Sentry Tournament of Champions: Inside the numbers as stars fall short

Rory McIlroy was probably the tournament’s most visible disappointment, in part due to self-imposed expectations. He talked about becoming a better finisher, then closed with a tepid Sunday round of 72  that dropped him out of contention.

When analysts watched McIlroy flail through that final round, the tendency was to blame his failure on timidity. Perhaps…but pinning the blame on a psychological failure would require getting into the player’s mind. It’s a lot more definitive to probe the numbers for a statistical shortcoming. This is what they show.

To the extent the numbers betray a shortcoming, it lay in his work around the greens. McIlroy’s performance in Strokes Gained Around The Green was negative, averaging  -0.20 per round. In 2018, he gained an average of 0.32 strokes in that aspect of his game, so the data suggests that McIlroy’s work around the Kapalua greens cost him about a half stroke per round.

Had he not surrendered those strokes, he could have finished a solo fourth at 275. For McIlroy, that still wouldn’t have counted as a success, but it would have been less of a letdown.

To the extent the focus is on McIlroy’s Sunday play, however, his work on the green may have been just as harmful. His putting cost him 1.42 strokes Sunday, a performance that was in stark contrast to his play the rest of the week.

In fact McIlroy’s putting was an asset through the first three rounds, climaxing at +1.62 strokes Saturday. That means he lost about three strokes on the greens between Saturday and Sunday.

Put those three putting strokes together with the two- stroke deficit he accumulated around the greens during the week and you may not have a contender, but you’d have a better mood leaving the final green.