so many a challenge in its tracks.
Remember what separated Spieth and Willett in 2016 - approach shots. Spieth's to 12, followed by Willett's to 16, changed the course of the tournament.
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There have been 14 Masters champions since the dawning of the PGA Tour's strokes-gained data. Not one of them has ended the season of their Masters triumph ranked worse than 67th for approach shots and only three - Willett (67th), Garcia (54th) and Watson (59th in 2012) - have failed to crack the top 50.
Like all data, this is only part of the jigsaw. For starters, these are season-long rankings and the Masters is played midway through the PGA Tour season, but there are also a number of players - Willett the most notable - who played too few events for it to present a be-all and end-all view of their strengths and weaknesses.
However, it seems near certain that the winner of the 2018 Masters will be someone who ranks highly in approach shots, and that might be an issue for one of the market leaders. Jason Day currently ranks a lowly 185th in strokes-gained: approach this season and while that's through just nine measured rounds, the Australian ended last year ranked 97th and remains way below his 2015/16 peak.
Justin Rose is also outside the top 70 currently, but it would be a surprise if he ends the season there. Rose has been a consistent feature towards the top of the rankings for many years, and anyone who watches golf regularly will know that rather than represent a weakness, his iron play is a noted strength. Again, an example of how data can only tell us so much, and needs to be intelligently applied.
It's possible - probable, in fact - that a return to Augusta sparks an improvement in Rose's approach play. There are only four players in the field who rank higher in approach shots at this golf course over the last three years - Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Paul Casey and Phil Mickelson.
And if the formula here at Augusta bears fruit - thrive with approaches, make some putts - then only Spieth can be considered a better fit than Rose. They are the only two players who feature not only in that approach-play top-five, but in the top 10 of the equivalent putting ranking, too.
"We help professional golfers to win by applying intelligence to data."
Applying the mission statement of 15th Club - that blend of data and intelligence - suggests that Justin Rose might be set for the ultimate redemption. His approach play was worthy of a green jacket last year, only for Sergio Garcia to remind us that while analysis of numbers is a fundamental part of golf, it's still golf.
The Masters: Stats that matter
Yearly leaders in each category (finishing position in parentheses)
Driving
2015: DJ +1.7 (T6)
2016: Rory +1.4 (T10)
2017: Day +1.2 (T22 - the top 5 in driving all missed the cut)
Approach play
2015: Spieth +2.3 (won)
2016: Willett +1.8 (won)
2017: Rose +2.4 (2nd)
Short game
2015: Kuchar +1.7 (T46)
2016: Donaldson +1.8 (T21)
2017: McIlroy +1.4 (T7)
Putting
2015: DJ +2.7 (T6)
2016: Day +2.9 (T10)
2017: Fowler +2.7 (T11)
Best in each category since 2015 (min. two starts)
Driving
1. DJ +1.5
2. Rory +1.2
3. JB Holmes +1.0
4. Sergio +0.9
5. Streelman +0.9
Rose, Watson also in top 10
Approach
1. Spieth +1.4
2. Matsuyama +1.4
3. Casey +1.2
4. Phil +1.2
5. Rose +1.1
Poulter, Na also in top 10
Short game
1. Olazabal +1.3
2. Rafa CB +0.9
3. Casey +0.9
4. Ben An +0.9
5. Kuchar +0.8
Stricker, Watson, Mickelson also in top 10
Putting
1. Henley +2.0
2. DJ +1.8
3. Stricker +1.7
4. Spieth +1.7
5. Fowler +1.5
Rose, Day, Fitzpatrick also in top 10