2008 Masters: What do the statistics tell us?

Tiger Woods was odds on favourite to win the 2008 Masters and he nearly did it...and not by doing anything special in the last round. He just held his place and the others started to slip.


However, Immelman was good enough and had the nerve to hold his lead and secure his first Green Jacket.

Congratulations to Trevor!

So I have been taking a look at the official statistics for this years Masters and it makes interesting reading

The first thing you notice is the consistency:

Immelman hit 51 greens in regulation (GIR) and Woods hit 50 (as did 3rd place Cink). Snedeker was doing well, but fell away with too many errors in the last round hit only 7 greens in regulation.

When you look at driving accuracy, Immelman was number 1, hitting 48 of the 56 driving fairways, 10 more than Woods did. It just shows - hit more fairways, and chances are you will hit more greens in regulation. It also shows how good Tiger is at finding the green from a missed fairway!

So, if they are getting on the greens in regulation, how do they compare with putting?

Immelman came 4th in the putting stats, taking only 112 putts for the 72 holes, that's an average of 28 putts a round which is pretty good for Augusta greens! Tiger however averaged 30 putts a round with a total of 120 putts i.e. 8 more shots than Trevor.


Those of us who watched Tiger throughout the week could see how frustrated he was that the putts were not dropping. Imagine if his putter had been hot - his 3-shot deficit could easily have been a 5 shot lead!


So, in summary, to win the Masters is quite a simple formula:

Hit the fairways, get on the greens in regulation, and then hole the putts!

.....just that Augusta National is not a very easy course to do it on!