ESPN Golf Blog

Posted by Nathan Easler

The final week of the revamped Texas leg of the PGA Tour comes to one of the more historic and acclaimed courses with the Crowne Plaza Invitational at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Tex.

Colonial has been host since 1946 and is distinguished by several unique traditions: an official Scottish-tartan plaid jacket is worn by past champions, a champions dinner is hosted the night before the tournament begins, and the first tee is framed by the Wall of Champions, which bears the engraved names and scores of all the players that have won here dating back to the U.S. Open in 1941.

The wall has quite a recognizable list, including Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, Julius Boros, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson.

The Colonial attracts a solid field, and this year is no exception. There are four of the top 10 players in the world -- Paul Casey(3), Geoff Ogilvy (6), Kenny Perry (7) and Vijay Singh (9) -- 17 major champions, eight previous Colonial champions -- including the return of Ian Baker-Finch (1989) -- and 11 players who have already won in 2009. This week the stats blog looks at what stats have been historically important to success at Colonial, and makes some predictions as to how the course redesign will impact this year's event.

The track
The 7,204-yard par-70 course will play its longest ever. The key components of the course redesign include a lengthening of 150 yards, repositioning fairway bunkers for today's big hitters, and reshaping some holes.

Early feedback on the redesign from the players is very positive. Rory Sabbatini -- who is coming off a victory last week at the Byron Nelson and won at Colonial in 2007 -- and Baker-Finch both commented that they really like what has been done here. Both players gave the course great reviews even though it's expected to play two to three shots more difficult each round. Last year, Colonial ranked 25th out of 54 courses in scoring difficulty, with an average of 70.33 (+0.33). The field average here is usually right around par, but expect higher scores this year.

The Colonial Country Club has been in the middle of the pack in most of the course profile statistics. One of the rankings that stands out from last year is driving distance. On measured drives in 2008, players averaged 300.4 yards off the tee. Colonial was one of only five courses on tour last year to reach the 300-yard average drive plateau, so even shorter hitters should see an increase in distance this week off the tee.

Also, Colonial is one of the easier courses for sand saves. The field averaged par or better from greenside bunkers 56.5 percent of the time to rank fifth-easiest of 52 courses on the PGA Tour.

Where the course has its teeth is in its tightness. Colonial ranked 11th most difficult in driving accuracy percentage at 54.9 percent, and the course had the second-highest ranking in left rough tendency at over 20 percent. Left rough tendency is the percentage of time a tee shot comes to rest in the left rough, regardless of club used.

This is a slight disadvantage for players like Kenny Perry, Dustin Johnson, and Steve Stricker who regularly play a draw off the tee. Their preferred right to left ball flight can make for some difficult approaches from the left hand rough. That said, those guys are all top notch players that could be picked almost any week.

Perry has struggled here recently (T-46, MC, T-37 the past three years) but he has also won here in 2005 and 2003, and was runner-up in 2002. What is interesting, though, is that Perry's finishes have dropped recently and the left rough tendency has increased. There is definitely some correlation here, but you can never count Perry out. He is playing the best golf of his career as he nears his 49th birthday.

Fantasy foursomes
The Colonial has been historically known as more of a shot-maker's course than a power player's track. The key stats to success here have been proximity to hole and scrambling. GIR is always a key, but the top performers recently have been able to get away with missing some greens. The course has favored accuracy over power, but the redesign and additional 150 yards in length will make a push to change this.

Former champions also have history on their side this week. Ten players have won the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial multiple times: Ben Hogan (5 wins), Julius Boros, Billy Casper, Lee Trevino, Ben Crenshaw, Bruce Lietzke, Nick Price, Phil Mickelson, Corey Pavin and Perry (2 each). Only Hogan has won the tour stops in Fort Worth and Dallas in the same year. Sabbatini will try to match Hogan this week at Colonial.

For the fantasy picks this week, favor the former champs, players who rank high in proximity to the hole, scrambling, and/or par-4 scoring. It's also a good idea to consider some of the hottest players on tour, such as Sabbatini, Casey, and Brian Davis.

Paul Casey: Coming off a huge win at Wentworth, Casey has surged to No. 3 in the world and is the highest-ranked player in the field. Casey is noticeably more fit this year, and his balance and stability are exceptional. Casey ranks sixth in birdie average, and he is in the top 25 in GIR, ball striking, putting and birdie conversion percentage. He has finished in the top 20 or better in five of his six 2009 PGA starts. Though he has never played at Colonial, he is a solid pick.

Jim Furyk: Furyk has a solid record at Colonial that includes two runner-up finishes and five top-10 finishes in 13 starts. Furyk ranks in the top 30 on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy, putting average, birdie average, scoring average, proximity to the hole, sand saves and scrambling. Furyk is also T-8 in par-4 scoring this year. An interesting side note: Furyk has the longest streak on tour this year for consecutive sand saves, with an amazing 15 in a row.

Rory Sabbatini: Sabbatini is a former champ here that absolutely sizzled last week. He ranks third on tour in putting average, fifth in birdie or better conversion percentage, T-14 in par-4 scoring average. He is also in the top 25 in scoring, birdie average, and all-around ranking. His putter should keep him in the tournament even if he is wayward off the tee (driving accuracy: T-120 at 59.3 percent.)

David Toms: Toms is very quietly having an excellent year. He is second in scoring average and driving accuracy and third in par-4 scoring average. Toms is also in the top 25 in all of the following: total driving, all-around ranking, proximity to hole, scrambling and putting average. This solid play has led Toms to five top-10 finishes in 12 starts this year. He has a decent history at this track with four top-10s in 11 starts, including a runner-up finish in 2002.

Briny Baird: Baird is coming off a solid T-8 last week at the Byron Nelson and he has five top-25s in 15 starts this year. He is leading the tour in GIR at 71.2 percent and he is in the top 20 in all of the following: driving accuracy, ball striking, all-around ranking, proximity, scoring average, and total birdies. Baird has made all six of his cuts at the Colonial, with two top-25 finishes.

Sean O'Hair: Last year was O'Hair's first time at Colonial, and he finished a respectable T-26. He is 9-of-11 in making cuts this year, but each made cut has resulted in a top-25 finish, including a win at Quail Hollow and a runner-up finish at Bay Hill. O'Hair leads the tour in scoring average and all-around ranking, he is fifth in GIR, and T-14 in par-4 scoring average. His rise should continue.

Ben Crane: Crane has been one of the more solid "C" players this year with four top-25 finishes in 13 starts. Crane has been great at Colonial as well: His past three finishes are solo fifth, T-4, and T-17. Crane is in the top 25 in driving accuracy, all-around ranking and par-4 scoring. He leads the tour in average length of putts made per round at 83 feet, 3 inches.

Charlie Wi: His first year here was 2008, and he cashed in with a T-15. Wi ranks in the top 25 in scoring, birdie average, all-around ranking, proximity to hole and putting average, and he is T-8 in par-4 scoring average. Wi has five top-25s in 13 starts this season, and he showed signs of life last week after firing a 64 on moving day.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Riding a hot putter all week, Rory Sabbatini sizzled in his fifth PGA Tour victory, firing a final-round 64 and setting the tournament scoring record at 261 (minus-19). The South Africa native became the 14th player to win both the HP Byron Nelson Championship and the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial.

Sabbatini's putting was exceptional this week. He averaged only 25.75 putts per round, compared to the field's 28.93 average. Sabbatini picked up more than three shots on the field each day with his flatstick alone. This stat was padded by his two hole-outs during the week.

What his putts per round won't tell you is how timely Sabbatini's putting was. When he gave himself a birdie opportunity, Rory knocked down 25 of 49 birdie putts. Rory's 51 percent was 21 percent better than the field average.

The high point for Sabbatini this week had to be birdies at Nos. 15, 16 and 17 down the stretch Sunday. Sabbatini had five birdies on the back nine Sunday en route to his second 64 of the tournament. This is the second lowest final-round score by a winner in tournament history; Peter Thomson posted a 63 to become the championship's first international winner in 1956.

Overall, Sabbatini did not have a spectacular ball-striking week. He was the only player in the top 10 not to hit 70 percent or more of his greens. He hit 68.1 percent of his greens, which tied for 38th. The other players in the top 10 averaged 77.3 percent for an average rank of seventh. However, these numbers don't do justice to the darts Sabbatini was throwing at the pins down the stretch.

Sabbatini wasn't the best ball striker in the field, but he was tops on the back nine Sunday.

Love for the new digs
D.A. Weibring received the highest of accolades for this recent work on the TPC Four Seasons course. The new layout features large, undulating greens and tree-lined fairways with creeks and ponds that come into play. The fairways were also changed to Bermuda grass, quickening the track. Looking at these numbers, it is no wonder the players fell in love with the design.

The scoring average for the field dropped a huge 2.3 strokes between 2008 and 2009. The TPC Four Seasons course now has given up more birdies than any other venue on tour this year (1,670). This is quite the change from last year, when it was the seventh most difficult in scoring out of 54 courses and yielded only 1,121 birdies.

The other big change from 2008 to 2009 was the 11.4 percent average increase in GIR. The 2009 field hit 888 more greens this year, and for the tournament, took 1,354 fewer strokes. The new fairways also helped add 11.5 yards off the tee this year.

Notables
• Brian Davis now has three consecutive top-5 finishes. He has posted eight consecutive rounds in the 60s and has the longest active streak of 20 consecutive rounds of par or better on the PGA Tour. During that stretch he has finished T-19 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, T-38 at the Quail Hollow Championship, T-5 at both the Players Championship and the Valero Texas Open, and second at the HP Byron Nelson Championship.

How has Davis managed to emerge this season?

These numbers show consistency and a game gaining confidence. Davis' iron play has been stellar and continues to improve. He is also cashing in on his birdie opportunities and making some longer putts.

• John Mallinger earned his best finish at the HP Byron Nelson Championship with a sixth-place showing in his third start there. Mallinger now has three top-10s in his last six starts, including his sixth career third-place finish at the Players. Mallinger has not yet finished higher than third in his career.

• Charley Hoffman (T-23) extended his streak of made cuts to 22. He is 13-of-13 in 2009 with nine top-25 finishes. His made-cut streak is second longest on tour behind Tiger Woods' 35.

• Despite a double-bogey at the final hole, where he 3-putted from 5 feet, New Zealand's Danny Lee (69-67-69-66 -- 271) posted his best finish (T-13) on the PGA Tour. Lee's previous best finish was T-20 at the 2008 Wyndham Championship, as an amateur, where he also shot four rounds in the 60s. He won an event earlier this year on the European Tour.

• The 1987 HP Byron Nelson Championship winner and 2009 Presidents Cup U.S. team captain Fred Couples (69-66-67-67 -- 269) earned his third top-10 finish (T-8) this season. Couples will turn 50 and become eligible for the Champions Tour in early October but continues to show he still belongs with the younger set. Now No. 61 (up from 76) on the FedEx Cup points list, Couples posted season-best T-3 efforts at the Northern Trust Open and the Shell Houston Open.

European Tour
Paul Casey now leads in 2009 wins, picking up this third of the year at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. Casey is now the top-ranked international player, climbing all the way to third in the World Golf Rankings. He started the year at 41st, but has surged with a January victory in Abu Dhabi, a second-place finish at the WGC-Accenture Match Play, a victory at the Shell Houston Open, and top 25s at both the Masters and the Players.

Champions Tour
Michael Allen, playing in his first event with the 50-and-over set, captured a 2-stroke victory over Larry Mize at the 2009 Senior PGA Championship. Allen's triumph ends a winless streak of 267 starts and is his first victory since a 1998 Nationwide Tour title at the Greater Austin Open. He has been winless in 334 career starts on the PGA Tour, where he still has exempt status for the rest of the 2009 season.

Allen became only the fourth player to win a major championship in his Champions Tour debut, joining Roberto De Vicenzo (1980 U.S. Senior Open), Arnold Palmer (1980 Senior PGA Championship) and Jack Nicklaus (1990 Tradition).

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

The PGA Tour begins Week 1 of 3 in the revamped Texas leg of the schedule. The Resort Course at La Cantera hosts the Valero Texas Open just 214 days after Zach Johnson won the event in the Fall Series.

Although the host course and tournament date have varied, the Valero Texas Open is the third-oldest PGA Tour event, dating back to 1922. You get a better idea of the history of this event when you consider a few of its champions: Walter Hagen, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer.

La Cantera will provide some birdie relief this week for those players who suffered through a tough scoring weekend at The Players.

The par-70 course was the fifth shortest on the PGA Tour in 2008 at 6,811 yards. La Cantera also offered up some of the longest drives last year. Here are the specific numbers on this scoreable track:

As shown above, the fifth-shortest course on tour ranked third last year in driving distance, with players averaging 292.6 off the tee. La Cantera gave up the second-most 300-yard drives last year; the field was able to top 300 yards 42.2 percent of the time.

This short track with bombing potential off the tee leads to some great birdie opportunities and low scores. Since the Texas Open moved here in 1995, the average winning score has been 18 under par.

Not only does La Cantera offer up some short birdie attempts, the putts are also makeable. For evidence, examine these two rankings from last year.

Players at La Cantera had converted some of their best birdie looks all year in 2008. The course was the second easiest on average for getting close to the hole on approach shots, averaging 31 feet.

The fact that players averaged 8 feet on their one-putts shows that a number of those birdie attempts found the bottom of the cup. This combination of a short course with long drives and close approaches with some putts falling leads to many par-breakers; La Cantera had the ninth-most birdies on tour last year out of 54 courses.

The fun doesn't stop there. If you tune in to the tournament coverage this week, you might even get a glimpse of a roller coaster this week as Six Flags San Antonio resides next door to La Cantera.

In the tournament's recent history, the champions have been firing on all cylinders. In the past five years, each winner has ranked in the top 10 in driving accuracy, GIR and scrambling. The field leader in scrambling has won the event in three of the past six years. In two of the past five years, the field leader in GIR has won the event. Last year, Zach Johnson led the field in ballstriking and scrambling. He set personal bests in GIR (85 percent) and scrambling (91 percent.)

Fantasy foursomes
For this week's fantasy picks, you want guys who can get hot and make a lot of birdies. A good strategy for this week is to balance your best firepower picks with some consistent, veteran presence.

• Justin Leonard: The Texan has dominated this event with three wins, two runner-ups and nine top-25s in 11 starts. Leonard is in the top 20 this year in driving accuracy and scrambling. He has shown he can go low as well, carding a 63 in his third round at the Bob Hope this year.

• Anthony Kim: It's been a roller coaster of a season for Kim. The high point was his second round at Augusta when he set a tournament record with 11 birdies on his way to a 65. Kim has only one top-10 this year in eight starts, but this is the type of event to gamble on him. He is second on tour in birdies per round and percent of holes at birdie or better. Kim was also the runner-up here in 2006.

• Chad Campbell: The Andrews, Texas, native appeared to be in the driver's seat at the Masters after putting on quite a display. Known as one of the best iron players, Campbell should be dialed in from the key distances on this short track. Campbell ranks fourth on tour in approach proximity from 100-125 yards; overall Campbell is 26th in GIR at 67.7 percent. He has made the cut in all five of his appearances here with three top-25 finishes.

• Dustin Johnson: Johnson had some success on another short course this year, Pebble Beach, where he picked up his second PGA Tour victory in the weather-shortened event. Johnson has plenty of firepower and with his length, he often plays a different golf course than the rest of the field.

Johnson ranks fifth in driving distance at 302.2, and he has recorded the longest drive on tour this year, a whopping 430 yards. He is fourth in birdies per round and fourth in par breakers. Last year, Johnson shot all four rounds under par and finished T-15 here.

• Alex Cejka: This is really just riding the hot hand.

Through three rounds at The Players Championship, nobody was close to Cejka. When he's on, he drives the ball better than anybody. He hit 83 percent of his fairways for the first three rounds last week, and he ranks 23rd in driving accuracy. He has made three consecutive cuts here with his best finish T-19. He is a solid flier to take this week.

• D.J. Trahan: Trahan is first on tour in ballstriking and third in GIR (70.7 percent). He ranks 10th in total birdies and this is the kind of track where he could get on a roll. Trahan has made nine of 13 cuts this year, including four top-25s.

• Scott Verplank: Born in Dallas, Verplank has been solid lately, making eight consecutive cuts. He is the type of player who should position himself well on this course. Verplank is fifth on tour in driving accuracy, hitting 72.4 percent of his fairways, and 12th in putting average. Last year was the first time Verplank played here in five years and he finished T-38.

• Charlie Wi: Wi shot a final-round 61 last year to finish runner-up here. The short course plays to his strengths as Wi leads the tour in proximity from 50 to 125 yards. He has shown he can repeat that scorching performance from last year -- he shot a 61 already this year in the third round of the Bob Hope. Wi has made eight of 11 cuts this year with four top-25s.

The Starters: Justin Leonard, Chad Campbell, Dustin Johnson, Charlie Wi

Next in Line: Anthony Kim, D.J. Trahan, Alex Cejka, Scott Verplank

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Henrik Stenson played at a high level across the board all week to beat an elite field at the 2009 Players Championship. The Swede's solid play reached its pinnacle Sunday; his bogey-free 66 at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass was a thing of beauty.

The victory gives Stenson his second PGA Tour win, $1.71 million for the victory, and moves him to No. 5 in world rankings. This week, the stats blog breaks down the 2009 Players Championship, focusing on a comparison between Stenson and Tiger, the numbers that show Woods might still be recovering from ACL surgery, the importance of tee times and timely scoring, plus how the signature 17th hole was tamed this year.

Stenson rock solid; Tiger shaky, but scoring
Stenson's most impressive statistic this week was his weekend driving. The Swede hit 26 of 28 fairways on the weekend (92.9 percent), ranking him first for the final two rounds.

This was quite an improvement compared to Round 1, when Stenson found the short grass on only 5 of 14 occasions (35.7 percent). Despite this start, Stenson still finished T-11 in driving accuracy and sixth in ball striking. This bucks two very strong trends among recent Players champions: Three of the past four winners led the field in both driving accuracy and greens hit.

Stenson did not join the company of Sergio Garcia (2008), Stephen Ames (2006), and Fred Funk (2005) in these ball-striking statistics. Stenson compensated for it with a very solid short game, making 91.4 percent of putts inside 10 feet and scrambling at a 69.6 percent clip on a course that became increasingly more difficult each day.

Here is a more complete breakdown of how Stenson compared with Woods and the field:

As the table above shows, Stenson really had no glaring deficiencies this week. He bested Woods almost across the board. Both players attacked the par-5s and finished at 8 under on them, but Stenson was exceptional on the par-4s, finishing second in par-4 scoring.

The numbers that stand out for Tiger are his weak ball-striking stats and his putting inside 10 feet. Woods came in to the week making 91.94 percent of his putts inside 10 feet, giving him the unofficial PGA Tour lead in this category.

Although Tiger was 60-of-60 from 5 feet and in, he struggled from 5-10 feet, making only 2 of 11 (18.2 percent). Coming into The Players, Tiger had converted 20 of 34 from this range (58.8 percent.) Woods was particularly poor in one of the most important categories at the Stadium Course: driving accuracy. Tiger ranked 62nd out of 70, hitting only 53.6 percent of his fairways. It's a testament to Tiger's grinding ability and mental game that he still finished T-8.

There are a couple of points of interest with these numbers in relation to Tiger's recovery from ACL surgery.

First, Tiger's upper body was noticeably more buff after he came back from surgery. Putting is powered by your shoulders and given feel through your hands; Tiger now has broader shoulders and stronger hands. The quickening greens at TPC Sawgrass might have exposed that Tiger hasn't been able to mentally adjust yet to these physical changes.

As to the driving accuracy item, this might also be rehab-related. Giving further analysis to Tiger's driving, he ranked dead last in the field in right rough tendency at 24.5 percent (13 of 53). Right rough tendency is the percentage of times a tee shot comes to rest in the right rough on laser-measured drives. The tendency for Tiger to miss right might be a result of his not fully trusting his surgically repaired knee, or it might be a carryover effect from the swing changes he made before surgery to minimize the torque on his knee.

Timing is everything
An interesting way to break down scores is to compare a player's score to the field average that day. That way, one gets a better idea of just how good a closing-round 66 might be or that a final-round 73 might be better than most.

The final analysis above shows that Stenson's 6-under 66 on Sunday was 7.46 shots below the field average. Looking at Tiger's numbers, his biggest move was on moving day when he shot -3.61 below the field average to move up 20 spots on the leaderboard.

Another timing item worth looking into is the early/late scoring by round. It was quite warm in Florida this week, and the grounds crew allowed the course to dry out as the day and week progressed.

Not surprisingly, it was more difficult to play late in the day each round at the 2009 Players Championship. This is of particular note on the weekend when you consider that the early players began the day at the bottom of the field and they still bested the players at the top.

This analysis supports the idea that the course was drying out and becoming more difficult; however, it also needs to be noted that there is also much less pressure on the players ranked 36th to 70th (early tee times) than the top 35 (late tee times).

The signature hole
The 17th hole at the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course is one of the most recognizable patches of ground in the world of golf. Nice weather with low winds took some bite away from the teeth of this short but difficult hole.

Pete Dye's signature hole had less than half as many balls in the water this year compared to 2008, and less than one-third the water visits of 2007.

On the week, the hole played to an average of 3.025, the easiest it has played in the past five years.

Notables
• Stenson is the first Swedish-born player to win The Players and joins Sandy Lyle (1987) and Garcia (2008) as the only Europeans to win in the tournament's 35-year history. Stenson continues an impressive record at The Players: T-23rd, T-10th, T-3rd, 1st.

• Alex Cejka, one week removed from an epidural, held the largest 54-hole lead in the tournament's history at Sawgrass. Despite his Sunday struggles (79), Cejka still managed his best 2009 finish this week at T-9. He had hit 83.3 percent of his fairways entering Sunday, but managed just 7 of 14 in the final round.

• The third-round leader/co-leader has won 14 of 19 events (74 percent) on the PGA Tour this season. Last year, the third-round leader/co-leader won only 22 of 46 events (48 percent).

• Tiger Woods is now 8 of 21 (38 percent) when entering the final round second or tied for second. This was the 22nd time Tiger has entered a final round 5 shots back; he has won two of these, most recently at Bay Hill this year.

• Geoff Ogilvy (T-22) maintains the top spot in the FedExCup standings for the 11th consecutive week. His 1,431 points lead second-ranked Phil Mickelson, who owns 1,377 points.

• Ponte Vedra Beach resident Jim Furyk's T-5 finish is his third top-5 at The Players in his past six starts.

• Jeff Klauk, whose father is the former superintendent of the Stadium Course, had the best showing of 19 first-time competitors, finishing T-14.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

The PGA Tour travels 14 miles outside the "Big Easy" this week for the Zurich Classic at the TPC Louisiana.

This marks the second consecutive week the tour will play a Pete Dye track. Built in 2004, TPC Louisiana is a much more modern design than last week's venue, Harbour Town Golf Links. The TPC Louisiana features more generous greens and fairways than those seen at Hilton Head.

The TPC Louisiana has only hosted the Zurich Classic three times: in 2005, '07 and '08. The '06 tournament was contested at English Turn after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the area. There has been a constant over the past four years: Each winner has claimed his first PGA Tour win: Tim Petrovic ('05), Chris Couch ('06), Nick Watney ('07) and Andres Romero ('08.)

This golf course has some extremes, featuring very difficult holes as well as quality par-breaking opportunities. The front nine features an ominous stretch of three long par-4s nicknamed the "triangle of doom," as Nos. 4-6 measure 482, 428, and 476 yards respectively. The finishing leg of this triangle was in the top 3 percent of the most difficult holes on tour in 2008, yielding only 19 birdies and 121 bogeys.

Along with this difficult stretch, there are two other par-4s over 480 yards, and the par-3s here average 210 yards. That said, there are definitely scoring opportunities, as last year the course ranked 31st out of 54 courses in scoring, and the average winning score here has been nearly 14 under par. The easiest hole on the course is the 561-yard, par-5 7th hole, yielding 192 birdies and only 22 bogeys last year.

In just three events at TPC Louisiana, there have been a variety of ways to get it done. Last year's champ, Andres Romero, drained many long putts and really cranked up his iron play. Romero made 10 putts longer than 10 feet last year (T-1 in the field). The Argentine missed only six of his last 46 greens after failing to connect on 12 of his first 26. In 2007, Watney's iron play was key as he finished T-9 in GIR and T-5 in proximity.

In 2005, the TPC Louisiana's inaugural host year, Petrovic's short game proved crucial to his victory. He converted over 77 percent of his scrambling opportunities (7th in the field) and finished T-5 in putting average.

There is another constant among these champs: Not one of them had a good week driving the ball accurately. None of these champions ranked in the top 30 in driving accuracy, and Petrovic ranked third to last in the field during his win, hitting only 41.1 percent of his fairways. There are many ways to get it done here, and the cost of rough is low enough to allow for several wayward tee shots.

The one statistical category that stands out at the TPC Louisiana the past two years is average distance of putts made. This stat measures the sum of the length of all putts a player makes for the round. Dye's course has ranked fourth and sixth most difficult out of more than 40 courses in each of the past two seasons.

Hitting fairways will not separate you from the field here, but a hot putter from long range definitely will, as Romero discovered. His average distance of putts made each round was 110 feet, ranking him first in the field. His average distance of putts made surpassed the field average by more than 40 feet per round.

Kenny Perry : Can he?
Kenny Perry is playing the best golf of his career. He has won 10 times on tour since turning 40. Last year alone, Perry claimed three victories. He is the oldest player in PGA Tour history to win that many times in a single season. The most interesting storyline this week is: How will he respond after the heart-wrenching experience at Augusta two weeks ago?

Even after his runner-up finish at the Masters, Perry has moved all the way up to No. 5 in the world, the highest ranking of his career. After his win at the FBR Open earlier this year, Perry led the PGA Tour money list for the first time.

As for his record at TPC Louisiana, Perry hasn't done anything special, finishing T-23 and T-66. This week, he's the only player in the top 10 of the world rankings in the field. He leads the tour in scoring adjusted average, stands fourth in ball striking and is 10th in scrambling.

Perry openly admits that setting the goal of making last year's Ryder Cup team was the first time in his career he set any goal. His new focus: 20 PGA Tour victories. He currently sits at 13 wins, and we should not bet against him. His 14th win might not come this week -- he might not even make the cut -- but would any of us really be surprised to see him flourish after his Masters adversity?

Fantasy Foursomes
The field this week is without many of the top-ranked players. We'll pick the hottest players on tour and the early-season standout performers for this week's Fantasy Foursomes.

• John Merrick is proving to be one of the best players under 30 without a victory. His T-6 at the Masters was his third top-10 in 11 starts; he has only missed two cuts in 2009. His only standout statistics are driving distance (11th) and total birdies (8th). He has found a way to get it done at the TPC Louisiana, finishing T-7 and T-18 in the past here.

• Nick Watney isn't getting enough credit for how well he is playing. He has made the cut in all nine appearances this year, including eight top-25s. The former Zurich Classic champion currently ranks fourth in FedExCup standings and is fourth on the money list.

Watney is not only averaging more than 300 yards off the tee (No. 8), he is second in scoring average, 14th in scrambling and 15th in total putting.

• Rory Sabbatini is coming off a top-10 at the Verizon Heritage and a T-20 at the Masters. He has made eight of nine cuts this year, including five top-25s. His best statistical category is his putting average, at ninth. Sabbatini is a notoriously streaky player, and lately he's had a good thing going.

• Scott Piercy just might be the first-time winner the Zurich Classic is looking for. In his rookie season, he has recorded five top-25s in 10 starts. Piercy ranks seventh in driving distance and is tied for ninth in birdie average.

• Other than Perry, Steve Stricker is the next best world-class player in the field. Stricker is tied for ninth with Piercy in birdie average, is second in scrambling and first in actual scoring average. Stricker has made seven of nine cuts this year, each time finishing in the top 25.

• Watch out for Ian Poulter this week as he has made three of four cuts, each time finishing in the top 25.

• Charles Howell III has played rock-solid this year, making nine consecutive cuts. Howell already had amassed four top-25s and two top-10s and ranks 11th on the PGA Tour in scoring average.

The Starters: Kenny Perry, Nick Watney, Rory Sabbatini, Ian Poulter
Next in line: John Merrick, Scott Piercy, Steve Stricker, Charles Howell III

Other notables
• This week marks the last opportunity for players to move into the top 10 in the FedExCup standings and qualify for The Players Championship in two weeks. Any player in the top 58 of the FedExCup standings could potentially qualify this week.

• Danny Lee, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, will make his professional debut in the Zurich Classic.

• Patrick Sheehan looks to equal Paul Stankowski's 1996 record of winning on the Nationwide Tour one week and on the PGA Tour the following week. Sheehan won last week's Athens Regional Foundation Classic and will be competing this week at the Zurich Classic.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

What a week for Brian Gay.

In posting a 7-under 64 for the low round Sunday to finish at 20-under 264, Gay cruised to the 2009 Verizon Heritage title by 10 strokes over Luke Donald and Briny Baird. The victory is the second of Gay's career -- the opposite-field event Mayakoba Golf Classic in 2008 was his other -- and came in his 330th career start on the PGA Tour.

Heading into last week, our predictions were that the GIR percentage would be quite low because of Harbour Town's small greens. We also surmised that scrambling would be a key stat for the tournament leaders. Harbour Town Golf Links played true to form, with players hitting just 57.1 percent of the greens. The course ranks as the second-most difficult (out of 20) so far this year. Bay Hill was the most difficult (55.0 percent) and the tour average for 2009 is 63.7 percent.

Scrambling was another key statistic last week. In fact, of the primary categories (driving distance, driving accuracy, greens in regulation, proximity, scrambling and putting average), scrambling had the highest correlation with success at Harbour Town; this is unusual, as GIR usually dominates here. Five of the top-10 finishers ranked among the top 10 in scrambling, led by Gay with an amazing up-and-down rate of 91.7 percent. He beat the field's scrambling average of 62.1 percent by nearly one-third.

Another expectation at Harbour Town was a high rate of chip-ins. This also held true -- to the tune of 73 total hole-outs, the most on tour (by nine) this year.

Gay was dominant all four days, playing the best golf of his career. To reiterate the importance of accuracy, shot-making and short-game savvy over raw power at Harbour Town, let's take a look at Gay's stats for the week compared to those of Tim Wilkinson, who finished T-6.

Not surprisingly, Gay dominated nearly across the board this week, ranking in the top three in all major stats except driving distance, where he was 72nd among 78 players who made the weekend cut.

Other than Gay's 10-shot victory margin, his most impressive number was limiting himself to just two bogeys on the week -- the fewest at the Verizon Heritage since scoring records have been kept, starting in 1983. Gay's ratio of birdies or better to bogeys or worse was 10.5 to 1. When you compare to the numbers put up by runners-up Donald (2.1 to 1) and Baird (2.3 to 1), you get an idea of how flawlessly Gay played.

Donald had 20 birdies and an eagle on the week, identical to Gay's par-breakers, but Donald also carded eight bogeys and two doubles. For further context of how well Gay played, the field averaged more bogeys or worse than it did birdies or better for the week -- one birdie or better for every 1.02 bogey or worse.

Wilkinson had a successful week in his own right, recording his fourth career top-10 finish. His stats were comparable to Gay's, with the exception of his iron play (he ranked T-72 in GIR and 65th in proximity). The fact that the proximity differential between Gay and Wilkinson was only 10 feet but the players still finished on opposite ends of the ranking in this category is another testament to the small greens at Harbour Town.

Wilkinson led the field in fairways hit in regulation (50 out of 56), an outstanding 89.3 percent rate. He also led the field with 97 putts, the fewest in a tournament so far this season. The all-time tour record is held by David Frost, with 92 putts at the 2005 Verizon Heritage.

Analyzing Gay and Wilkinson, you get a strong sense of the finesse-type play suited for this course. Wilkinson ranked even lower than Gay in driving distance (74 out of 78), but the players ranked top two in driving accuracy and top four in scrambling. It was a victory for the little guys -- Gay at 5-foot-10 and 155 pounds, and Wilkinson at 5-7, 160.

The event leader in distance off the tee was 19-year-old Rory McIlroy at nearly 290 yards. And although McIlroy (5-9, 160) is the same build as Wilkinson and Gay, he's a completely different type of player.

The Northern Ireland teen sensation possesses great ball-striking ability and power, but these skills didn't translate to success at Harbour Town. McIlroy (T-58) failed to record a top-20 finish for the first time in six starts on the PGA Tour this season. His previous five outings included the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship (T-5), Honda Classic (T-13), WGC-CA Championship (T-20), Shell Houston Open (T-19) and the Masters (T-20).

Notables
• Gay's winning score (264) breaks the previous scoring record at the Verizon Heritage, set by Loren Roberts in 1996 (19-under 265). The 10-stroke winning margin also is a tournament record, besting Davis Love III's 7-stroke triumph in 1998.

• Gay's victory margin also marks the largest on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson won the 2006 BellSouth Classic by 13 shots. Gay's is the ninth double-digit winning margin in tour history, dating back to 1970 when the organization began record-keeping.

• With the victory, Gay earned his first invitation to the Masters in 2010. He is a former resident of Louisville, Ga., located approximately 50 miles from the Augusta National Golf Club. Gay has made 10 of 11 cuts this year, including six top-25 finishes and three top-10s.

• Eight of the nine past champions of the Verizon Heritage made the cut this week. The list includes: Boo Weekley, Aaron Baddeley (T-21), Peter Lonard (T-48), Stewart Cink (T-62), Love (T-21), Justin Leonard (T-48), Jose Coceres (T-48) and Glen Day (76). The only one to miss the cut was Bob Tway.

• Though he finished a respectable T-13, Weekley saw his two-year reign at the Verizon Heritage ended this week. The tournament has not had a defending champion miss the cut since Love in 1993.

• Love fell short in his bid for a sixth Verizon Heritage title. He has now made 24 consecutive starts (with 13 top-25 finishes) at the annual Hilton Head event. In addition to his wins in 1987, 1991, 1992, 1998 and 2003, he has six additional top-10 finishes. Those 11 top-10s are a tournament record.

• Wilkinson's T-6 finish is the best by a left-hander at the Verizon Heritage since Mickelson finished third in 2002.

• After missing the cut in his inaugural Verizon Heritage appearance in 2001, Aaron Baddeley -- the 2006 champion -- has reeled off four consecutive top-25 finishes at the tournament (1st in '06, T-10 in 2007, T-2 in 2008, T-21 in 2009.)

• The third-round leader/co-leader has won 13 of 16 tour events (81.3 percent) so far this season, including Pat Perez at the 90-hole Bob Hope Classic. By comparison, only 22 of 46 (48.0 percent) third-round leaders/co-leaders went on to victory in 2008, including Weekley at the Verizon Heritage

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

There was no shortage of storylines or lack of excitement this week at Augusta.

First, there was the wild three-man playoff including the potential for the oldest major champion in history with Kenny Perry.

Add in a rare Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson final-round pairing in a major that provided some Sunday fireworks, a new single-round Augusta National birdie record, the last Masters for Gary Player and Fuzzy Zoeller, plus an all-world par save on the first playoff hole by eventual champion Angel Cabrera.

This week the stats blog touches on all this excitement, focusing on the numbers that led Cabrera to become a multiple major champion.

Going into Augusta, greens in regulation was the key statistic to watch this week. It was once again an excellent predictor of success. The top 10 on the final leaderboard averaged 70.72 percent of GIR, a nearly 10 percent increase over the field average of 61.93 percent.

Runner-up Perry led the field in GIR at 76.39 percent. Cabrera did not have a standout week in terms of ball-striking overall, hitting only 58.93 percent of his fairways (48th place) but a respectable 69.44 percent of his greens (T-14.)

Cabrera was able to get up and down nearly three-quarters of the time this week, ranking him T-7 in scrambling. What separated Cabrera from the field was his timing and short game execution when it mattered the most.

Cabrera's scrambling rate on the slippery slopes of Augusta National's greens is impressive by itself. When you consider the timing of this scrambling and putting, Cabrera earned his victory as much as Perry lost the tournament. Down the closing stretch of regulation in his final round, Cabrera 1-putted the last four greens, going birdie-birdie-par-par.

His most impressive save was to follow on the first playoff hole. Cabrera missed off the tee well right in the trees and attempted to get near the green rather than punch out. A very fortunate kick left out of the trees put him back in the fairway -- the equivalent of a punch out from the trouble. He was able to stuff it to 6 feet and make the putt for his third consecutive successful scrambling conversion.

Cabrera's most impressive stat on the week might be his birdie conversion rate of 40 percent. He made the most of his birdie chances, converting two out of every five birdie putts, ranking him fourth in the field. To put this into context, the tour leader this year in birdie conversion is PGA Tour money list leader Geoff Ogilvy at 39.07 percent.

Cabrera was able to best Ogilvy's mark amid major championship pressure. The leader in birdie conversion this week was Anthony Kim at a whopping 55 percent. Of Kim's 22 birdies, 11 came in his record-setting second round, besting Nick Price's single-round birdie record at Augusta by one.

The Tiger-Phil pairing
Woods and Mickelson made for some great excitement on Sunday, both coming within 1 shot of the lead at different times. This marks the third time the two have been paired together on Sunday at a major, the other two being the 1997 PGA Championship and the 2001 Masters.

Tiger had a very solid week with his irons, hitting 72.2 percent of his greens (T-6). He totaled 52 GIR on the week. That is the most greens he has hit in a year he didn't win the Masters.

In his four victories, Tiger has hit at least 54 greens on the week. His short game numbers, however, were very pedestrian, scrambling at 60 percent (26th place) and averaging 1.808 putts per GIR (29th). Woods and Mickelson had the worst scrambling rates of the top 10 finishers.

It was missed fairways that hurt Tiger the most this week, especially down the stretch. Woods bogeyed the last two holes, missing both fairways, both greens and failing to get up and down both times. It's a rare event to see Tiger fail to execute at that point of a major championship. For the week, Tiger was 5 over when he missed the fairway, compared to 12 under when he found the short grass.

Mickelson's putter got quite cold after his record-tying front nine on Sunday. His 30 got him within 1 shot of the lead. Lefty carded seven 1-putts on the front nine, but had only a single 1-putt on the back nine. We should have seen Lefty's finish coming: He was 9-under on the front nine for the week and even on the back nine.

Notables
• Cabrera was the only player this week to open with three rounds in the 60s. The Argentine became the 11th player in Masters history to do so following in the footsteps of 2008 champ Trevor Immelman. No player has ever posted four rounds in the 60s in a single Masters.

With his victory, Cabrera moved from No. 69 to 18th in the Official World Golf Ranking. He now has two PGA Tour wins in 114 starts and earned an exemption on the PGA Tour through 2014, a lifetime Masters invitation and five-year exemptions to the U.S. Open, British Open, PGA Championship and Players Championship.

With Cabrera's win coming from the final twosome, the Masters champion has come from the last Sunday pairing every year since 1991 with one exception -- Zach Johnson in 2007.

Had he won Sunday, Perry would have become the oldest Masters champion as well as the oldest major champion in golf history. Jack Nicklaus, at 46 years, 2 months, 23 days, owns the Augusta distinction for his 1986 Masters win, while Julius Boros' 1968 PGA Championship triumph at 48 years, 4 months, 18 days is the overall majors mark.

• Sunday's Tiger/Phil pairing marks the 24th time they have been paired together. Phil edged Tiger by a single stroke on Sunday (67 to 68), but Tiger still holds the head-to-head career lead at 11-9-4. Tiger has averaged 68.96 strokes compared to Phil's 70.13. But watch out … Phil is gaining on Tiger, going 4-1-1 in their past six pairings.

• With his T-6 finish, Woods now has 10 top-10 finishes in 13 professional starts at the Masters. The four-time champion has not won the event since 2005, a four-year drought that's the longest of his professional career at Augusta.

Mickelson, behind his fifth-place finish, now has 12 top-10s in 16 Masters appearances as a pro. He has two wins and a total of 10 top-10s in his past 11 trips to the Masters.

• After a front-nine, 6-under-par 30, Lefty tied three players for low front nine in Masters history. The others?
Johnny Miller, third round, 1975
Greg Norman, fourth round, 1988
K.J. Choi, second round, 2004
Phil Mickelson, fourth round, 2009

• John Merrick (T-6) had the best finish for a Masters first-timer among the 19 in the field this week. He qualified for the 2009 Masters by virtue of his T-6 finish at the 2008 U.S. Open.

• Dustin Johnson became just the second player in Masters history to make back-to-back eagles after accomplishing the feat on Nos. 13-14 on Sunday. Dan Pohl did it on the same two holes during the third round in 1982.

• On the eighth hole Sunday, Steve Stricker made his first bogey since the second hole of the second round Friday, ending a streak of 42 consecutive holes at even par or better. Stuart Appleby holds the Masters record for consecutive holes without a bogey at 50. He set the mark in 2001.

Todd Hamilton, the 2004 British Open champion, will return to the Masters next year after his T-15 finish (since the top 16 and ties punch their tickets for a return trip to Augusta). He made it into this year's field with his five-year British Open exemption, but that expired after this year.

• Jim Furyk did not miss a green in his opening round, finishing with a bogey-free 66. Thursday's round marks the sixth time in his career he's done that and first time since Round 1 of the 2005 Buick Open.

• Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters champion, had his best finish since 2000. The 50-year-old Mize, who ended up T-30, totaled 15 birdies on the week, surpassing both Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy's birdie total by one. Woods had 16 birdies on the week.

• Friday was an emotional day at Augusta as Gary Player competed in his final Masters. Player's round Friday was his 164th at Augusta, breaking the all-time record held by Jack Nicklaus. Player took 161 strokes this year, bringing his career total to 12,061 … also a Masters record.

• The opening hole of Amen Corner -- the 505-yard, par-4 11th -- was the most difficult relative to par at Augusta this year at 4.33 strokes. On the flip side, the 530-yard, par-5 15th played the easiest at 4.57 strokes.

So did the 2009 Masters resemble the previous year's event? In terms of scoring, players were able to go lower this week than last year.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

The PGA Tour plays Week 2 of three in Texas as the TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas hosts the 2009 HP Byron Nelson Championship. The course and tournament have both gone through several recent changes.

The venue has been through a significant redesign by D.A. Weibring, and the tournament will be played solely on the TPC Four Seasons for just the second year.

Early indications are that the course has grown into its redesign, with the biggest change being switching the fairways from rye to Bermuda grass. Players have commented from their practice rounds that they like the faster track, especially around the greens.

The field of 156 recognizes there will be far fewer par-breakers this week compared to the birdie binge at the Valero Texas Open, but players are hopeful for lower scores at the Nelson than last year. The TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas proved a difficult test in 2008, ranking seventh in scoring difficulty out of 54 courses.

In 2008, the scoring at the 7,166-yard par-70 played to an average of 72.03, nearly two full strokes more difficult than 2007, when two of the rounds were played on the private member course. Adam Scott's 7-under-par 273 winning total last year was the highest in the 23 years the tournament has been at the Four Seasons.

There is one paradox of this redesign seen in last year's greens in regulation stats. The new layout here features large, undulating putting surfaces, tree-lined fairways and creeks and ponds that come into play. Despite the increased size in the greens, they were very difficult to hit last year.

In 2008, the TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas course ranked fourth most difficult on tour in GIR, with players only hitting 53.68 percent of greens. The course was also fifth-hardest in birdie average as players only managed 2.43 birdies per round.

From the positive feedback in early interviews, we can expect many more greens and birdies this year. Players have also commented that they really like that the areas around the greens have been cut way down. This fact, combined with the Bermuda grass fairways, should make for a faster but more birdie-friendly track.

Honoring Byron Nelson
Byron Nelson is known as the greatest gentleman in golf, but he is most remembered for his amazing streak of 11 consecutive victories in 1945. Though his career was short -- he retired at age 34 to be a rancher -- he was still very dominant. As the HP Byron Nelson Championship honors the legacy and life of one of golf's finest champions, the stats blog takes a moment to look at some of the best streaks in golf. Nelson's and Tiger Woods' careers are woven together in this list, and the connections in their cut streaks are uncanny.

1. Bobby Jones Grand Slam: In 1930, Jones won the U.S. and British Open, and the U.S. and British Amateurs, the four majors of that era.

2. Nelson's 11-tournament winning streak: In 1945, Nelson won an amazing 11 consecutive tournaments. Both Woods and Arnold Palmer have commented that they do not believe this record will be touched. Tiger once said DiMaggio's hitting streak would be broken before Nelson's win streak. Tiger is second all-time in consecutive PGA Tour wins with seven in 2006-07. He and Hogan are tied for third with six consecutive wins: Tiger in 1999-00 and Hogan in 1948.

3. Woods' consecutive cuts streak of 142: Woods did not miss a cut in more than seven years, from February 1998 to May 2005. Tiger's streak ended at the 2005 EDS Byron Nelson Championship. The connections don't stop there. Tiger broke Nelson's record of 113 cuts made, and in 2000, he also broke Nelson's single-season scoring average record of 68.33. The player with the lowest adjusted scoring average each year wins the Byron Nelson Trophy. Tiger has won this trophy eight of the past 10 years.

A key point here is that a cut is defined as getting a paycheck, even if there is no cut per se. In Nelson's time, not every player who made the cut received a check. That puts into perspective just how impressive Nelson's streak was.

4. The Tiger Slam: Woods is the only player to own all four modern majors at the same time: In 2000, he won the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship and then captured the 2001 Masters.

5. Most consecutive years with a victory: 17 by Arnold Palmer (1955-1971) and Jack Nicklaus (1962-1978). Tiger has the longest active streak with 14 (1996-2009).

Fantasy Foursomes
With the course redesign and new tournament format, we have a very small sample of data to work with. If the very low GIR percentage from last year continues, we will want to favor the players best at scrambling. The Bermuda grass should lead to a more fast and firm course, and might take away a bit of advantage that the long hitters have seen historically.

The greens here are also bent grass, so that might favor the Texans that are most familiar with the track rather than the Florida players who know Bermuda greens or the California players who deal with more Bermuda and poa annua.

The nice item for this week's field is that it very deep. The headliners are Vijay Singh, Anthony Kim and Ian Poulter. There are also seven former winners of the event in the field: Scott (2008), Scott Verplank (2007), Ted Purdy (2005), Singh (2003), Shigeki Maruyama (2002), Jesper Parnevik (2000) and Fred Couples (1987).

For this week's fantasy picks, we will be going with the blue chips, focusing on those with scrambling skills and Texas ties.

Justin Leonard: Coming off his fifth-place finish last week at the Valero Texas Open, Texas native Leonard is a solid pick. He also has a strong record at the Nelson, making 14 of 15 cuts. Leonard ranks in the top 20 in scrambling, driving accuracy and putting average. He already has four top-10 this year in 12 starts.

David Toms: Toms has returned to form, but it hasn't been that publicized. He has five top-10s in 11 starts and ranks in the top 25 in total driving (2nd in accuracy), scoring average (2nd), scrambling, putting average, and all-around ranking. Toms hasn't played here since 2004 when he missed the cut, but in the two years before that he finished sixth and fourth.

Charley Hoffman: Hoffman finished T-7 last year at the Nelson, and he has been rock-solid this year. Hoffman has eight top-25s in 12 starts and he has made 21 consecutive cuts. He leads the tour in total birdies and he ranks in the top 25 in all the following: driving distance (with the longest drive this year at 467 yards), GIR, total putting, average putting, birdie average and scoring average.

Dustin Johnson: Johnson is more than just a bomber. He is coming off a top 25 last week, his fifth of the season in 13 starts. Johnson ranks third in birdie average, 13th in GIR, 11th in all-around ranking and second in par-5 par-breakers. He did make the cut here last year, but had an unimpressive weekend to finish T-63. This guy will continue to improve.

Rory Sabbatini: Sabbatini seems to be kind of an all-or-nothing-type player, but he has six top-25s in 12 starts in 2009. Sabbatini finished T-3 here in 2007. He ranks in the top 20 in putting average and birdie conversion.

Ian Poulter: Poulter has been great this year, finishing in the top 20 in six of his seven starts. He also finished third in 2007 and he leads the tour in scrambling at 73.2 percent.

Scott Verplank: The Dallas native has been solid lately, making nine consecutive cuts. He won here in 2007, and is coming off his fifth top-25 so far this year. Verplank ranks fifth in driving accuracy and 20th in scoring and putting average. We are going to go with another Texan here.

Kevin Na: When Na makes the cut, he finishes the weekend. Na has made eight of 12 cuts this year with eight top 25 finishes and five top 10s.

Though Na's record at the Byron Nelson is not good, (T-50th, MC, T-34th), his game is at a different level this year and he has already earned nearly as much money as his previous two years combined. Na ranks 7th on tour in scoring average, 3rd in putting average, 16th in birdie or better conversion percentage and 22nd in scrambling.

The starters: Justin Leonard, Charley Hoffman, David Toms, Ian Poulter

Next in line: Rory Sabatini, Dustin Johnson, Scott Verplank, Kevin Na

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

The PGA Tour travels this week to Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., for golf's "fifth major" -- The Players Championship. Pete Dye's TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course is one of golf's most recognized venues, highlighted by the 137-yard par-3 17th hole and its knee-knocking island green. This week the stats blog looks deeper into the recent ballstriking trends of the champions and profiles the infamous 17th hole.

Dye created TPC Sawgrass with a few key directives: challenge the world's finest players as the permanent home of The Players Championship, make it the first "stadium course" with the spectators in mind, and create a venue that favors no particular style of player.

TPC Sawgrass features a good mix of dogleg rights and lefts, as well as a variety of short, medium and long par-3s, par-4s and par-5s. There are no two consecutive holes that play in the same direction. Dye made significant efforts to create a challenging and balanced course. The result today is a 7,215-yard par-72 layout that plays like a major championship track.

Last year, TPC Sawgrass was the sixth most difficult scoring course out of 54 PGA Tour stops, behind Royal Birkdale (British Open), Oakland Hills (PGA Championship), Torrey Pines (U.S. Open), TPC Southwind and Muirfield Village.

For further evidence that this truly resembles a major championship, here are some numbers from the 35-year history of this event: 20 of its 29 champions have also won a major, no winner has managed to repeat and only five players have won the event multiple times, with Jack Nicklaus being the only three-time winner.

The other quality that defines this course is its true risk/reward nature. An excellent example of this is the 532-yard par-5 second hole. Since 2003, there have been 1,640 attempts to reach this green in two shots. Players going for this green average 4.52 strokes and are a combined 785 under par. In contrast, 1,001 players have laid up during this time, averaging 5.10 strokes and totaling 102 over par.

This risk/reward nature greatly contrasts the precision and control demanded off the tee. The course design challenges players to continually strategize, and leads to some great drama -- the tournament has been decided by 2 strokes or fewer on 23 occasions.

In the 27 years that The Players Championship has been held at TPC Sawgrass, the course has had a variety of champions with different strengths. That said, there have been some recent trends that strongly favor the ball strikers over the short-game wizards.

Three of the past four champions have led the field in both driving accuracy and greens hit (Sergio Garcia in 2008, Stephen Ames in 2006 and Fred Funk in 2005). In the past five years, only Phil Mickelson (2007) has managed to win without leading the field in GIR (24th).

Adam Scott also topped the field in GIR in 2004 to make four of the past five champions the leader in GIR. These champs (Garcia, Mickelson, Ames, Funk, Scott) were much less dominant in putting average, ranking T-69th, 22nd, T-13th, T-69th and T-50th respectively.

So short, yet so scary
Two more reasons for the close finishes and great drama here are the two closing holes. The 462-yard par-4 18th hole was the fourth most difficult on the PGA Tour last year out of 972. It averaged 4.52 strokes and yielded only 31 birdies last year, compared with 146 bogeys, 40 doubles and eight others.

Since 2003, 13 percent of all tee shots have ended up in the water on No. 17. Of the 27 winners here, only two have made a bogey on the 17th hole on Sunday: Steve Elkington in 1991 and Funk in 2005. The others made 16 pars and nine birdies.

TPC Sawgrass' 17th hole is at least 20 yards shorter than the other top five "most wet" par-3s. The average length of the other top five holes is 198 yards compared with TPC Sawgrass' 137 yards.

The field
The Players Championship features the finest players in all the world. Here are some of the numbers that emphasize the quality of the field this week:

• 10 of the top 10 in the world rankings
• 24 of the top 25 in the world rankings (minus Lee Westwood)
• 47 of the top 50 in the world rankings
• 96 of the top 100 on the 2008 FedEx Cup standings
• 103 of the top 125 on the 2009 FedEx Cup standings
• 102 players with PGA Tour victories
• Every winner on the PGA Tour dating back to the 2007 AT&T National
• 20 major champions with a collective 43 major titles

Notables
• Currently the No. 3-ranked player in the world, Garcia is looking to become the first repeat winner in Players Championship history. He has won seven times on the PGA Tour, including last year's playoff victory over journeyman Paul Goydos on the famous 17th hole. Last year's playoff ended what was the longest playoff drought on the PGA Tour.

The last playoff at The Players Championship came in 1987 when Sandy Lyle beat Jeff Sluman with a par on the third playoff hole. Garcia joined Lyle as the only European-born players to win The Players Championship.

• Mickelson looks to continue his momentum in 2009. The 2007 champion is currently ranked second in the 2009 FedEx Cup standings with 1,273 points. Mickelson, who has recorded two victories already this year, is the only player with two or more victories in each of the past six years. Mickelson now has 36 career victories on the PGA Tour.

Mickelson holds or shares several Players Championship scoring records:

• Low nine-hole score (back nine): 6-under 30, 1996, TPC Sawgrass, third round (nine-way tie)
• Low first-round score: 8-under 64, 2002, TPC Sawgrass (seven-way tie)
• Low third-round score: 8-under 64, 1996, TPC Sawgrass (four-way tie)

• Kenny Perry will be making his 21st career start at The Players Championship. He led through two rounds last year and trailed by 1 stroke entering the final round. A tough Sunday put him at T-15 for the week.

• Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh and Funk are the three most recognizable Ponte Vedra Beach residents in the field. Funk has the best record at this event. Playing for the 19th consecutive time, the 2005 champion has made the cut in all but four tries at TPC Sawgrass, with six top-20 finishes. Furyk is competing in his 14th Players Championship, with his best finish a T-3 in 2006. Singh, the 2008 FedExCup champion, is playing for the 17th consecutive year.

• Rookie Jeff Klauk is one of 18 first-time participants, but he will most certainly get the lion's share of the attention. Klauk graduated from nearby Nease High School (as did Tim Tebow) and literally grew up at TPC Sawgrass, where his father, Fred, served as golf course superintendent for more than 25 years before retiring in 2008.

Fantasy foursomes
With this elite field, you have the unique opportunity to pick many of your favorite players, and a case can be made for any of the notables above. Focus on recent history, favor the ball strikers over the putters in your selection, and note that par-5 strategy and par-5 scoring will also play an important role.

Leaning on the major champions in the field is also a good way to go. Here are a couple possible rosters for this exciting week:

Tiger Woods: Who else? Tiger has not been able to get all elements of his game to click just yet. He admits his "struggles" here are because he hasn't hit it all that well, especially off the tee. Though he has never missed a cut here, he has gone a stretch of six consecutive events without a top-10 finish, dating back to his 2001 win. This is his longest streak at any single event without a win and it's due to be broken. Though the numbers may not be there for this one, leaving him out of your lineup is as scary as the tee shot on 17. Ration his starts here if you must, but he is due.

Paul Casey: The Brit finally notched his first PGA Tour win this year with his victory at the Shell Houston Open. Casey is hitting a respectable 67.4 percent of his greens this year and he ranks 12th in putting average. He has made all five of his cuts on the PGA Tour in 2009, including four top-25s.

Sean O'Hair: Coming off his third career PGA Tour victory at Quail Hollow last week, O'Hair has already passed his best year's earnings by a half million dollars and it's only May. He has an amazing eight finishes of T-13 or better in 10 starts. O'Hair ranks fifth in GIR, 12th in total driving and first in all-around ranking. O'Hair has had solid success on the par-5s here, including 2007 when he tied for third in par-5 scoring at 9 under par.

Brian Gay: He has played solid all year, including 10 out of 11 made cuts, six top-25s and a victory at the Verizon Heritage. Gay is the type of ball striker that should excel here, ranking second on tour in driving accuracy at 74.3 percent and 31st on tour in GIR at 67.8 percent. Gay is also fourth in scrambling and eighth in total putting.

Zach Johnson: Another great ball striker, Johnson ranks 14th on tour in driving accuracy and 12th in GIR. We know from his Masters victory he can be very patient and play the par-5s as 3-shot holes.

Tim Clark: It's only a matter of time before this South African picks up his first PGA Tour victory. He ranks fifth on tour in driving accuracy, 19th in GIR, tied for fifth in putting average and second in all-around ranking. In the 2007 Players Championship, he led the field in par-5 scoring at 12 under par. Clark has made eight of nine cuts in 2009, including six top-25s.

Henrik Stenson: The Swede has finished in the top 25 in all three of his starts here, including two top-10s. He has three top-three finishes worldwide this year, but has not played enough rounds to be officially ranked in the PGA Tour skill statistics.

Luke Donald: The Englishman's ballstriking numbers are not exceptional this year, but he is hitting a respectable 67.6 percent of his greens. He is third on tour in putting, but what stands out about Donald is his solid recent record here: T-27th, T-16th, MC and second. In his runner-up finish in 2005, he finished tied for second in par-5 scoring.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com. Information from the PGA Tour was used in this report.

Posted by Nathan Easler

After a brilliant 2009 Masters, the PGA Tour makes a 100-mile drive from Augusta, Ga., to Pete Dye's Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, S.C. The host course for the Verizon Heritage is a 6,973-yard, par-71 public facility that averages more than 38,000 rounds a year -- quite a contrast from Augusta National, which has only about 300 members.

Harbour Town is one of Dye's most famous courses, featuring a very tight design with exceptionally small greens; this puts a premium on accuracy, shot-making and scrambling rather than distance. This week the golf stats blog examines what skills are essential to victory in Hilton Head and details some of the standout records of the past winners here, including two-time defending champ Boo Weekley.

Week after week, the stats blog has been emphasizing GIR percentage as the key predictor of success on the PGA Tour. Because of the small greens this week, it's time to change that tune at Harbour Town.

For each of the past five years, Harbour Town has been in the top 10 of most difficult courses for hitting greens in regulation. The GIR average over this time is 55 percent, compared to the PGA Tour average of 64 percent. This gives Harbour Town an average rank of fifth most difficult in GIR out of roughly 50 courses over the past five years.

Because the field is hitting greens barely half the time, scrambling and timely putting take a slight precedence over ball striking at the Verizon Heritage. Here are some of the 2008 numbers from Harbour Town that help illustrate the small greens and reinforce the importance of scrambling.

Even when players had sand wedges in their hands at Harbour Town, they were hitting greens at a lower rate than the tour average from all distances (61.46 percent vs. 63.91 percent).

Because of the small green size, players often narrowly miss these greens. In 2008, that led to some chips that were very close to the hole, and the most hole-outs on tour. Ball striking and accuracy are still important, as near-misses of the green can result in birdies and easy pars at Harbour Town.

Combine these short scrambling opportunities with the most hole-outs, and it is not surprising that Harbour Town had the fewest putts per round of any course on tour in 2008.

In fact, the PGA Tour's 72-hole putting record was set here in 2005 by David Frost. Frost's 92 putts in 72 holes broke Kenny Knox's mark of 93, which was set at Harbour Town in 1989.

The Fantasy Foursomes
Let's use the above analysis, along with past champions and the hot players on tour, to put together this week's picks.

• Jim Furyk's opening round at the Masters last week was nearly flawless. He shot a bogey-free 66 and hit 18 of 18 greens in regulation. Furyk ranks fifth on the PGA Tour in scrambling, getting up and down 67.88 percent of the time. His last five starts here are equally impressive: 4th, MC, 2nd, 2nd and 10th.

• Justin Leonard won here in 2002 and has been very solid in 2009 with three top-10s in nine events. Leonard ranks 15th in scrambling at 64.94 percent. He has back-to-back top-25 finishes at Harbour Town.

• Weekley will be looking for his third consecutive win at the Verizon Heritage this week. If he claims it, he'll be the first player other than Tiger Woods to win an event three times in a row since Tom Watson won the HP Byron Nelson Championship from 1978 through 1980.

Last year Weekley had a much easier time defending than he did winning the first time in 2007. In 2008, Weekley won by three shots over Anthony Kim and Aaron Baddeley. In 2007, Boo chipped in for par on the 71st and 72nd holes to hold off Ernie Els by a single shot. Boo hasn't done much lately. He missed his first cut of the year at the Masters and has not finished in the top 50 in his last five starts. Still, Boo is fun to root for, and he's got a great thing going at Harbour Town.

• This has been a good year for rookies. Through the first 16 events of the season, seven rookies are among the top 125 on the FedEx Cup points list and would qualify for the FedEx Cup. Jeff Klauk (No. 36 on the money list) leads the way, followed by Scott Piercy (No. 44) and Webb Simpson (No. 49). The others are James Nitties, Bill Lunde, Aron Price and David Mathis. Klauk is a solid pick this week, as he has made nine of 10 cuts, including three top-25 finishes. He is fourth on the PGA Tour in scrambling at 67.8 percent.

• Tim Clark didn't shake the Par 3 Contest curse last week after failing to win the Masters, and he still has yet to notch a victory on tour. That has got to change soon as Clark's game remains solid. The South African -- who finished just outside the top 10 last week at Augusta -- has six top-25 finishes in eight starts and ranks 14th on tour in scrambling at 65.03 percent. The confidence from beating Tiger in the WGC-Match Play should result in a banner year.

• Davis Love III is another strong option this week. He has won here five times and is the event's all-time money leader, with over $2.5 million in earnings. He will turn 45 this week. Another former champion to watch this week is Aaron Baddeley. He has followed up his 2006 victory here with two top-10s, including a runner-up last year. Baddeley is fourth on tour in putting average, at 1.716.

• Who currently leads the PGA in scrambling? If you guessed "C" player Matt Kuchar at 72.25 percent, you are correct. The former amateur sensation is quietly playing very well this year with six of seven made cuts, including four top-25 finishes.

• Arguably the most talented young "C" player is Augusta, Ga., native Charles Howell III. He has two top-20 finishes in three starts here and is playing solid golf this year, with four top-25s. He's also made the cut nine out 10 times in 2009.

The Starters: Jim Furyk, Boo Weekley, Tim Clark, Matt Kuchar

Next in Line: Justin Leonard, Jeff Klauk, Aaron Baddeley, Charles Howell III

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Alister MacKenzie, Bobby Jones, Magnolia Lane, azaleas, the Hogan, Nelson and Sarazen bridges, Amen Corner, the green jacket, Augusta National, the Masters Tournament.

No numbers can describe how excited golf fans get when hearing that list rattled off. Simply put, this is the best week of the year to be a golf fan. Let's hope for an entertaining first major championship of 2009.

Still, that doesn't mean we'll be mailing it in for the Masters. This week, the golf stats blog takes a look at how the most recent tournament champions have gotten it done (including a special section devoted to Tiger Woods) and details the relationship between changes at Augusta National and Tiger's wins.

The green jacket

Aside from Tiger and Phil Mickelson, there have been some unexpected champions at Augusta in the past several years, including Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson and Mike Weir. The list has quite the variation in skill sets, body types and even dominant hand (Mickelson and Weir both are lefties).

The common perception is that putting determines the outcome at Augusta, and although this statement holds some truth, the recent champions' numbers show a more common thread: greens in regulation.

Below are the stats and rankings of the past seven champions in the major skill categories. Save for Weir's victory in 2003, none of those Masters winners finished worse than T-4th in GIR. Weir was able to make up for his lesser iron play by leading the field in scrambling and finishing second in putting average.

Another trend worth mentioning: The past two champions, Immelman and Johnson, finished first and T-2nd, respectively, in driving accuracy. Both hit fairways at better than an 80 percent clip -- quite the contrast to Mickelson's 62.5 percent in 2006 and Tiger's 57.1 percent in 2005. It also should be noted that the scrambling ranks and putting averages for the champions are higher than those in most PGA events. The greens at Augusta definitely play a prominent roll, but a high GIR percentage is even more essential for victory.

Tiger's victories fit the mold

When examining Tiger's Masters victories in 1997, 2001, '02 and '05, the importance of greens in regulation is only reinforced. The table below compares Tiger's victories to his other eight Masters Tournaments as a professional.

What it boils down to is that the best predictor of Tiger's success at Augusta is his GIR, which has been 75 percent or better in each of his victories there. Only once has Tiger hit 70 percent or more of his greens in regulation at the Masters and failed to win (in 2000, when he hit 70.8 percent of greens). His putting averages and fairway averages are pretty similar in wins compared to other finishes.

Tiger also has fared better when the course has played easier. The field scoring relative to par in his wins is plus-1.554 (against plus-2.276 in his other finishes). Below are more interesting notes on Woods' victories. Keep these numbers in mind when considering possible outcomes this week, as they could be the best indicators of Tiger's finish.

In each of Tiger's Masters victories (1997, 2001, '02, '05):

• He scored 12-under or better.
• He had no double-bogeys.
• He posted a scoring differential of minus-13.6 (287.1 versus 273.5).
• He averaged eight more greens in regulation for the week.
• He ranked first, first, first and second in GIR.
• He averaged only 2.1 fewer putts (116.8 versus 119.0) for the week.
• He averaged just 1.9 more fairways for the week.
• He earned $3.762 million, versus $2.156 million in eight other Masters finishes.

One more interesting Tiger note: His worst finish at the Masters as a professional is a T-22nd in the 2004 tournament.

Tiger prints on Augusta National?

Since Tiger's first Masters as a professional in 1997, Augusta National has undergone several changes. Most notably, the course has been lengthened by 540 yards. Prior to 1997, the course length had remained unchanged for nearly a decade. There has been all kinds of controversy about the effects of lengthening the course on the excitement of the event. Most will agree that Jack Nicklaus' back-nine 30 in 1986 can't be duplicated on today's course.

Which begs the question: How much have Tiger's victories influenced the course changes at Augusta? The timing of the added length suggests Woods' dominance was a key factor. The table below notes the yardage that was added to the course the year after a Tiger win. In sum, the four years that followed a Woods victory account for more than 80 percent of the yards added during the past 12 years.

The Paddy Slam?

Another question on the minds of golf fans: Will Padraig Harrington win his third consecutive major? The quest for a Paddy Slam continues this week at Augusta; unfortunately, Harrington's ballstriking numbers appear to put his streak in jeopardy.

In his two previous major wins, Harrington relied heavily on his putter, ranking first in putting average at the PGA Championship and 13th in putting average at the British Open. But his iron play was much less impressive: T-27th in greens in regulation at the PGA (56.9 percent) and T-30th at the British (52.8 percent).

Harrington currently ranks T-126th in GIR on tour, hitting 63.23 percent of his greens. And although he has played better golf lately (three top-25s after a very rocky start), he has yet to finish in the top 10 in a PGA Tour event in 2009. It appears he'll either need to make a quick turnaround with his irons or find more magic in his putter to keep his hope of four consecutive major wins alive.

ESPN Masters Best Ball Challenge

ESPN Fantasy welcomes back the first of four Best Ball Challenges, offering competitions and prizes for each of the four majors.

The contest works similarly to a four-man best-ball competition. You select four players, and your fantasy score for each hole during that day's competition is the lowest of the four players' scores. For instance, if three of your selected players score a 4 on a hole and the fourth scores a 3, your fantasy score for that hole is a 3. There is a catch: a salary cap of $50 million. Player salaries are based on "market value."

Any way you slice it, you want to pick the players who figure to make the most birdies. My favorite strategy for this format: "studs and scrubs." Just grab the strongest firepower (also the highest-salaried players) and round out your roster with the best remaining players who fit within your salary-cap constraints.

My two favorites to win the tournament are Tiger ($18.0) and Geoff Ogilvy ($14.7). Although those picks exhaust a good chunk of salary cap, they're the two top birdie machines in the field. I'm still able to add a rooting favorite in Rocco Mediate ($8.8) and a world-class player from Denmark, Soren Hansen ($8.5). Bottom line: I get the world's No. 1 player; the 2009 leader in money, FedEx Cup points, birdie average and putting average; and two very experienced players who will rack up pars should my two thoroughbreds stumble.

Here's another permutation of the strategy: Take Camilo Villegas ($14.3), who leads the tour in GIR (73.3 percent) and averages four birdies per round. Add the world's No. 2 player in Phil Mickelson($16.0), who is second on the money list and in FedEx Cup Points, and who ranks sixth in birdie average (4.32). Round out your roster with a couple of sentimental favorites who know how to win at Augusta: Fred Couples ($10.1) and Jose Maria Olazabal ($9.3). It doesn't hurt that Couples is coming off a solid T-3rd at the Shell Houston Open.

This is just one of many ways to approach the ESPN Best Ball Challenge. You could go with the teen phenoms of Rory McIlroy, Danny Lee and Ryo Ishikawa. Paul Casey is coming off his first PGA victory. Sean O'Hair and Nick Watney have emerged as two of the best players in the world under age 30. Any way you choose to go, give yourself an additional rooting interest to enjoy the 2009 Masters Tournament and fantasy golf on ESPN.com.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Amazing. Unbelievable. Not from this solar system.

There are no superlatives in the English language that give justice to the things Tiger Woods is able to do on the golf course, especially when it matters the most. This week the stats blog attempts to quantify just how improbable Tiger's putting performance was in his repeat victory at Bay Hill and details the ebb and flow of Tiger's return to the winner's circle.

Just how clutch was Tiger at the Arnold Palmer Invitational? Let's dissect the stats that led him to his 66th PGA Tour victory. Tiger put together quite the highlight reel of long-range putts over the weekend at Arnie's place.

Looking at the table below, Tiger's long putting was better than the field's almost all the way around. More importantly, it was the timing of dropping these bombs that completely changed the complexion of the tournament and put the pressure on 54-hole leader and eventual runner-up Sean O'Hair.

Tiger made two putts longer than 25 feet all week -- the first being a bogey-saving bomb on 18 on Saturday. This putt was arguably more important than the one to win on 18 on Sunday because it helped solidify his spot with O'Hair in the final pairing Sunday. You've got to believe that O'Hair's nerves and game would have been different had Tiger been playing in the group in front of him.

Moving onto Sunday's home stretch, the 206-yard, par-3 14th hole was the turning point. Tiger found himself buried up against the lip of a steep greenside bunker with an impossible stance, while O'Hair had a nice 15-foot birdie opportunity from the fringe.

What looked to be a potential 2-shot swing ended up as a push when O'Hair's birdie putt slid just below the hole and Tiger made a miraculous sand save, capped by holing a 13-foot putt.

The second putt of more than 25 feet holed by Woods was for birdie on No. 15 on Sunday. This got him his first share of a lead since last year's U.S. Open.

Last but not least is the 72nd-hole magic that Tiger once again brought us by rolling one in from more than 15 feet for birdie and the victory. This was the first birdie Tiger had on Nos. 16-18 all week.

Just how improbable was it that all four of these putts found the bottom of the cup? As a very crude method of estimation, we'll just look at the probability of these putts all dropping as if they were independent consecutive events (which wasn't the case here.)

Using the field average putting rates from each of these distances, we would expect all four putts to go in once in roughly 6,500 attempts. 6,500-1 is the normal odds; Tiger is nothing close to normal. It is hard to believe we have come to expect this sort of improbable performance from Tiger.

What is equally important, but history will likely forget, is how great Tiger's short putting was all week. Tiger was 54 of 54 from 5 feet and in this week, and 63 of 66 from inside 10 feet. This putting rate of 95.5 percent from inside 10 feet blew away the field average of 86.7 percent. Taking the field average for success rate and attempts, Tiger gained roughly 6.6 shots on the field just by his putting from inside 10 feet.

Tiger bested O'Hair across the board Sunday, but a couple items really stand out.

In the final round, Tiger took six less putts (six was the margin he beat O'Hair by on Sunday -- 67 to 73), hit five more fairways, stood nearly 14 feet closer to the pin on average from his approach shots and made nearly 53 more feet of putts.

Drive for show, putt for dough
Tiger was a completely different player this week at Bay Hill compared to two weeks ago at Doral. He put on a ball-striking clinic at Doral, but finished T-9 as he couldn't get his putter going.

This week was just the opposite: His ball striking was below average, but his short game was nothing short of spectacular. If you ever had any doubt that tournaments are won and lost with the flatstick, check out Tiger's comparison between Doral and Bay Hill below.

These are some extremely polarized stats. It is almost as though Tiger's ball striking and short game ranks were swapped for the two events. These extremes hold true almost across the board, with the exception of scrambling, in which he finished first and fourth at Bay Hill and Doral, respectively.

It should also be mentioned that comparing the raw stats from Bay Hill and Doral needs to be qualified. So far this season, Bay Hill is the toughest venue on tour out of 19 courses in terms of scoring average, birdie average and GIR.

Other than the multiple courses at the Bob Hope Classic and Kapalua, Doral is the next easiest course in terms of scoring. The winning tally at Bay Hill was Woods at 5 under, while at Doral it was Phil Mickelson at 19 under.

A couple of stats that make the difference in course difficulty clear are scrambling and proximity. Tiger's approach-shot proximity at Bay Hill was not quite 2 feet more than at Doral, but he fell 48 spots in rank at Doral. Woods led the field at Bay Hill in scrambling at 72.7 percent, while at Doral, an 82.6 percent scrambling rate was good for fourth in that category.

Notables
All-time PGA Tour victories:

1. Sam Snead -- 82; won 66th (1952 All American Open) at the age of 40 years, 2 months, 6 days

2. Jack Nicklaus -- 73; won 66th (1978 The Players Championship) at the age of 38 years, 1 month, 29 days

3. Tiger Woods -- 66; won 66th (2009 Arnold Palmer Invitational) at the age of 33 years, 2 months, 29 days

• Tiger has won 18 of his past 31 PGA Tour starts (58 percent) dating back to 2006 British Open.

• Tiger has won 66 out of 225 (29.33 percent) professional starts on the PGA Tour.

• Out of Woods' 66 career wins, he has now come from behind for victory 19 times.

• Tiger matched his largest PGA Tour comeback after 54 holes (5 strokes) with his victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Woods also came back from 5 strokes after 54 holes to win the 2000 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he held off Mark Brooks and Matt Gogel.

• Woods played flawlessly on holes 7-15 at Bay Hill, shooting 12-under par with no bogeys. Holes 1-6 and 16-18 were a different story as he finished 7-over par, including one double, nine bogeys and only four birdies during that stretch.

• In 13 full seasons as a pro, only once has Woods gone into the Masters without a victory under his belt (1998).

• O'Hair is now winless in four attempts when holding at least a share of the third-round lead, including last year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational where he finished T-3. He also led in 2007 at the Players Championship (finished 11th) and at the 2005 EDS Byron Nelson Championship (finished second). Last year, O'Hair was tied with four other players, including Woods, going into the final round at Bay Hill.

• O'Hair had only one bogey in each of the first two rounds but tallied five in the third round and four in the fourth round.

• Nick Watney and O'Hair have won twice apiece on the PGA Tour and have started their 2009 seasons at a blistering pace. Both have played in eight events and finished in the top 25 seven times. Watney has three top-10s, including a victory at the Buick and a runner-up at Doral; O'Hair has four top-10s, including his runner-up finish this week.

• Hunter Mahan stood a good chance of breaking the PGA Tour record for fewest putts in nine holes after chipping in on three of his first four holes Saturday. Mahan had three putts through five holes and was threatening the record of six putts in nine holes by Stan Utley. Mahan finished with 10 putts on his outward nine.

• On Friday, Mark Calcavecchia made the 500th cut of his career. Jay Haas holds the PGA Tour record with 592.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

After a wait of more than three and a half years and 62 PGA starts, a fit and rededicated 40-year-old Retief Goosen has won again on the PGA Tour. In the triumph at Innisbrook, a course that plays much like a U.S. Open, Goosen employed many of the tools that earned him his two major titles.

In fact, Goosen's most useful of tools this week was also present at both his U.S. Open titles. The South African went back to using his old Yes! Tracy putter after using several other flat sticks, the most recent being a lengthened belly version of the same Yes! putter. Goosen combined perfect putting inside 5 feet, superb ball striking and clutch chipping to earn the Transitions Championship, his seventh PGA Tour victory.

This week, the stats blog examines Goosen's impressive stats from the win, specifically how the Goose's game at Innisbrook imitated his U.S. Open victories.

Here are some of the more impressive numbers from Goosen's victory:

• He was 55-for-55 on putts from 5 feet and in. That includes his clutch 5-footer on the 72nd hole for par. For the week, Goosen was 62-for-64 from inside 10 feet, ranking fourth in the field.

• Goosen's five bogeys were the fewest by any player in the field. Steve Stricker made the most birdies (19) over 72 holes. Goosen ranked T-40 in birdies made, which is the lowest ranking of a tournament champ this season.

• Goosen was seventh in greens in regulation for the tournament, fourth in ball striking and second in scrambling.

This is a fantastic skill set to have working on a difficult course. As discussed in the preview blog of the Transitions Championship, scrambling and ball striking are the key skill stats related to victories at Innisbrook. The combination held again in 2009, as scrambling was most strongly correlated with success (with GIR ranking a close second).

The table below gives you an idea of how great Goosen's turnaround was this week, and how similar his performance was to his U.S. Open wins:

For better context of these rankings, let's quantify Goosen's improvements at the Transitions Championship. Compared with his 2009 PGA Tour skill rates entering the week, Goosen hit four more greens (68.1 percent versus 62.6 percent), made five more up and downs (78.3 percent versus 57.4 percent), made six more putts from inside 10 feet (96.9 percent versus 87.1 percent), and hit eight more fairways (71.2 percent versus 56.5 percent.)

Goosen made all these skill improvements on a course that yielded the highest winning score in relation to par on the PGA Tour this year. Innisbrook currently ranks the third-most difficult of 18 courses played on tour in 2009. (Torrey Pines South Course and PGA National ranked 1-2.)

Perhaps this is only the beginning for Goosen, who just turned 40. Twenty pounds lighter and with noticeably broadened shoulders, Goosen shared his outlook on fitness and winning with the media after his victory.

"I started working very hard in the gym," he said. "I was in the gym [Sunday] morning for one hour working out. I might as well. Instead of getting totally out of shape and struggling, I thought I might as well be fit and struggling.

"I always keep reminding myself, Vijay [Singh] started playing his best golf when he turned 40. So I'm looking forward to the next five years."

In victory, a few shots stood out in Goosen's final round. The first, obviously: the 5-foot putt to win by 1 stroke on the 72nd hole. Another was his outstanding approach from 217 yards on the par-5 11th hole. This perfectly played shot came to rest just 17 feet from the pin, set up his only eagle of the tournament and gave Goosen the lead.

The shot that may be forgotten, though it was just as clutch, was Goosen's chip on the 215-yard par-3 17th hole. With the pin tucked right and the wind blowing left to right, many of Sunday's leaders missed this green short and to the right, leaving a gnarly chip onto a slick, crispy green.

Goosen separated himself from the field here, as he was one of the few to save par from off the green by executing an all-world chip from a buried lie.

Notables
• Goosen, a winner at Innisbrook in 2003, joins K.J. Choi (2002, 2006) as the only two multiple-time champions of this event.

• Former Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman, trying to become the seventh player in his 50s to win on the PGA Tour, did not make birdie until sinking a long putt on the 17th hole, and he shot a 75 to finish T-8. Lehman, who turned 50 two weeks ago, had a 1-shot lead going into the final round as he tried to become the first ex-Ryder Cup captain since Tom Watson in 1998 to win on the PGA Tour after his captaincy.

• Stricker rallied from a 4-shot deficit to tie for the lead, but he couldn't sustain it. After two solid par saves, he flew the green from a bunker on the par-3 17th and made bogey, then missed the green from the middle of the 18th fairway and made another bogey. He closed with a 69 and tied for fourth. It was the third time this year Stricker had the lead on the back nine on Sunday and failed to win.

• Nick Watney continued his breakout 2009 campaign this week with a T-12 finish. It is his sixth top-25 in seven starts; Watney has already set a career mark in annual earnings and has doubled his PGA Tour win total (two).

• Brett Quigley recorded his second consecutive T-2 on the PGA Tour. Last week at the Puerto Rico Open, Quigley and Jason Day were runners-up, 1 stroke back of winner Michael Bradley. In 342 career starts, Quigley has never won on the PGA Tour. He was also T-2 at the 2001 Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic and 2004 U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.

• Charles Howell III turned in a second-place finish at the Transitions, his best effort since winning the 2007 Nissan Open in Los Angeles. Earlier this year, Howell finished fourth at the Sony Open in Hawaii. His previous best at Innisbrook was a solo sixth in 2007.

• First-round leader Jim Furyk ended up T-52, the lowest finish by a Thursday leader in tournament history.

• Relative to par, Innisbrook has hosted the toughest final round so far in 2009. The field averaged more than a stroke and a half over par on Sunday at 72.55. The overall cumulative scoring average on the Copperhead Course this year was 72.157. Last year, the scoring average for this event was the eighth-hardest at 72.970.

• If history repeats itself, we can expect the top 10 finishers this week at Innisbrook to also perform well at the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black in June. Of the players in 2008 who finished among the top 10 at the PODS Championship (as the event was known last year) and who qualified for the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, all produced finishes of T-18 or better in the year's second major.

-- Brandt Snedeker was T-9 at the U.S. Open and T-8 at PODS in 2008
-- Stewart Cink was T-14 at the U.S. Open and T-2 at PODS in 2008
-- Rod Pampling was T-14 at the U.S. Open and T-8 at PODS in 2008
-- Ryuji Imada was T-18 at the U.S. Open and T-2 at PODS in 2008

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

The PGA Tour stops in Palm Harbor, Fla., this week for the Transitions Championship at the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club.

The good news for the portion of the field that played at the WGC-CA Championship last week is that Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and most of the world's top 10 players are taking the week off. The bad news: Innisbrook was the eighth most difficult course on tour last year (out of 54) and the field still features 15 of the top 52 players in the world including Kenny Perry, Jim Furyk, Adam Scott and K.J. Choi.

This week the stats blog examines why Innisbrook was such a difficult track last year, and what skill set will be needed to rise to the top of this weekend's leaderboard.

When Sean O'Hair notched his second PGA Tour victory last year at Innisbrook with a 4-under, it was the highest score to win on tour since Angel Cabrera held off Woods and Furyk to win the 2007 U.S. Open. So why is this course so difficult?

Innisbrook, which is a 7,340-yard par-71 layout, gave players some of their shortest drives of the season and left long approaches to the greens. It also ranked the sixth-most difficult in putting average, the seventh-most difficult in scrambling and the eighth-most difficult in approach shot proximity to the hole.

Fans this week won't be seeing the birdie barrage like last weekend at Doral. Here are some of the 2008 stats from Innisbrook, which put its difficulty into context. Note that Innisbrook is right next to or ahead of the 2008 U.S. Open host course, Torrey Pines South, in most of these rankings.

Short drives, long approaches, difficult scrambling and few long putts falling is quite a nasty combination. Other adverse conditions include the seasonal Florida winds, difficult pin placements and slick greens with some Bermuda grain. Is there any way to get it done at Innisbrook?

The Recipe for Success
Looking at the above numbers, this is no doubt a respected and sometimes feared track. But looking at the historical data: There are strong trends in succeeding at Innisbrook over the past two years.

PGA Tour players consider the venue a shotmaker's course, where you need to both draw and fade the ball and be wise with tee-shot club selection.

Player perception also holds statistically as a strong green in regulation percentage is correlated with success at Innisbrook. This is the case for nearly any tournament, since GIR percentage is one the best predictors of tournament placing. But surprisingly, when examining the players who finished in the top 10 the last two years, scrambling percentage has a slightly higher correlation with success than GIR.

The players to watch this week are those who have both their iron game and up-and-down game going in 2009.

Fantasy Foursomes
To make this year's picks, let's use the analysis above, along with history at Innisbrook and the hot players on tour.

• Furyk is the arguably the class of the field. He comes off a strong showing at Doral, where he played all four rounds in the 60s and finished third. He closed out the event Sunday with a back nine of 31, and nobody went lower than Furyk on the weekend.

Furyk also finished inside the top 10 at the WGC Match Play. He fits into the Innisbrook recipe as well, leading the tour in scrambling at 79.41 percent.

• One of the players who could take issue with Furyk's "class of the field" status is the No. 8-ranked player in the world, Kenny Perry. Perry has four top-10s in seven starts, including a win at the FBR Open. He ranks 11th in ball-striking this year, and he hasn't slowed down after his miraculous push to make last year's Ryder Cup team. Perry's short game is also improved and ranks 37th in scrambling.

• It could be that Tim Clark's WGC-Match Play victory over Tiger was just the momentum boost he needed to pick up his first PGA Tour win. Clark's early-season play has been incredibly solid, making the cut in all six of his starts, finishing in the top 25 five times and in the top 10 twice. He ranks seventh on tour in GIR at 70.5 percent and second in scrambling at 73.6 percent. This is a fantastic combo for this course.

• Steve Stricker is a top-10-in-the-world caliber player. He is beginning to regain that form; he already has five top-25 finishes this year, including a runner up at Riviera and a third-place finish at the Hope. Stricker is second in scrambling at 77.5 percent, and he is hitting 70.2 percent of his greens so far in 2009.

• O'Hair is the defending champ and has had a rock-solid start in 2009. O'Hair has six top-25 finishes in as many starts, including three top-10s. He is hitting greens at a 71.6 percent rate. He ranks sixth on tour in birdie average at 4.63 per round and leads in bounce-back percentage at 38.1 percent. Bounce back is responding with a birdie after a bogey or worse, and O'Hair has nearly doubled the tour average with 19.7 percent.

• Brian Gay is quietly making a huge comeback. He already has five top-25's in seven starts, including two top-10s. Gay ranks ninth in GIR at 70.1 percent and eighth in scrambling at 71.7 percent.

• Matt Kuchar is one of the few "C" players hitting more than 70 percent of his greens. He is currently third on the PGA Tour at 71.92 percent. Kuchar has made five of six cuts so far with three top 25 finishes, one being a top-10.

• Ben Crane is also close to that magic number of 70 percent in GIR and he is coming off back-to-back top 10 finishes.

The Starters: Furyk, Clark, Stricker, Kuchar

Next in Line: Perry, Gay, O'Hair, Crane

Notables
• Japanese teen sensation Ryo Ishikawa makes his second PGA Tour start this week. He failed to make the cut at the Northern Trust Open at Riveria last month. His teen counterparts faired well last week as Rory McIlroy finished T-20 at the WGC-CA Championship and Tadd Fujikawa finished T-31 at the Puerto Rico Open.

• 2005 U.S. Open Champ Michael Campbell will make his first PGA Tour start since the 2008 PGA Championship.

• This week's field has 26 players who have won in 2008 or 2009. One of those is Choi, who is a two-time champion of the Transitions Championship.

• O'Hair had quite the start at Doral last week. He opened the tournament eagle-eagle for the first time on the PGA Tour since Chris Tidalnd did it in 2007 at the Ginn sur Mer Classic. The last person to start eagle-eagle at Doral was David Toms in 1999.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Selecting a Californian was the safe pick, too, based on sheer volume of players. The field featured 30 golfers from the state; Florida was second with eight.

The favorite at the start of the week was three-time champion and San Diego native Phil Mickelson, who currently resides at No. 4 in the world rankings. Red-hot San Diego surfer Charley Hoffman was also finally getting more attention for his golf rather than his hair, thanks to stellar beginning to his 2009 season. Somewhere in the middle of this long list of Californians sat our eventual 2009 Buick Invitational champion, the lanky 27-year-old Sacramento native Nick Watney.

Watney overcame a five-shot deficit and posted a 4-under 68 on Sunday to pick up his second career victory on the PGA Tour.

Although coming from so bar back with just 18 holes to play is amazing in itself, the way Watney did it was even more spectacular. Watney had a veteran presence about him all day and was absolutely clutch down the stretch. He birdied two of his last three holes and three of his last six. Most notably, Watney sank a 39-foot putt for birdie on the 193-yard, par-3 16th hole, while leader John Rollins was unable to get up and down from a green-side bunker and made bogey. Watney may never forget sinking the huge breaking bomb from the fringe as that highlight-reel putt was the key to his victory.

The Californians as a whole did not fair as well as expected, though. Of the 30 entrants, only 13 made the cut with Watney, Hoffman (T-7), Hunter Mahan (T-11) and Paul Goydos (T-17) the only ones in the top 25 at week's end.

Getting It Done
Examining the table above, we see that Watney was solid but not spectacular in the major statistical categories. The consistency across all facets of his game is reinforced by his all-around ranking (third). It's also worth noting that Watney led the field in scrambling, getting up and down 75 percent of the time. This is significantly better than the field's average of 52.80 percent.

After leading the field at the FBR Open in driving distance last week (319.9 yards), Watney wasn't as long this week, averaging 286.8 yards. Distance remains a key to his game, though, and a key to winning at Torrey Pines.

Watney currently ranks fifth on tour in driving distance and he continues to rise in the rankings each year. Over the past five seasons, Watney's tour rank in driving distance has improved steadily, from 28th in 2005, to 18th in 2006, to 17th in 2007, to seventh in 2008, to fifth in 2009. His distance was key as Watney finished second in scoring on the par-5's last week at 11-under, besting the field's average of 3-under by eight shots.

While the stats help tell much of the story, there were some intangibles at work with Watney on Sunday. By starting the day five shots back, much of the pressure was on the broad shoulders of 54-hole leader John Rollins and Camilo Villegas, who was three shots off the lead heading into Sunday. The deficit made it easier for Watney to play within himself.

More importantly, Watney embraced the opportunity, performed like he had done it before (he did win the 2007 Zurich Classic) and had fun. In an exchange on the 15th hole, Watney commented to Villegas, "You gotta love this." Villegas smiled and replied, "Yeah, if you don't, you might as well be home watching on the couch."

The Future's So Bright
What does this victory mean for Watney's career? If history serves true, it could mean a major championship is near. The previous 13 winners of the Buick Invitational have major championship victories on their résumés. The last player to win the Buick Invitational without winning a major or going on to win a major is Peter Jacobsen in 1995.

On a historical note, Watney passed Jack Nicklaus on the career money list, moving up to 157th. Watney is also the first player in his 20s to win on tour this year.

Lefty trying to right the ship

Although it might be too early to sound the alarm, Phil Mickelson's woes continued this week at the Buick Invitational. What's behind Lefty's troubles? Bob Harig

Please Shake Off That Rust
It is still early in the season, but with a missed cut last week and a T-42 this week, Phil Mickelson has had the worst start to a season in his career. Lefty and Callaway made a huge push to get his new driver approved by the PGA Tour and did so just in time for the Buick Invitational. It didn't do him too many favors as he was in the bottom quartile of the field in driving accuracy at 46.43 percent; the field averaged 50.55 percent.

Though the sample size is very small, here are some of the ugly truths of Lefty's early season rankings. The only category in which he beats the tour average is driving distance. Historically, Mickelson has been in the top 25 on tour in putting average. Currently, he ranks 143rd, which includes missing an 18-inch putt last week.

North vs. South
The Buick Invitational plays on the north course and south course at Torrey Pines. The south course is the featured venue of this tournament, but it was more harsh than usual this year.

The south course is played for three of the four rounds, including both weekend rounds. Despite the better half of the field playing the weekend on the south course, it still averaged 2.2 strokes more difficult for this year's event.

To put the south course's difficulty into context, it was just the second time since 1983 that its scoring average has been more than 74.00. The south course did not yield a bogey-free round on Sunday.

International Affairs
• Ireland's Padraig Harrington and South Africa's Retief Goosen made their 2009 PGA Tour debuts this week. Harrington, the 2008 Player of the Year, notched a top 25 with a T-24 finish. Goosen just missed the plateau after finishing tied for 26th.

• Villegas continues to solidify his status as a superstar in the making. His T-3 finish gives him top-five finishes in five of his past eight PGA Tour starts, including two victories. Prior to the weekend, it appeared he was going to run away with the event after he opened with a 63 on the north course and followed it with a 2-under 70 at the south course on Friday.

Villegas burned so many edges of the cups on the greens that you couldn't help feel for the guy. The longest putt he made all week was from 16 feet; compare that to Rollins, who's longest putt of the week was from 60 feet. However, Villegas was obviously stroking his putter well as he made 90.91 percent of his putts from inside 10 feet. That put him at T-12 in the category and was notably better than the field average of 85.46 percent.

Villegas' strength was hitting greens, finishing T-6 at 73.61 percent. The tour average is 62.31 percent. If Villegas maintains this level of ball striking and confident play, the putts will fall. Anyone who watched him play could see the aura of a winner. His time to join the world's top five appears to be right now.

Send comments, suggestions, and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

This week on the PGA Tour brings the second of three World Championship Golf events, with the CA Championship at Doral. It also brings the second 2009 appearance of the world's No. 1-ranked player, Tiger Woods.

Although Tiger is the favorite to win this tourney, he'll face a world-class field of 79 other players. The most notable competitor is defending champion Geoff Ogilvy, coming off his win two weeks ago at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. This week, the stats blog looks at why Ogilvy deserves to be mentioned immediately after Woods and how these two took it to the field at Doral the past two years.

The WGC-CA event was a traveling tournament until 2007, when it took over for the regular tour stop at Doral. How has Tiger fared at this event and at the Blue Monster?

• Six wins in the nine WGC-CA Championship events (1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007). Woods' earnings for these events total $7.598 million.

• Those wins have come on six different courses, in Ireland, England, Spain, California, Georgia and Florida.

• The three years in which Tiger has not won the event, he has finished fifth, T-5 and ninth.

• In all, Tiger has won at Doral three times in six appearances. The other three finishes were all top-10s, including second-, fifth- and ninth-place finishes. He is 89 under par in these six starts, averaging nearly 15 under.

Though it is impossible to compete with this record, Ogilvy has proved he can at least compete this week. The Aussie's recent showings prove that point:

• Ogilvy will try to join Tiger as the only players to win back-to-back WGC events after his victory at the WGC-Match Play two weeks ago. Ogilvy and Tiger are the only two players to win the event more than once; Tiger has done it three times.

• Of Ogilvy's six PGA Tour victories, three are WGC events. He's second on the list, behind Tiger and his 15 WGC titles.

• Ogilvy is the PGA Tour's leading money winner at $2.67 million, FedEx Cup leader at 1,176 points and Road to Dubai leader at 1.543 million euros.

• Ogilvy has gained more points in the world rankings than anyone this season. He has moved into fourth place, up from 12th to begin 2009.

• Ogilvy has two fantastic finishes at the WGC-CA since it moved to Doral: T-3 and a win last year.

How have Ogilvy and Woods gotten it done the past two years at Doral? It's all about greens in regulation.

These are some staggering similarities and differences for two champs on the same golf course. Though both hit greens at an elite clip, Ogilvy got up and down almost without exception, whereas Tiger didn't.

Their scrambling can be summed up by the scorecard: Ogilvy made only a single bogey in his victory, while Tiger made eight. In 2007, Ogilvy started with 60 consecutive holes without a bogey, and hole No. 61 was his only blemish for the entire event. For the week, he sank all 52 of his putts from 5 feet and in.

Looking deeper, the biggest overall difference from 2007 to 2008 had nothing to do with the champions; instead, it was the course. In fact, there was a seven-shot difference in the winning score -- Ogilvy won at 17 under, Tiger at 10 under. In just a single season, the Blue Course at Doral dropped from the 16th-most difficult course to 40th out of 54. It went from playing a stroke over par in 2007 to playing a stroke under par in 2008.

For the field as a whole, the greatest contributor to the increased difficulty was GIR percentage, as the field averaged 64.06 percent last year compared with 54.9 percent in 2007.

Tangled up in Blue
The Blue Course at Doral, a par-72 that plays to 7,266 yards, often is referred to as the Blue Monster.

It's most famous for its finishing hole, the 467-yard par-4 18th. This beast was the most difficult home hole on the PGA Tour in 2004 and 2007, and was the sixth-most difficult in 2008. It is a very difficult driving hole that usually plays into the wind or into a crosswind.

The wind can play a huge factor in Florida golf at this time of year, especially with Sunday nerves and a world-class field factored into the equation. The closing hole also sports a very long and narrow green that is entirely bordered by water on the left side.

Combining the two years in which the Blue Monster has hosted the WGC-CA Championship, players have birdied the hole only 7 percent of the time, while they have carded bogey or worse more than 40 percent of the time.

Fantasy foursomes
This will be the first real opportunity to use Tiger in your lineups this season. It's pretty hard not to start him, but if you saw Ogilvy win the WGC-Accenture Match Play, no one can argue too much if you start Ogilvy over Woods.

In a field of world-class players like this, you're best off going with the hot hand and the blue chips. This is one of the last times you'll see a field this strong before Augusta, so why not just go thoroughbred across the board?

The starters: Ogilvy, Rory McIlroy, Steve Stricker, Retief Goosen

Next in line: Woods, Adam Scott, Zach Johnson, Luke Donald

Notables
• Stuart Appleby continues his streak this week as the only player to compete in every individual World Golf Championship event since its inception in 1999.

• Six players will make their first start in a WGC event this week: Thomas Aiken, Ken Duke, Garth Mulroy, Bubba Watson, Azuma Yano and last week's champ, Y.E. Yang.

• This week the PGA Tour also hosts the Puerto Rico Open, in which Manuel Villegas, Camilo's brother, will make his first PGA Tour start.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Golf is such a crazy game. Just a few weeks ago, everyone was wondering what was wrong with Lefty.

After his rough start to 2009, Phil Mickelson quickly silenced his critics, winning two events before Augusta for the third time in his career, the most recent being his first WGC title. Mickelson regained the No. 2 spot in the world golf rankings with the win, and he is now closer than ever to taking over the top spot from Tiger Woods.

This week's stats blog examines just how clutch Phil's short game was at Doral, and just how bad Tiger's putter was despite his great ball striking.

Mickelson's putting stats to start this event were ridiculous: just 42 putts on his first 36 holes. Not surprisingly, he led the tournament at 13-under going into the weekend. His putt totals by round were 20, 22, 28 and 29.

Mickelson's putting stats were aided by his four hole outs, and his 99 putts for the tournament tied his career-low showing at the 1998 MCI Classic.

Runner-up Nick Watney's putter was nearly as impressive, as he totaled just 100 putts. The PGA Tour record for fewest putts in four rounds is 92, by David Frost in the 2005 MCI Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links.

Tiger had a much different outcome on the greens at Doral. Woods struck the ball spectacularly all week, but he had no luck rolling the rock. His putts by round were 28, 28, 31 and 26. Woods' total of 113 putts is a staggering 14 more than Mickelson's, even though Tiger had two hole outs himself.

Tiger finished eight shots back of Phil at 11-under; his T-9 finish equals his worst showing at the WGC-CA Championship in 10 appearances. Although Tiger's putting frustrations were obvious (he choked and flipped his putter multiple times), he has to feel great about his ball striking during the tournament.

With that, let's take a look at some of the more compelling stat comparisons between Phil and Tiger at Doral:

There are some numbers that really stand out here. For Mickelson, 27 birdies is a huge number. And the most telling statistic in his victory is birdies or better conversion percentage. This stat measures a player's ability to make birdie when he hits a green in regulation. Phil was able to capitalize on 52.17 percent of birdie opportunities, whereas Tiger was successful just 28.57 percent of the time.

Tiger hit three more greens in regulation than Phil for the tournament, but Mickelson made 11 more birdies. By comparing both player's GIR and birdie conversion rate, you get an overwhelming sense of how timely and clutch Phil was in his birdie efforts. To give this stat further context, Phil ranked seventh on the PGA Tour in 2008 in birdie conversion rate at 31.42 percent. He surpassed this high ranking number by more than 20 percent this week.

Tiger's numbers show just how phenomenal his ball striking was: He led the field in total driving (sum of the ranks in driving distance and driving accuracy) and he tied for second in ball striking (sum of the ranks in total driving and GIR). However, Woods was fifth-worst in the field in putts per GIR at 1.816.

Another telling stat is average distance of putts made. This is the sum of the lengths of all putts made for the event, averaged out on a per-round basis. In each round of the tournament, a player has 18 putts that go into the hole, whether it's their first putt attempt, second or (cringe) third.

The sum length of Tiger's 72 putts at Doral averaged out to 51 feet and 1 inch per round. Woods ranked dead last in the field in this category, and on a per-hole basis the average length of his putt made was 2 feet, 10 inches. Basically, this stat reveals that Tiger had a lot of short putts for par after missing on his birdie attempts. The leader in average distance of putts made for the tournament was Richard Finch; on a per-hole basis, his average putt made was over 6 feet in length.

One final stat of note is proximity to hole. This number averages the distance from the hole at which the ball stops following a player's approach shot. It gives you a rough idea of how dialed in a player was with his irons, and also assists in quantifying just how legitimate or realistic a player's birdie opportunities might have been. Granted, this is only one number and it doesn't describe how good or bad a player's misses are in relation to the landscape of the course. But over larger samples, it's a reliable indicator of approach-shot accuracy.

Mickelson was in the middle of the pack in proximity, finishing 35th at 37 feet, 11 inches; Woods ranked 7th at 34 feet. On average, Tiger was 4 feet closer than Phil on his approaches, yet Woods made eleven fewer birdies for the week.

Notables
• The par-4 18th hole at Doral isn't just the toughest finishing hole on the PGA Tour, it's the tour's most difficult hole so far this year. For the event, the hole played to an average of 4.479 strokes and allowed only 11 birdies. By contrast, the 529-yard par-5 opening hole at Doral played the easiest of any hole on tour relative to par, at -.804 strokes, allowing 213 birdies and 25 eagles.

• In six events this year, Watney has made every cut and turned in five top-25 finishes. With his win at the Buick and his second-place finish at Doral, Watney already has earned a career-best $1,991,570 so far this year. This surpasses his total in 2007, when he played in 27 events and picked up his first PGA Tour win at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. Overall, Watney has made his last 11 cuts.

• Woods' T-9 finish gives him a top-10 finish in all 10 of his appearances at the WGC-CA Championship; he has 25 total top-10s in 29 WGC events, including 15 wins.

• Mickelson's victory is the ninth win by a player from the U.S. in 12 PGA Tour tournaments so far this season. Also, the third-round leader has won 10 of 11 stroke-play events on tour this year.

• Jim Furyk is playing some very solid golf. He played all four rounds at Doral in the 60s (68-68-69-67) to finish third. His back-nine Sunday total of 5-under 31 was just one shot higher than his closing-nine 30 in his victory at Doral in 2000.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

The PGA Tour wrapped up its West Coast swing and begins the Florida leg of the season this week at the Honda Classic. The host venue is the PGA National Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Since the Honda Classic moved there in 2007, the course has been in the top 10 in scoring difficulty. If recent history holds, we should see very short drives, significantly fewer par breakers than most PGA Tour events and a champion who has won a major or at least can play the shots needed to win golf's biggest tournaments.

In 2008, the PGA National Champion Course was the ninth most difficult on the PGA Tour out of 54, averaging 1.825 strokes above par.

How hard is this track? Take a look at a few of the courses that played more difficult: Royal Birkdale (British Open), Oakland Hills (PGA Championship), Torrey Pines (U.S. Open), Muirfield Village (The Memorial) and TPC Sawgrass (The Players Championship). The main reasons for this company: PGA National is a very challenging layout in terms of driving distance while birdies are tough to come by, even from the fairway. Plus, there are only two par-5s on the course -- the 18th hole being the third most difficult par-5 on tour last year.

As for eagles, you can pretty much forget about them. Last year, there were a total of six eagles for the entire event. This ranked PGA National as the most difficult course to eagle on tour last year, giving up one eagle for every 1,317 holes played. The next closest in 2008 was Torrey Pines' North Course at one eagle every 930 holes.

To put this into better context, players can expect one eagle every 73 rounds at PGA National. This year at the Bob Hope Classic, the Nicklaus Course at PGA West gave up one eagle almost every three rounds.

The 7,158-yard par-70 PGA National course was redesigned by Jack Nicklaus and features a very difficult closing stretch. Nos. 15-17 have been labeled "The Bear Trap" and were the second-, fifth- and third-most difficult holes last year. Nos. 15 and 17 are par-3s over water, and No. 16 is a 434-yard, par-4 with an approach over water. Add to this difficult stretch some Sunday pressure, seasonal Florida winds and the grain of Bermuda greens, and we could have a very wild finish.

[+] Enlarge

Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Holes No. 15-17 at PGA National have been dubbed "The Bear Trap." It is traditionally one of the toughest closing stretches on the PGA Tour each season.

The field
Though we will probably have to wait just one more week for Tiger's second coming at the WGC-CA Championship at Doral, there are still some headliners at the Honda Classic.

International players highlight the elite field this week. They include: Sergio Garcia (No. 2 in the world), Camilo Villegas (9), defending champ Ernie Els (14) and Northern Ireland's teen sensation Rory McIlroy (16). The top-ranked U.S. competitors playing this week are Stewart Cink (18), who is coming off a third-place finish at the WGC-Accenture Match Play, and Justin Leonard (25), who made it to the round of eight last week before being ousted by England's Ross Fisher. The U.S. brings its own teenage fan favorite back as Hawaiian Tadd Fujikawa will tee it up.

Winning at PGA National
Last year's champion, Ernie Els, had a great ball-striking week to lead him to victory. He finished T-4 in greens in regulation, ninth in proximity to the hole and 10th in driving distance. After his win, Els summed up the event by saying you have to hit major championship shots all the time to win here.

Expect a long driver with world-class game to be at the top of the leaderboard come Sunday night. Over the past decade, six of the past 10 Honda Classic champs also own a major victory.

As always, GIR is the most important statistical category to predict success, but add a little more weight at PGA National. Expect this year's champ to finish the week in the top 10 in GIR and near the top 25 in driving distance.

Fantasy Foursomes
To make this year's picks, let's use the analysis above, along with some historical context and the hot players on the PGA Tour.

• Camilo Villegas provided a couple of beat-downs last week at the WGC-Match Play, knocking off Rod Pampling, 7 and 6 and Miguel Angel Jimenez, 5 and 4. He lost in the third round to eventual champ Geoff Ogilvy, but the Colombian's performance should not be ignored. He has muscle off the tee and is ranked second in GIR at 76.11 percent.

• Els made the weekend at the WGC-Match Play for this first time since 2001. He made in the neighborhood of 16 birdies and an eagle in the first three rounds; that was after making 17 birdies and an eagle the previous week at Riviera.

Els currently ranks ninth on tour in GIR at 74.07 percent and 24th in driving distance. His kryptonite has been his putter, but he worked with Callaway to create a Ping Anser knock-off -- the putter he used to win the 1994 U.S. Open. Let's see if that can bring back the old magic for the Big Easy; the three-time major champion currently ranks outside the top 100 in most putting categories.

• McIlroy won his first three matches last week before losing to Ogilvy. The eventual champion needed eight birdies and his best round of the tournament to defeat McIlroy 2 and 1.

After the match, Ogilvy paid the teenager high accolades, saying, "He's the real deal. He's got it physically. He's got the whole package. This will be the worst ranking he's got for the next 10 years. It's only going to go up because he's very impressive."

Ogilvy further mentioned his caddie's comments on McIlroy: "If you want to be the second-best player in the world, you got to be better than Rory."

Major champion Mark O'Meara said Rory is a better ball-striker than Tiger Woods was at the same age. The kid is legit.

• Boo Weekley is leading the tour in ball-striking and GIR at 79.17 percent. He finished second here in 2007 and was in the hunt last year before a final-round 80.

• Mark Calcavecchia is coming off a week of rest and back-to-back top-10 finishes. He has won the Honda Classic twice and been runner-up twice. The 1989 British Open champion was in contention here last year, but a double at the start of the Bear Trap on Sunday and a bogey at No. 18 left him three back and in fourth place.

• Davis Love III is motivated and goal-oriented this year. He has gone public with his desire to compete again in the majors and to make Fred Couples' Presidents Cup team. With his second-place showing at the Mercedes-Benz and his strong showing at the WGC-Match Play, Love has moved up from 80th to 53rd in the world rankings. He needs to be in the top 50 to qualify for next week's WGC-CA Championship at Doral and for the Masters.

Love, who owns one major title, has made 14 consecutive cuts at the Honda, including two second-place finishes. He currently ranks 15th in GIR at 73.08 percent.

• Ben Crane is one of the few "C" players hitting more than 70 percent of his greens, and he finished T-12 last year. Ted Purdy is another "C" player that qualifies, hitting 71.48 percent of his greens and is averaging more than 288 yards off the tee. He has made all five cuts this year and improved every week: T-51, T-35, T-26, T-14 and T-13.

The Starters: Villegas, McIlroy, Calcavecchia and Purdy

Next in Line: Els, Weekley, Love and Crane

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

It is no exaggeration to say that Y.E. Yang had the best week of his life as a professional golfer. He narrowly escaped the claws of PGA National's Bear Trap to hold off John Rollins by one stroke to win the 2009 Honda Classic.

In earning the victory, Yang became just the second South Korean-born player to win on the PGA Tour, joining fellow countryman and seven-time PGA Tour winner K.J. Choi. By virtue of his win, Yang is now eligible for the WGC-CA Championship this week at Doral. He also gained entry into the Masters, the Players Championship and the 2010 winners-only Mercedes-Benz Championship.

Possibly most important of all, he is exempt through the end of the 2011 season.

Though his win came out of nowhere (Yang had one top-10 in 46 career PGA Tour events), the recipe he used for success is not a new one at PGA National. Yang made birdies early in his round and avoided the blow-up holes while hitting his driver and approach shots at an elite level.

Jack Nicklaus was in the announcer's booth Sunday and shared some great insight into the course he redesigned in 1990. The 18-time major winner made it clear the key to playing PGA National is keeping the ball in play. And that's exactly what Yang did.

While the 460th-ranked player in the world coming into the Honda didn't have nearly the firepower that many players in the field this week have -- he was T-15 in birdies -- Yang avoided the big numbers and was crushing the ball off the tee.

A look at Yang's scoring breakdown compared to his nearest competitors, Rollins and Ben Crane, proves the point, especially when it comes to making bogeys or worse.

With only five bogeys and no doubles all week, Yang did an excellent job keeping the ball in play. However, it was apparent that Sunday's pressure and the Bear Trap (holes 15-17) got to Yang as two of his five bogeys for the week came during that stretch Sunday.

Crane had much more of a roller-coaster ride that included an ace Saturday on the 217-yard par-3 5th hole. But he also fell victim to four doubles over the week. Rollins was steadier: He was the only player in the field to shoot all four rounds under par, but he still had eight bogeys on the week. Compared to Yang, Rollins and Crane had four and five more birdies, respectively.

We all know that golf is a game of confidence and it can be very fickle. Yang was able bolster his confidence this week by getting off the tee with much-improved length and setting up birdies early in his round.

Holes 1-4 proved key to Yang's win. Of his 14 birdies on the week, seven came on PGA National's first four holes. It was these early birdies that gave Yang the confidence throughout all aspects of his game. His most important club in winning may have been the driver, but look at what drastic improvement he had across the board this week:

Yang was astonishingly better across the board this week on a major championship golf course -- PGA National has hosted more majors than any other venue, including 18 Senior PGA Championships. Most notably, he drove the ball 30 yards longer on average this week, ranking 13th at the Honda.

Prior to the event he stood at 169th on the PGA Tour in driving distance. He also ranked third for the week in GIR at 72.22 percent; prior to this event he was ranked 136th in GIR. His scrambling percentage improved nearly 25 percent this week.

Notables
• Yang had quite a different experience Sunday at the Honda Classic compared to last year. In 2008, he had a rough Saturday, shooting 43 on the back nine, including a double, a triple and a quadruple bogey. This led to Yang playing Sunday's round as a single player and he finished his final round of 71 in an amazing 1 hour, 53 minutes. He finished T-72.

• Robert Allenby continues to play exceptionally well but not win. This week, he tied Tiger Woods at 30 for the current longest streak of consecutive cuts made. Allenby has not won since 2001 when he captured the Nissan Open and the Marconi Penn Classic. Starting in 2002, he has an amazing 46 top-10s without a win. He now has three consecutive top-5 finishes at The Honda Classic.

• Runner-up Rollins has been another tough-luck customer. Since picking up his second tour win in 2006 at the B.C. Open, he has finished in second five times.

• Northern Ireland teen sensation Rory McIlroy continues to impress. He followed up his T-5 at the WGC-Accenture Match Play last week with a T-13 this week at the Honda.

• Davis Love III has never missed a cut at the Honda Classic and finished T-13 this week in his 15th appearance. Love moved up to 50th in the world rankings with his performance. That is crucial as it qualified Love for this week's WGC-CA Championship on the number. If he can tread water at that ranking for three more weeks, he'll also earn an invite back to Augusta National for the Masters.

• With his win, Yang moved up from 460th in the world rankings to 147th.

• Woods announced Friday that he will be playing this week's WGC-CA Championship at Doral. Tiger has already won three times at Doral. Over his career, Tiger has a career winning percentage of 27.5, but when looking at only WGC events, he takes home the title at a 55.5 percent clip.

Send comments, suggestions, and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Geoff Ogilvy is having one heck of an early season. With all the cameras and eyes on Tiger Woods' return, Ogilvy's 2009 start is as dominant as what we've come to expect from Tiger.

The Aussie followed up his December Australian PGA win with his fifth PGA Tour victory at the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship. On Sunday at the WGC-Accenture World Golf Championship, he notched title No. 6.

How has he been able get it done so far? Ogilvy's numbers show him racking up birdies at a torrid rate; not surprisingly, they have been set up by much-improved putting and a stronger greens-in-regulation percentage. Last week in Tucson, Ariz., Ogilvy showcased an outstanding birdie total and impressive putting display to defeat the world's finest players and take home the $1.4 million winner's check.

Coming into this week, Ogilvy led the PGA Tour in birdies per round (5.13) and percentage of holes at birdie or better (29.17). By comparison, the tour averages are 3.64 and 20.82, respectively.

Ignoring the holes that were conceded, Ogilvy was actually able to improve on his birdie numbers, averaging 5.42 birdies per round and making birdie or better at a 30.97 percent clip. He made these improvements under the duress of match play and on a championship course measuring more than 7,800 yards. In Sunday's 36-hole final, Ogilvy was 12 under through 33 holes and didn't record a single bogey.

To score this well, all parts of his game were obviously clicking on all cylinders, but it was Ogilvy's putting that separated him from the field. Just how clutch was his putter? Let's take a look at how Ogilvy's putting inside 10 feet compared to that of the other players in the final four:

In playing 121 holes over five days, Ogilvy missed just five putts from inside 10 feet, for a 95.10 percentage. How does this compare to what has been done on the PGA Tour this year?

Ogilvy's putt percentage inside 10 feet last week bested that of the tour leader in the category, and he blew past both the tour average and his own putting rate by nearly 10 percent. To further quantify this stat, Ogilvy made exactly 9.37 more putts inside 10 feet than we would have expected coming into this event. In match play, this can really wear an opponent down.

Ogilvy performed and putted under the increased pressure of match play -- and did so in what the players consider one of the most challenging putting tests they have seen in some time. In fact, there is so much undulation and subtle movement on the greens at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club that the greens were kept rolling more than two points slower on the stimpmeter for the event. Had they been the normal tour speed, the players contend, the greens would have been the most difficult on tour.

Ogilvy was able to figure them out and feasted under the pressure. For the season, Ogilvy is ranked third in putting average and has decreased his putts per round by 2.1 from last year.

The other key ingredient to Ogilvy's birdie barrage is his improved iron play and ball striking. The most notably improved stat for Ogilvy in 2009 is his greens-in-regulation percentage. After hovering around 62 percent GIR for the past three years, Ogilvy has improved to more than 70 percent this year and moved up 130 spots in the PGA Tour rankings in the category.

And with victories in all six of his matches this week, Ogilvy put himself atop a very impressive list for career record at the WGC-Accenture Match Play (minimum 10 matches played):

Ogilvy also joins Tiger as the only players to have won the WGC-Match Play more than once. Woods has won it three times.

Ogilvy's $3.54 million in career earnings at the event is second only to Tiger's $4.71 million. As for 2009, Ogilvy now leads the FedEx Cup standings at 1175.5, the PGA Tour money list at $2.67 million and the Race to Dubai at 1,543,168 euros.

Ogilvy began the season ranked 12th in the world, and he has moved up to fourth -- behind Tiger, Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson -- while jumping ahead of the likes of Padraig Harrington and Vijay Singh.

Tiger's return
After a welcoming first match and 3-and-2 victory over Brendan Jones, Tiger met a much tougher opponent in Round 2 in Tim Clark. The South African played nearly flawless golf, amassing six birdies and no bogies in defeating the world's No. 1 player, 4 and 2.

In postround interviews, Tiger was humble, saying he flat-out got beat. But he was encouraged by the fact he hit only two shots in two rounds that he considered bad.

Although that might be true, the numbers revealed some rust. Over two days, Tiger's iron play wasn't what we have come to expect from him: He hit only 59.4 percent of greens in regulation. In 2008, his rate was 71.4 percent.

In terms of scoring, Tiger did electrify the crowd with two first-round eagles, including a birdie-eagle start to the event. For his two matches, Tiger finished with seven birdies and two eagles.

However, he made a significantly larger number of bogeys than expected, totaling six over 32 holes. When Tiger is on his game, he totals a ratio of 2.2 birdies for every one bogey. This week, the birdie-to-bogey ratio was cut nearly in half, to 1.17.

It has been speculated that Tiger's surgery will help him significantly with accuracy off the tee. Though the sample size is very small, Tiger did improve, hitting 62.5 percent of fairways this week, compared to 57.9 percent in 2008.

This improvement came even as Woods had noticeable difficulty transferring his weight from his right side. He hasn't been able to really push against his left leg for a long time, so there may be two factors for him to overcome: the muscle memory of favoring his left leg, and the change in his movement now that he can fully transfer his weight to his left side.

The numbers show that, of the fairways missed, 77.7 percent were to the right. This would support the notion that Tiger is still staying on his right side.

Notables
• Clark has the bittersweet honor of being the highest earner on the PGA Tour without a win. Clark's career earnings total more than $12.2 million. The feather in his cap for beating Tiger last week might be the confidence boost needed to help him get off the schneid.

• This week's runner-up, Paul Casey, is the highest-ranked player without a win on the PGA Tour. Casey jumped 10 places, all the way to 13th in the world rankings, thanks to his stellar showing at the WGC-Match Play and his season-opening win at the Abu Dhabi Championship on the European Tour. With his game and work ethic, a PGA Tour win -- perhaps even a major -- should be on the horizon.

• On his way to the WGC-Match Play Final, Ogilvy had a much more difficult road than Casey, his opponent. Ogilvy took down Kevin Sutherland (ranked No. 56), Shingo Katayama (No. 41), Camilo Villegas (No. 10), Rory McIlroy (No. 17), Stewart Cink (No. 22) and Casey (No. 23). The average rank of Ogilvy's opponent was 28th compared to Casey's 43rd. Before facing Ogilvy, Casey's highest-ranked opponent was Ross Fisher at No. 38 in the world.

• Ogilvy does his best work against the best fields. Of his six PGA Tour victories, three are in WGC events, one is the 2006 U.S. Open and another is the 2009 Mercedes-Benz Championship (a winners-only field). His first PGA Tour victory came at the 2005 Chrysler Classic.

• McIlroy is going to be a force in professional golf for a long time. The 19-year-old Northern Ireland native went 3-1 in his first PGA Tour event on U.S. soil. He was knocked out by Ogilvy in the fourth round, falling 2 and 1. Ogilvy had the most birdies of any round against McIlroy, totaling eight, but the match still went 17 holes.

Send comments, suggestions and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

Is anyone surprised that Tiger Woods is returning this week for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship? I must admit I was shocked at first, even though I had heard Mark O'Meara's and John Cook's interviews on the exceptional state of Tiger's game and his health. This week the stats blog looks at the mileage Tiger might put on his new knee and his amazing track record in the World Golf Championships.

Consider the potential strain that Tiger might endure:

• If Tiger makes it to the final Sunday and every match goes exactly 18 holes, he would play 126 holes in five days after not playing on the PGA Tour in 254 days.

• If Tiger makes it to Sunday, he could walk about 31.2 miles in five days (a normal 72-hole PGA event walking distance is roughly 16 miles). The weekend matches alone would make up 17.8 miles of this distance. This length is only the course yardage; it does not include the mileage walked from green to tee or any lateral mileage added from errant shots.

At first glance, the cost-benefit analysis does not appear to favor a comeback this week. Realizing what an intelligent athlete Tiger is, I had to look into this a little further. To give you a window into Tiger's take on World Golf Championship events and what he missed most in his layoff, examine the following quote:

"They are exactly what they were meant to be, and that's putting the best up against each other more often than just the four majors and The Players [Championship]. I think that's why we as players and competitors love them, love the idea that we can go head-to-head more often. Most of the guys play in Europe or some other part of the world, and we don't get a chance to buck heads. Maybe, like I said, just five times. And now we can do it more frequently, and I think it's been a huge success."

Tiger also stated that this is the first time he has been able to swing pain-free in years, and that had it not been for the birth of his son, Charlie, on Feb. 8, he would likely have come back sooner.

The Record
Given Tiger's track record at the WGC Match Play, his return this week might not be such a crazy endeavor. Woods is a three-time champion in the event (2003, 2004, 2008). He is also the leading money winner in tournament history.

Impressed yet? Considering all the World Golf Championship events, Tiger has amassed some eye-popping totals over the years.

Game, set, match
How strong has Tiger been in WGC events?

• Woods has earned more than four times that of Vijay Singh, No. 2 all time in the WGC event earnings.

• Taking into account only Tiger's earnings in the WGC events, he would rank 17th on the PGA Tour all-time money list between Fred Funk with $20,925,849 and Nick Price with $20,563,108.

• For his career, Woods has 65 PGA Tour victories in 236 starts, a winning rate of 27.5 percent. In WGC events, Tiger has 15 wins in 26 starts for a 57.7 percentage. In non-WGC events, Tiger's win rate is one-third this clip at 19.0 percent.

• Tiger's total of 15 wins in WGC events is unparalleled. Only Geoff Ogilvy and Darren Clarke have won more than one WGC event; both have two victories.

• Tiger's record in match play as a professional is 37-9-1 (including Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup and the WGC Match Play). His record in PGA Tour playoffs (which really boils down to match play) is 11-1. His only loss came to Billy Mayfair at the 1998 Nissan Open.

• Tiger's record in match play as an amateur is 42-4. Combined with his professional record, he is 80-12-1, a winning percentage of 86.0.

Others to Watch
In match play, the key numbers are scoring-related stats, especially those that relate to making birdies. The nature of the game allows a player to have a blowup or an off day and still come away with the victory. This is a great plus for Tiger as there is bound to be competitive rust. The other nice feature of this event is that except for Saturday's quarterfinal and semifinal double billing, he has to beat only one player each day.

• Geoff Ogilvy has a career record of 11-2 at the Accenture Match Play. He won the event in 2006 and finished as the runner-up in 2007. He is third on the all-time money list at the event. Ogilvy won the PGA Tour opener this year at the Mercedes-Benz Championship. He also leads the PGA Tour this year in birdies per round at 5.13 and in par breakers (percentage of holes at birdie or better) at 29.17 percent. Ogilvy is third on tour in birdie conversion rate at 40.39 percent. Birdie conversion is the percentage of holes that end in birdie or better given a player hit the green in regulation.

• Steve Stricker has a career record of 9-5 here, including a victory in 2001. Stricker has been in contention twice already this year and finished runner-up to Mickelson last week at the Northern Trust Open. He ranks fifth on tour in scoring average and has a better than 3-to-1 birdie-to-bogey ratio this year. He ranks 19th on tour in birdies per round at 4.40.

• Henrik Stenson has a career record of 12-2 at the WGC Match Play, including a victory in 2007 and a third-place finish in 2008. Stenson is a No. 2 seed with a tough draw of Davis Love III in Round 1.

• Rory McIlroy, the teenager from Northern Ireland, will be playing in his first WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and his first tournament in the U.S. McIlroy skyrocketed to No. 16 in the world rankings with his victory earlier this month at the Dubai Desert Classic. If the seeds hold up, the fourth-seeded McIlroy would meet Tiger on Friday in the round of 16.

• Sergio Garcia will be making his 2009 PGA Tour debut this week. The No. 2-ranked player in the world made a bigger move toward catching Tiger than any of the other world-class players. After the 2008 U.S. Open, Tiger's ranking points were at 21.152; Mickelson was a distant second at 10.214 and Sergio was sixth at 5.264. Entering the WGC-Accenture Match Play, Tiger is now at 9.90 average points in the world rankings and Sergio is a much-closer second at 7.85 points. Garcia's record here is only 8-7, but let's see what confidence he is able to draw from his No. 1 seeding.

The Course
The 2009 Accenture Match Play Championship moves to a new Nicklaus-designed course in Tucson, Ariz., the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in the Dove Mountain community. The course will play longer than any of the stops so far at 7,849 yards; this will be one of the longest courses all season.

One reprieve in the monster of a golf course is the thin air of the high desert, which allows for significantly more carry. As Jack Nicklaus has stated, "At this altitude, though, you're talking about 4 percent off that so you're basically at a 7,500-yard golf course, which is fine for professional." The course features five par-4s at 480 yards or more, with the longest measuring 536 yards, and a par-5 measuring 659 yards that usually plays into the wind.

Bracketology
Although the NCAA men's basketball tournament is known as March Madness, we can expect more upsets this week in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

• Since 1985, the upset rate in Round 1 of March Madness is 24.1 percent. That pales in comparison to the 40.3 percent first-round upset rate of the WGC Match Play. The most first-round upsets occurred in 1999, the tournament's first year. There were 18 upsets that year. Since 1999, each event has had 11, 12 or 13 first-round upsets out of 32 matches.

• Tiger Woods was victim to the biggest upset in tournament history in 2002. Tiger was No. 1 in the world and lost to Peter O'Malley, who was ranked No. 64. Since 1985, a No. 1 seed has never lost to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Send comments, suggestions, and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

The age-old combination of solid ball striking into greens and clutch putting holds across venues, but the penalty of the rough is becoming less and less a factor in today's game, even at a major championship-caliber course like Riviera Country Club.

And once again this year, distance over accuracy was upheld at the Northern Trust Open. Though Phil Mickelson improved slightly on his accuracy from his victory last year in the same event, he still was only T-49 for the week. His greatest improvements versus the field this year were in greens in regulation and driving distance, where he moved up more than 15 places.

Phil's roller coaster
Mickelson had quite the up-and-down week en route to his 35th PGA Tour victory. His opening-round 63 was the first time he broke 70 this year. A Saturday score of 62 tied him with Tadd Fujikawa's third-round tally at the Sony Open for the lowest round this year outside of the birdie frenzy that was the 50th Bob Hope Classic.

As for Mickelson's third-round 62, his work Saturday was 10 shots better than his second and fourth rounds, when he shot 1-over-par 72 each day. Here is how Mickelson's rounds compared with the field:

On his way to becoming the seventh player to defend a title at the Northern Trust Open, Mickelson used the same combination of skills that has proved effective over the past several years at Riviera: greens in regulation, putting and driving distance.

After besting the field on moving day by more than eight strokes, Lefty squandered his handsome four-shot lead Sunday. With late birdies on Nos. 16 and 17, he did just enough to hold off runner-up Steve Stricker by a stroke.

Mickelson held on despite scoring nearly two shots worse than the field average on Sunday. He continued the 2009 trend of the third-round leader/co-leader hoisting the trophy on Sunday. Six of the seven events this year have been won by the third-round leader or co-leader.

A change will do you good
Comparing Mickelson's most crucial scoring stats at Riviera to his previous three events in 2009, you can really see how dynamic and talented a player he is. There are very few golfers who can turn all facets of their game around this quickly. Unfortunately for Lefty, the numbers also detail just how erratic and inconsistent his game can be. The statistic that stands out most is putting from 4 to 8 feet, where Phil improved his conversion rate by more than 30 percent at Riviera.

So how do Mickelson's numbers this week compare with those of the rest of the field at Riviera and to the leaders' so far this year on the PGA Tour?

Notables
• Twelve of Mickelson's 35 wins have come in his native state of California. Mickelson, Billy Casper and Johnny Miller are the only three players to win all four of the current California tour events: the Buick Invitational, the Bob Hope Classic, the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and the Northern Trust Open. Mickelson and Casper are San Diego natives; Miller hails from San Francisco.

• Fred Couples appears to be on his way to quite a notable year. He continued his amazing track record at the Northern Trust Open, finishing T-3. After 27 starts here, Couples has two titles, 25 made cuts, 19 top-25s and 13 top-10 finishes. Freddy will captain the 2009 U.S. Presidents Cup team and become eligible for the Champion's Tour when he celebrates his 50th birthday in October.

• Stricker had another heart-wrenching Sunday after putting himself in contention. Unlike his blow-up 77 on Sunday at the Bob Hope earlier this year, Stricker carded a solid 67 to close out the Northern Trust. But a bogey on the 72nd hole cost him a potential playoff with Mickelson.

Round 4 at Riviera marked the second time this season that Stricker's driving accuracy has been a victim of Sunday pressure. At the Hope, Stricker missed seven of his last 10 fairways after hitting 80 percent of them over his first four rounds of the week.

On Sunday at Riviera, Stricker was strong out of the gate, hitting an impressive seven of his first 10 fairways. But he faltered down the stretch and missed each of his last four fairways, including the 18th hole where off the tee he hit a dead pull only 247 yards. That drive left him 244 yards from the green and was the main culprit in his closing bogey.

• 2008 PGA Tour rookie of the year Andres Romero was in the hunt Sunday, but fell just short, finishing T-3 and earning $327,600. With his finish, Romero passed $3 million in career PGA Tour earnings in his 28th start ($115,416 average). To put this into context, after Mickelson took home $1.134 million this week, he now averages $139,695 in 370 professional PGA Tour starts.

• With last week's T-6 finish, 48-year-old Mark Calcavecchia appears poised to make a run in 2009. After missing the cut in his first two events of 2009, Calc now has back-to-back top-10 finishes (after a T-4 showing last week at Pebble Beach). Those two top-10s match his total from the entire 2008 season, in which Calc made only 12 cuts in 25 events and finished outside the top 125 on the money list for the first time since 1985.

• With his victory at the Johnnie Walker Classic, 18-year-old U.S. Amateur champion Danny Lee became the youngest winner ever on the European Tour. He is the second amateur to win on the European Tour, besting other young guns such as Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas in the field.

Lee plans to turn pro after the Masters in April and has set some incredibly lofty goals.

"I can't compare to Tiger Woods because he is one of the greatest players in the world and he's the No. 1-ranked player in the world. All I want to do is just break what he's done. Obviously, I can't win three U.S. Amateurs in a row, but I'll try to break his records on the PGA Tour."

Send comments, suggestions, and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.

Posted by Nathan Easler

This week, the PGA Tour moves more than 300 miles down the California coast, from Pebble Beach to the esteemed Riviera Country Club, for the 2009 Northern Trust Open. Riviera is highly revered by tour players and is widely considered one of the top-five venues on the PGA Tour for its spectacular beauty and challenging design.

The course is considered a traditionalist's track with narrow fairways and small, fast greens. Most pros consider this a shot-maker's and ball-striker's venue, where you must hit every shot in the bag. The numbers mostly agree with conventional wisdom: greens in regulation, putting and scrambling are key components to a successful tournament. However, there is one key contradiction in recent years at Riviera: driving distance rather than driving accuracy will play a crucial role in winning the Northern Trust Open.

Driving distance stands out as a paradox to what's considered a shot-maker's course. What's even more surprising than driving distance being significantly associated with success is that driving accuracy is one of the least important statistical categories at Riviera. Here's how the past three champions fared in a few key categories.

Though this is just a small sampling, it gives you a taste of what the recent champions have done well and what they have been able to get away with. One nearly universal truth that holds up at Riviera is that greens in regulation is one of the most important predictors of success.

It appears that the complexity of a traditional course like Riviera is being changed by modern technology and the ability of today's PGA Tour pros to recover from the rough. Despite the course being stretched to 7,298 yards and the rough being close in play, it appears that the modern equipment and strength of today's players aid in neutralizing the rough and the distance added. The age-old combination of solid ball striking into greens and clutch putting still holds, but the penalty of the rough is becoming less and less a factor.

A Tough Test
In 2008, Riviera maintained many of its traditional qualities: difficult to avoid the rough, difficult to hit the small greens, difficult to stick it close on approaches, and some slick and frustrating short putts. In fact, Riviera was in the top five out more than 50 courses in the following categories:

The Holes
The most recognizable hole at Riviera is the 199-yard, par-3 sixth hole, world renowned for having a bunker in the middle of the green. If a player is on the wrong side of the trap, he will have to make a tough decision to either putt around or chip over the bunker. This makes for an excellent opportunity to view a player's imagination and shot-making ability. It's also pretty entertaining to see a couple of divots taken out of this pristine green.

Another unique characteristic is that Riviera opens with its easiest hole and follows soon thereafter with its most challenging test. The first hole, a 503-yard, par-5, averaged more than half a stroke under par last year, surrendering 17 eagles and 232 birdies. The 236-yard, par-3 fourth hole averaged one-third of a stroke over par in 2008 and yielded only 16 birdies the entire week.

The History
Riviera earned its moniker "Hogan's Alley" in 1948 after Ben Hogan won both the U.S. Open and the L.A. Open there that season. Over the years, the course has been host to many historical events, including:

• In 1952, Joe Louis became the first African-American to complete in a tour-sanctioned event.

• In 1953, it became the first locally televised event.

• In 1966, it was the first nationally televised event.

• In 1962, Jack Nicklaus won his first professional check, which totaled $33.33.

• In 1992, 16-year-old Tiger Woods played in his first PGA Tour event as an amateur.

Over the years, the par-71 course has been redesigned several times and will be tipped out to 7,298 yards for this week's event.

Fantasy Foresomes
To make this week's fantasy picks, let's use the analysis above coupled with historical context and the hot players on tour.

• Ernie Els just needs to get his putter going. He currently ranks second on tour in GIR, seventh in scrambling, and 22nd in driving distance. As good as the rest of his game has been, his putter has been icy and he ranks 160th in putts per round. Look for that to change this week. Els won here in 1999 and finished third two years ago.

• Robert Allenby makes his 2009 PGA Tour debut this week. While it is a little dicey to pick a returning player, Allenby is as sure a thing as you can get. He brings his streak of 27 consecutive cuts made to the Northern Trust Open, only two behind leader Tiger Woods. He ranked second in GIR on tour last year and is a former champion, having won here in 2001. His recent track record is also quite impressive at Riviera: 7th, 3rd, MC, 7th, 15th.

• Charley Hoffman has been the most pleasant surprise of the early season. He leads the tour in all-around ranking, is 15th in scrambling, 14th in driving distance and 14th in GIR. He's got four top 25s in as many starts this year, including two top 10s.

• D.J. Trahan continues to impress in 2009. Unfortunately for him, the weather-shortened event at Pebble Beach left him T-6 and just outside the top 64 in the world golf rankings. Had he been able to move up into the top 64, he would have qualified for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship next week. Trahan ranks 13th in GIR, 25th in driving distance and already has four top 25s, including two top 10s.

• Zach Johnson already has a win at the Sony under his belt. He has added significant distance to his game off the tee and ranks 11th in GIR.

• Chad Campbell is one of the best iron players there is and currently is fifth in GIR. He is averaging more than 300 yards off the tee and has made six straight cuts at Riviera.

• Charles Howell III has an impressive record here. Besides his victory in 2007, he has made all seven cuts and has four total top 10s.

• Retief Goosen may be back. After not liking what he saw in the mirror, Goosen got after it in the offseason, losing 16 pounds and gaining muscle. On the slick surfaces, you have to like Goose's chances. He's coming off an impressive third-place finish at Pebble, and he leads the tour in eagles per hole.

The Starters: Ernie Els, Charley Hoffman, D.J. Trahan, Charles Howell III

Next in Line: Robert Allenby, Zach Johnson, Chad Campbell, Retief Goosen

Send comments, suggestions, and corrections to Nathan.J.Easler@espn.com.