Capelle On Golf

Mike Weir didn’t hit the ball all that well on the first round of the Deutsche Bank, the second leg of the FedExCup. He hit 13 greens to tie for 54th. And he tied for 69 in the field of 120 in driving accuracy. Those are hardly the stats you’d expect from a man who shot a 10 under 61.

I was curious how he could shoot 61 while hitting only 13 greens so I logged on to ShotTracker, the ultimate feature at PGATour.com, and went through his round hole by hole. Here’s the result:

1—15’,7” Birdie
2—17’,0” Birdie
3—10’. 5” Birdie
4—11’,3” Birdie
5—39’,3” Two putts – Par
6—10’,2” Birdie
7—17’,8” Birdie
8—27’,6” Two putts – Par
9—19’,6” Two putts – Par

10—5’,6” Birdie
11—6’,3” Par
12—1’,2” Par
13—4’,1” Birdie
14—3’,11” Par
15—27’,1” Birdie
16—1’,1” Par
17—1’,4” Par
18—5’,1” Birdie

He made every putt inside 18 feet – 14 for 14
He was 9 for 9 from 5’ to 18’
He made 10 putts from 5’,1” to 27’,1”
He 1 putted every hole on the back nine
While some of his one putts resulted from greenside scrambling, he holed seven putts over 10 feet

The record for 18 holes is 18 putts, and it’s shared by six golfers! Now I don’t know the specifics of their rounds – they were all before lasers measured every putt down to the inch. And it’s possible that some if not all of these performances benefitted from one or more chip ins. But I will say, based on the information in the table, that Weir’s day on the greens was one of the finest, if not the best in history. He never missed inside 18’ and his super low score and the length of his approach putts argues that his total did not benefit from missing a slew of greens as the others might have.

When Weir won the 2003 Masters, he was deadly on the greens. Maybe this round will be a springboard to bigger and better things for the likeable Canadian.