I decided to do a deep dive into Neal's stats to see why he hasn't had better results (I expected a lot of variability from week to week, which really hasn't been the issue, but thought he'd have stronger good weeks than he has had so far). Drive for show, putt for dough seems to be the TLDR conclusion, with his non-putting short game around the green, especially from the sand, also costing him bigly.
Leaving aside rankings for the moment, he's gaining .729 strokes per round on the field driving (3rd on the entire tour), but losing .103 on approach shots, .560 around the green, and .632 putting. Digging deeper on the two problem areas, he's ranked 135th in total scrambling but he's 52nd in scrambling from the rough and 154th in sand save percentage. When it comes to putting, the mid range seems to be what's killing him as he's ranked 72nd on putts inside 10 feet (probably a number that's better than the reality due to gimmes left over after missing mid-range putts), but 158th from both 10-15 feet and 15-20 feet and 123rd from 20-25 feet. He's actually ranked 17th in putting for putts over 25 feet. He's also 153rd in lag putting (proximity to the hole after the first putt).
There are a few quirky things. Oddly, he's only ranked 112th in shots gained on approach shots but is quite a bit better than that in a lot of the components that make up that stat. For example, he's ranked 22nd in proximity to the hole in approach shots. He's also ranked 56th in par 3 scoring average despite being ranked 136th in total scoring average. A final quirk is that his first round scoring average (71.53) is almost a full stroke worse than his scoring average for his next worst round (70.53 for round three) with rounds 2 and 4 coming in at 70.12 and 70.00 respectively. That might be a function of being a rookie and not being familiar with the course or might have to do with nerves and pressure. Who knows?
