Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but in a sports world driven by analytics, they can certainly tell part of it. Last year on the PGA Tour, a few statistics said a lot about the seasons of some of the best players in the world, some good, some bad, but all telling. Here are 14 numbers that

11 — Number of players who ended win droughts of at least at 4½ years on the tour. They are as follows, from longest dry spell to shortest: Charles Howell III (11 years, 9 months), Paul Casey (8 years, 11 months), Kevin Na (7 years, 9 months), Keegan Bradley (6 years, 1 month), Ted Potter, Jr. (5 years, 7 months), Ian Poulter (5 years, 5 months), Tiger Woods (5 years, 1 month), Phil Mickelson (4 years, 8 months), Webb Simpson (4 years, 7 months), Matt Kuchar (4 years, 7 months) and Gary Woodland (4 years, 6 months). Lee Westwood also ended a victory drought of 4 years and 7 months on the European Tour at the Nedbank Challenge. Westwood’s last PGA Tour win came at the 2010 FedEx St. Jude Classic.

11 — Number of top-10 finishes without a victory for Tony Finau. The 29-year-old became the first golfer to have at least 11 top-10s and no wins since Jim Furyk, who did the same in both 2014 and 2009. In the last 20 years, only five other players have done that: David Toms in 2002 (12 top-10s), Vijay Singh in 2001 (14), Steve Flesch in 2000 (13), Chris Perry in 1999 (14) and Davis Love III in 1999 (13).

11 — Number of first-time winners on the PGA Tour last season: Ryan Armour, Patrick Cantlay, Patton Kizzire, Austin Cook, Brice Garnett, Satoshi Kodaira, Andrew Landry, Aaron Wise, Michael Kim, Francesco Molinari and Andrew Putnam. (Apparently, 11s were wild on tour in 2018.)

32.5 — Average number of spots Tiger Woods jumped in the Official World Golf Ranking after each event he played beginning with the 2017 Hero World Challenge and ending with the 2018 Hero. Woods entered the 2017 Hero at 674th in the world and has climbed all the way to his current 13th spot.

4.57 — Tiger Woods’ par-5 scoring average. The number matches the worst mark in Woods’ career; in 2013 he also had a 4.57 average. However that year it was good enough to tie him for fourth on tour. This year, that mark tied him for 24th, by far the worst standing of his career in the category. Prior to this season, Woods had never finished worse than T-6 for a season in par-5 scoring average. In nine of his first 10 seasons on tour, he finished first, including eight straight to start his career.

9 — Number of times the World No. 1 ranking changed hands in 2018, the most times since the ranking’s inception in 1986. The previous record was 7 in 1997 and 2012. The four players who passed it around? Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Justin Rose and Brooks Koepka, who currently holds the title.

$451,704.33 — Average amount of money Justin Rose made per start on the PGA Tour this season, not including the $10 million FedEx Cup prize. If you include that, he made $1,007,259.89 per start.

278.9 — Average driving distance in yards in 2018 for Brian Stuard, who ranked dead last in that statistic among the 193 players that qualified. Averaging 300 yards on the nose didn’t even get you in the top 50 last season. In 1998, 300 yards would have ranked first on the PGA Tour, and 278 would put you in the top 30.

75.3 — The field scoring average on Saturday at the U.S. Open, a day in which 19 players shot 78 or worse at Shinnecock Hills.

98.78 — Jordan Spieth’s percentage of made putts from three feet. It might sound good, but it actually ranked 181st on tour last year. His performance from close proximity was in line with his overall putting for the season, as he finished a career-low 123rd in strokes-gained/putting. Still, he managed to nearly shoot 63 on Sunday at Augusta (if not for missing a short putt at the 72nd) and amass nearly $3 million in earnings for the year. Players have had much worse “down” years, to say the least.

2.372 — Average total strokes-gained against the field per round for Dustin Johnson, who lead the PGA Tour in that category this season. Since 2004, only three players have eclipsed that number in a season: Tiger Woods (five times: 2004-2007, 2009), Jim Furyk (2006) and Rory McIlroy (2012).

0 — Combined major victories for the three players with the best cumulative scores to par in the major championships for the season. Justin Rose lead the way at 12 under, Rickie Fowler came in second at 11 under and Tony Finau in third at nine under. In fourth? Francesco Molinari, who finished the majors with a cumulative score of eight under, his winning score at Carnoustie, meaning he played the other three in even par. Brooks Koepka missed the Masters due to injury, but was 13 under in the other three; Masters champ Patrick Reed missed the cut at the PGA Championship, but was 11 under in the remaining majors.

68.00 — Saturday scoring average for both Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, tying them for first overall on the PGA Tour. Each, however, had just one victory, and though both were impressive (Woods’ 80th career W at the Tour Championship, Rory’s Sunday charge at Bay Hill), they probably both think they could have had more. Their Sunday scoring averages played a role in that, with Woods’ dropping nearly two strokes to 69.75 (41st on tour) and McIlroy’s two full strokes to 70.00 (T-54 on tour).

68.27 — Final-round scoring average for Brooks Koepka, the third-lowest of any player who played at least 15 final rounds in a season on tour since 2001. The two lower players? Tiger Woods in 2002 with an average of 67.71, and Luke Donald in 2011 with an average of 68.06.

Source: golfdigest.com

As Jan. 1 approaches, it’s time to consider what New Year’s resolutions you’ll be making to help your golf game in 2019. For those who haven’t come up with any, here’s a suggestion: Learn the Rules of Golf. (No, really learn them this time.) Perhaps you’ve tried, only to find that by February, the copy of the rules book you picked up is covered with as much dust as that Peloton you bought to get into shape. Yet here’s the thing: There’s no better time than now to give it another shot because a new, modernized version of the rules goes into effect on New Year’s Day.

In the most sweeping revision in more than 60 years, officials from the USGA and R&A, golf’s governing bodies, have reorganized the rules to make them easier to understand and apply. The number has been cut to 24 from 34, and the language simplified to make it more practical. Roughly 2 million copies of the Player’s Edition of the Rules of Golfwere published and circulated this fall. If you haven’t gotten one, you can find it online at usgapublications.com, as well as with explanatory videos at usga.org/rules. The free USGA Rules of Golf app has been updated, too.

To help you keep this resolution, here are nine changes to the new rules you should know.

I. Accidents happen
The controversy over Dustin Johnson’s ball moving on the green during the final round of the 2016 U.S. Open exposed the old rules for being too harsh when it came to what many considered tickytack infractions. New language, first adopted through Local Rules since 2017, states there is no penalty if you accidentally move your ball (or ball marker) on the green. Put the ball back, and you’re good to go. The same applies if you’re searching for a lost ball and mistakenly move it.

II. The fix is in
Golfers often complained about the silliness of letting players fix a ball mark on the green, but not a spike mark. What’s the difference? With no good answer, officials now will let you fix everything without a penalty. You can also touch the line of your putt with your hand or club so long as you’re not improving it.

III. A lost cause
To improve pace of play, golfers now have just three minutes to search for a missing ball rather than five. Admit it, if you hadn’t found it in three minutes, you weren’t finding it anyway.

IV. Knee is the new shoulder
The process for dropping a ball back in play is revamped in the new rules. Instead of letting go from shoulder height, players will drop from around their knee. This is a compromise from an original proposal that would have let golfers drop from just inches above the ground. To preserve some randomness with the drop, officials went with knee height instead. Why change at all? Primarily to speed up play by increasing the chances your ball stays within the two-club-length drop area on the first try.

V. No longer at touchy subject
Hitting a ball into a water hazard (now defined as “penalty area”) should come with consequences. But golfers don’t have to be nervous about incurring an additional penalty for a minor rules breach while playing their next shot. You’re free to touch/move loose impediments and ground your club, eliminating any unnecessary worry. The only caveat: You still can’t put your club down and use it to improve the conditions for the stroke. You can remove loose impediments in bunkers, too, although touching the sand in a bunker in front of or behind the ball is still prohibited.

VI. Damaged goods
We all get mad on the course, and sometimes that anger is taken out on an unsuspecting driver or putter. Previously, the rules were confusing on when or if you could play a club you damaged during a round, and it led to instances where some players were disqualified for playing clubs with a shaft slightly bent or some other damage they didn’t realize the club had. Now you can play a club that has become damaged in any fashion. If you caused the damage, however, you can’t replace the club with a new one.

VII. Twice is … OK
A double hit is almost always accidental, and the outcome so random as to hardly be beneficial. So golfers are now spared the ignominy of adding a penalty for hitting a ball twice with one swing. It counts as only one stroke. Somewhere T.C. Chen is smiling.

VIII. The end of flagstick folly
Another nod to common sense eliminates a penalty for hitting a flagstick left in the hole while putting on a green. Taking out and then placing back in flagsticks can often cause undo delay in the round, and the flagstick is as likely to keep your ball out of the cup as it would help it fall in.

IX. O.B. option
Courses may implement a Local Rule (not for competition) that offers an alternative to the stroke-and-distance penalty for lost balls or shots hit out-of-bounds. A player may drop a ball anywhere between where the original ball was believed to come to rest (or went out-of-bounds) and just into the edge of the fairway, but no nearer the hole. The golfer takes a two-stroke penalty and plays on instead of returning to the tee. This way, the Local Rule mimics your score if you had played a decent provisional ball.

Source: sports.yahoo.com