Paul McGinley can credit his tied sixth finish at last week’s KLM Open to four days of outstanding putting at the Hilversumsche Golf Club.
McGinley, who this week captains the Great Britain and Ireland side in the Vivendi Seve Trophy at St. Nom-La-Bretèche, might be offering his Team Members valuable putting advice after placing first in both Putts per Green and Putts per Round in the Genworth Statistics for the KLM Open.
The former Ryder Cup vice-captain successfully negotiated the tricky conditions after large amounts of rain had rendered the greens comparatively slow. And while many others struggled to read the pace of the Hilversumsche greens after the deluges, the Irishman excelled with the shortest club in the bag, averaging a fine 1.674 in Putts per Green and 26.8 in Putts per Round.
McGinley’s excellent putting helped the four-time European Tour Champion to a first top ten finish since 2009, but one man who hasn’t struggled to find the business end of the leaderboard this season is England’s Simon Dyson, whose victory at the KLM Open also represented his seventh foray into the top ten in 2011.
Dyson, now a six-time winner on The European Tour, has been a model of consistency in recent years and it was a solid all-round game that facilitated a charge to his third victory at the KLM Open.
The Yorkshireman led the field following all but the third round in Holland, and despite having never been the longest of hitters, a well set up and soaking wet course meant the impact of the big-hitters was comparatively nullified.
This was exemplified by Rory McIlroy who, after averaging a massive 331 yards from the tee in the previous week’s Omega European Masters, only managed 280.8 yards at the KLM Open, placing him fourth in the Driving Distance statistics behind Frenchman Victor Dubuisson who averaged just seven yards more.
The course set up and conditions played into Dyson’s hands, and although sitting 35th in both Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy, it was his approach play and consistency on the greens that eventually paid dividends.
Throughout the week Dyson never dropped out of the top twenty in Greens in Regulation, Putts per Green, and Putts per Round, and ultimately finished 17th in Greens in Regulation with 69.4%.
Even when Dyson failed to find the putting surfaces in regulation, a hot putter meant Dyson also sat well up the list in the putting statistics, finishing the week at 11th in the Putts per Round table with 28.3 and second in Putts per Green with a superb 1.689 average.
If golf is truly a sum of its individual ingredients, then Simon Dyson certainly appears to have the recipe for on-going success.
For a full run-down of the Genworth Statistics from the KLM Open,Click Here
