Average driving distance this week is 297 yards. Bubba Watson leads with 337 yd avg!
Average driving accuracy = 47%. Bubba = 47%
GIR avearge = 66%. Bubba Watson = 85%

Bubba Watson tied for 47th even though he is leading 2 important categories.

Just thought that was interesting.

what does his putting stat look like

The PGA putting contest... It always comes down to putting. (unfortunately...)

I wish Bubba could play that way and find his putting at the same time

Maybe it could be that driving distance is not so important.

It would be very hard to argue that GIR is not important though. Good driving distance with average accuracy should help the GIR stats by a bunch. Unfortunately, the putter is a fickle lady...

33 putts in his 1st round. Average 30.

What was that saying, drive for show....

I agree 100%!

GIR at a birdie-fest like this QH only shows who is going to make the cut.

If you don't hit greens, you don't make birdies, you don't play on Saturday.

Just hitting the green is a start, but now you got to hole the putt.

GIR is a great sat for mid to high handicap players, since par to us is their birdie

Putting is by far the most important stat on the PGA tour, and I would assume any other professional tour for that matter. I would have to say after studying stats, that GIR is the second most important. I have found that after putting, GIR is the next stat that will tend to have people that are high on the top of that stat will be relatively high on the leaderboard. Next, I have found that scrambling is the next most important stat. However, I have noticed that GIR and scrambling are more often then not right next to each other in importance to the tournament. I think it's just that if you're in the top 10 for putting that week, you more often then not have a decent chance at winning. But, if you are hitting a high percentage of greens, your putts are dropping for birdie. As opposed to a high scrambling percentage, which would imply that your putts are dropping more for par. Just my findings, hope it helps.

Putts/gir tends to be a good indicator.

Putting totals can get scewed.
If you had 30 putts but hit 18 greens (4 of them par 5s in 2), I think most players would be pretty happy with -8.

However if you had 25 putts but only hit 3 greens, chances you aren't going to be too happy.

Edit: To add, one stat alone is always subject to errors...for example if a player only hit 4 greens but made birdie on all of them, their putts/gir stat would look great. But their score may not based on how they did on the other 14 holes where they missed the green.

Generally I find GIR% and Putts/gir combined as a great indicator.

Bubba Watson now solo second and one shot off the lead. Putts drop and combined with that GIR, there ya go.

I've rooted for Bubba before, and now that he's at the top of the leader board with Goosen -- ahead of Tiger by one stroke -- I'm rooting for him again.

He's been unable to hold steady after single stellar rounds in the past. So here's another opportunity.
He can always drive or play bomb and gouge. It's just the total game over the course of a tournament's four rounds that eludes him.

One of these days ...