Fuzzy math, real hardware: Kim, Garcia, Lefty chase stroke trophies

ATLANTA -- To his eternal credit, Phil Mickelson has become one of the nation's foremost proponents of better educating kids in science and math.

He even ventured to Capitol Hill a few weeks back to testify before a Congressional committee about the program that he and his wife, Amy, started a few years ago for school kids in those disciplines, because American students are lagging behind other nations.

Mickelson has long been fascinated with aerospace and related fields, too. He can talk about NASA, a particular interest, until his tongue gets tired.

But ask Mickelson about the math involved in hauling home two of the most prestigious seasonal awards in professional golf, and you get shrugs and confusion. The numbers behind the vaunted Vardon Trophy and Byron Nelson Award, both given annually to the player with the lowest adjusted seasonal stroke average on the PGA Tour, seem more complicated than rocket science.

"I don't really understand the mathematics of the scoring average, because it's not really your score," Mickelson said, quite correctly. "You know, it adjusts it -- par -- I don't understand it. So, oh well."

He knows this much oh so well -- he's right in the mix for both awards. How close, well, that's a matter of educated guesswork with a splash of speculation and a few twists of the statistical slide rule.

Phil Mickelson's stroke lead might be gone, but nobody will know the real story until Sunday. (AP)

Despite his status as the No. 2 player in the game, the future Hall of Famer has never won the PGA Tour Player of the Year award, never topped the money list, never been ranked first in the world rankings or won the Vardon or Nelson honors.

This year, with frequent nemesis Tiger Woods on the shelf, the scoring trophies are at last within his grasp -- to the degree we can tell, anyway.

During a week in which the tour's mad dash to the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus has become a sleep-inducing waltz at the 30-player Tour Championship -- Vijay Singh has effectively clinched the Cup and bonus money unless he gets deported by Sunday -- the scoring subplot has largely gone unnoticed.

We found a different tournament within a tournament: Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Anthony Kim and Singh entered the week atop the seasonal stroke average list and separated by the thinnest of margins. Mickelson's adjusted scoring average of 69.51 was a mere .01 ahead of Garcia, who has never won any of the tour's top honors, either. Kim and Singh are tied for third at 69.62.

With the Tour Championship heading to Saturday's third round, Kim, Garcia and Mickelson are running 1-2-3, paving the way for a meaningful end to at least one season-long competition. With none of the aforementioned four expected to play in the six-event Fall Series, the storied scoring trophies could be darned-near cemented on Sunday.

Garcia, who has one victory and numerous close calls, was informed this week by his manager about the tightness of the race. It would be a huge feather in his cap.

"It's been a good year, no doubt about that. But I think that I'd rather win this week than win ..." Garcia said, realizing what he was saying, "Obviously if I win this week I'm probably going to win that, too."

Same for Mickelson, who wasn't familiar with the tour's version of the award, the Nelson. But at least he was a step ahead of Kim, who had never heard of the legendary Harry Vardon, inventor of the Vardon grip.

"It would be very cool to win that," Mickelson said. "It shows that you've played consistently well throughout the year, and it would be a great honor. We still have a lot of golf left this weekend that will probably decide it."

But here's the fuzzy part of the math. The averages won't be updated until the end of play on Sunday night, and are weighted to reflect the relative difficulty of a course in a particular week. Projecting the daily totals is nigh on impossible because of the sliding scale of difficulty applied on a weekly basis. It's nowhere near as simple as total strokes divided by rounds played.

"Listen, I have a hard enough time figuring out my score when I'm out there," Kim cracked. "I don't think about like all those other numbers."

In short, the adjusted average allows a player like seven-time Vardon winner Woods, who doesn't play in track-meet birdiefests like the Bob Hope or Las Vegas events, to maintain a superior adjusted average while playing in difficult events in which par is more meaningful.

For context, the Vardon Trophy, which is awarded by the PGA of America, has a history that dates to 1937. Past winners include legends such as Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods. The recipient is required to have completed 60 rounds, which is largely why Jack Nicklaus never won the Vardon.

The Nelson Award, calculated by the same yardstick as the Vardon except with a 50-round minimum, is one of the three most prestigious honors bestowed by the PGA Tour, along with the Nicklaus Player of the Year trophy and the Arnold Palmer Award, given the player who tops the money list.

Honestly, it would be nice to see Mickelson collect one of the bronze figurines before his career ends, and with Woods taking a knee, so to speak, the timing could not be better. (Woods, by the way, had an adjusted scoring average of 67.65 through his 20 stroke-play rounds, which would have represented a record had he continued at that pace).

Whoever wins it, be it Lefty, A.K. or Sergio, they'll be shooting blind, if you will. Tour officials said Friday that their computers are unable to crunch the updated numbers until after play ends on Sunday night, which is a pity, because with the FedEx farce headed toward its predictable end for Singh, it might have supplied some much-needed interest in a week that needs whatever juice it can muster.

This much is certain. After shooting a stellar 6-under 64 in the first round during a day in which the field averaged 72, Kim moved within striking range of stealing the trophy. His score was weighted even more heavily because of the disparity compared to his 29 brethren.

Kim, a second-year player who seems utterly unaffected by his long week at the Ryder Cup, has a true shot at stealing glory. At the end of the DeutscheBank Championship, he had an adjusted scoring average of 69.71. A week later, after finishing in a tie for third at the BMW Championship, he shaved the average by .09 to 69.62.

"So it's certainly possible for somebody to cut .2 in a week," PGA Tour official Steve Dennis said Friday, noting that it depends greatly on how the other contenders move up or down.

Concrete data notwithstanding, Garcia, two shots behind Kim in second place, is almost surely the scoring-average leader in the clubhouse after starting the week a microscopic .01 behind Mickelson.

So, while everybody knows that Singh will kiss the FedEx Cup on Sunday night, there's plenty of mystery regarding the scoring race. A tad too much, in fact.