Big Three Stats - 2010 Final

Now that the LPGA stat pages have finally settled down, I've plugged in the pertinent numbers to generate the Big Three (as I like to call it) for 2010.  These three numbers - Total Driving, Greens In Regulation and Total Putting - are the best indicators I've found to describe the strengths and weaknesses of each player's game.  GIR I'm sure you are familiar with; it comes straight off the LPGA.com stat page.  Total Driving is a combination of Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy which I feel gives appropriate weight to the distance factor but also requires reasonable accuracy to score well.  Total Putting is primarily concerned with combining the two most widely recognized putting stats (PPGIR and Putting Average) into one number.  The Top 20 players in each category are listed below but I've attached the entire spreadsheet for those who choose to dig a little deeper.

Big Three Stats - 2010 Final 
 

The four players who rank in the Top 20 of all three stats are Cristie Kerr (Top 5 in all three!), Na Yeon Choi, Yani Tseng and In-Kyung Kim - four of the top seven in my year-end rankings.  Six players ranked in the Top 20 of Total Driving and GIR - Suzann Pettersen, Paula Creamer, Karrie Webb, Stacy Lewis, Hee Young Park and Karin Sjodin.  Three players - Morgan Pressel, Angela Stanford and Mika Miyazato - ranked highly in both Total Driving and Total Putting while Song-Hee Kim was the only player to rank in the Top 20 of just GIR and Total Putting.

Two of the Player of the Year contenders rate highly in only one stat each.  Ai Miyazato leads in Total Putting while Jiyai Shin is fifth.  Miyazato comes in 22^nd in Total Driving and 69^th (!) in GIR while Shin was 30^th in GIR and 39^th in TD.  I mentioned in my last Big Three post that Miyazato was going to get short-changed all season because three of her victories were at events where the stats weren't kept.  Shin's win at Mizuno is dealt that same disadvantage.

I'll be quoting the Big Three numbers often in my Player Profiles, which I hope to get started on by the end of this week.