He doesn't own a jet or a course-design firm, but he averages
266.6 yards off the tee and takes only 29 putts per round. Last
year he made $191,422. "That might sound great to the typical
golfer, but it's not where I want to be," says Mike Springer,
the most typical Tour pro of all. "I've got bigger goals than
being average."
To identify the quintessential pro, we began with the 20 players
whose ranks in the Tour's All-Around category, a combination of
the major stat rankings, were nearest the Tour average. A close
look at those contenders scotched many candidacies. Fred Funk,
for example, ranks first in driving accuracy—nothing typical
about that. Something funky eliminated several others, too.
Chris Smith gets high marks for mediocre stats but has spells of
extraordinary brilliance, like the one that earned him a
battlefield promotion from the Nike tour. So he's out. In the
end, Michael Paul Springer, 32, stood alone in the middle of the
pack. A second-team All-America at Arizona, Springer joined the
Tour in 1991 and won $178,587, good for 91st place on the money
list. In 1994 he soared to 13th with $770,717 in earnings, but
in '97, he played 22 tournaments and made only 11 cuts. At last
week's MCI Heritage Classic he missed the cut, leaving his '98
earnings at $33,850, good for 146th place on the money list. As
the chart below shows, his stats are about what you'd expect.
Springer wants to be more than average.
(Jim Gund)
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Boring? Not at all, because the line between being the Tour's
most typical player and being a non-Tour player can be
tissue-thin. After winning a pair of unexceptional Tour events,
the '94 Greater Greensboro Open and the Greater Milwaukee Open
that same year, Springer was nearly certain to lose his card
last fall until his next-to-last event of the season, the
LaCantera Texas Open. But that week he shocked the world by
coming through in a big way, tying for sixth to win $45,325.
That shot him from 130th on the money list into the top 125,
saving his card and making Springer a hero back home in Fresno,
Calif., where he lives with his wife, Crystol, and their two
kids and, of course, hunts and fishes in his free time. "Mike's
not average around here," says Crystol of the Springers' leading
breadwinner. "He's wonderful."
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TOUR AVERAGE
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MIKE SPRINGER
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TOUR BEST
|
TOUR WORST
|
|
Driving Distance
|
267.7
|
266.6
|
J. Daly 298.2
|
C.Pavin 239.9
|
|
Driving Accuracy
|
70.3%
|
60.2%
|
F. Funk 81.1%
|
T. Tolles 55.6%
|
|
Total Driving
|
139
|
211
|
T. Woods 49
|
L. Rinker 243
|
|
Greens in Regulation
|
64.6%
|
61.6%
|
S. Flesch 72.6%
|
M. Brisky 55.4%
|
|
Putts per G.I.R.
|
1.776
|
1.780
|
J. Daly 1.699
|
B. Brown 1.880
|
|
Birdies
|
3.44
|
3.33
|
D. Duval 4.70
|
B. Brown 2.29
|
|
Sand Saves
|
51.6%
|
47.7%
|
K. Triplett 75.7%
|
T. Kite 29.8%
|
|
Scoring
|
71.41
|
72.64
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T. Woods 69.81
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G. Hjertstedt 73.9
|
|
All-Around
|
554
|
771
|
J. Huston 83
|
C. Pavin 965
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Issue date: April 27, 1998
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