Ticket Punched - Akshay earns a Masters Invite

Well this is not the article I planned to write. At the beginning of the final round at the Valero this weekend, I assumed one of two things would happen:

1. Akshay would run away and cruise to an easy victory

1. Akshay would collapse under pressure and gift the victory to someone else

With a 4 shot lead to start the day, those seemed like the most reasonable outcomes. If you told me he was going to shoot a 5 under 67, I would have assumed he ran away with it. He certainly didn’t collapse.

In fact, his 67 was only bested by 3 other players on Sunday. One of those rounds was an unreal performance by Denny McCarthy to force a sudden death playoff. Wild stuff.

I turned on the tv right as the leaders were making the turn and at the time Akshay had a 6 stroke lead. I assumed it was all but over…. Denny played a sold front 9, but at one under, but lost ground.

And then Akshay bogeyed number 10 missing a short 5 foot putt as Denny made birdie. Two shot swing. Still a 4 shot lead. What happened next is still pretty incredible. Denny McCarthy birdied 8 of the last 9 holes, including the last 7 to briefly take the lead on the 18th green.

Thats a lot of circles.

It was a pretty unreal set of events watching Denny make a 13 footer for birdie on 18 to cap off a phenomenal back 9 charge. I had been waiting for the moment he stumbled and he didn’t.

That meant Akshay’s wire to wire lead was now in jeopardy as he stared at an 11 footer of his own that he had to make just to force a playoff. Unfathomable with a 6 shot cushion just a couple hours before.

Again, if you’d have told me he had a putt for a playoff… I would have assumed that Akshay choked. He didn’t. He shot 2 under on the back 9 and still lost a 6 shot lead. He did miss two 5 foot putts (on 10 and 17), but he was clutch when it mattered and buried the birdie putt on 18 to avoid disaster and force a playoff.

Akshay played phenomenal gaining over 5 strokes to an average tour pro. Again, he shot the 4th best score on the day while holding a huge lead. Thats tough to do when everything in your mind is telling you to ‘protect’ vs. ‘extend’.

Now compare that to Denny McCarthy who just went bonkers on Sunday.

Denny gained almost 10 strokes on an average tour pro performance! Just incredible, unconscious golf. The Strokes Gained analysis in Tangent is a cool place to start with the comparison, but when you add friends you can use the compare mode to put your stats head to head and see how things stacked up. So I did exactly that with Denny and Akshay’s final round.

Clearly Denny dominated Strokes Gained (vs a 0 Handicap) with the exception of short game where Akshay clipped him on Sunday. Akshay had the slight edge on driving distance, while Denny was slightly more accurate off the tee. They both hit 50% of their fairways, so if you think fairway percentage is important to your game… Not as much as you think. Both of them avoided penalties and hazards off the tee, but the name of the game is to hit it as far as you can without getting in trouble. Fairways are optional.

They both stuffed it close averaging 22 feet, while Denny hit more greens and just slightly edged Akshay in scrambling percentage. Still the numbers for both players is phenomenal, so how did Denny get the edge? Hitting more greens was important as that meant more birdie putts and Denny made a ton of putts.

Focusing on putts on the bottom is illuminating for a few reasons. Akshay had 24 putts to Denny’s 23. First, thats a ridiculously low number of putts for both, but if you think number of putts is a big indicator of success… not really. One way to have less putts… is to miss greens. Akshay missed more greens, which means he was chipping onto many of them which decreases your average first putt distance (9ft vs 15ft). Number of putts can be misleading as it is typically a function of putting proximity. The big stat that sticks out is feet of made putts. Denny made over 123 feet of putts! Almost 50 feet more of putts than Akshay. He got really hot with the flatstick at just the right time.

In the end, it wasn’t enough. They went to a sudden death playoff on 18 where Denny finally cooled off by chunking a wedge into the hazard in front of the green, allowing Akshay to relax. Bhatia then stuffed a wedge and made the putt for birdie to close out his second win on the PGA Tour and punch his ticket to Augusta this week.

So whether your buddy keeps clipping you in that $5 Nassau or you want to see how you compare to me… The developer of a golf app… You can use Tangent to compare and compete with your buddies with some of the cool features we are adding to community mode.

And if you’re ever aggravated that you don’t get it inside 20 feet on a simple 80 yard wedge shot… Even the pros flub one occasionally.