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Magic in Memphis
2006 FedEx St. Jude Classic May 29, 2006 By SAL JOHNSON
Contributing Writer, GOLFONLINE This week, we recap both Jeff Maggert's victory at the FedEx St. Jude Classic and Jay Haas's victory at the Senior PGA Championship.
Here are the key reasons why Maggert won by three strokes over Tom Pernice, Jr. at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, contested May 25-28 at the TPC at Southwind (7,244 yards, par 70) in Memphis, Tennessee:
Good putting propelled Maggert to his first PGA Tour victory since the 1999 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. Of the 64 putts he had from 10 feet and in, he made 59 of them. He didn't have a single three-putt green and had 41 one-putt greens. Remarkably, the latter was only second best for the week.
Maggert only needed 99 total putts for the week, becoming only the second PGA Tour winner in 2006 to have less than 100 putts. Aaron Baddeley at Verizon Heritage was the other. Since 1997, only 20 winners on the PGA Tour have recorded under 100 putts.
Maggert led the driving accuracy stat and became only the fourth PGA Tour winner since 1997 to lead in both driving accuracy and total putts. The other three were Hal Sutton at the 1997 Bell Canadian Open, Gene Sauers at the 2002 Air Canada Championship and Justin Leonard at the 2005 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.
Maggert was T47th in greens hit in regulation, but he made up for it but getting it up and down for par or better 25 of 33 times he missed the greens. That ranked 5th for the week.
Maggert's final-round 65 was the low round of the day. The only other PGA Tour winners in 2006 who shot the low score of the fourth round were J.B. Holmes (66 at the FBR Open), Kirk Triplett (63 at the Chrysler Classic of Tucson), Stephen Ames (67 at The Players Championship) and Phil Mickelson (65 at the BellSouth Classic).
Maggert's stats (with rank in parentheses):
Fairways hit: 45 of 56 (1st)
Driving average: 299.4 (25th)
Greens hit: 39 of 72 (T47th)
Putts: 99 (25.275 a rd) (1st)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 2
1-putt greens: 41
2-putt greens: 29
3-putt greens: 0
Eagles: 1
Birdies: 16 (T5th)
Scrambling: 25 of 33 (75.8%) (5th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
What This Win Means
In 2006, Jeff Maggert and Tim Herron are the only players to win for the first time in this decade after not having won since the 1990s.
At the age of 42 years and 3 months, Maggert is only the third player in his 40s to win in 2006. The other two are Kirk Triplett (Chrysler Classic of Tucson) and Stephen Ames (The Players Championship). He is the ninth over-40 champion in FedEx St. Jude history and the first since Nick Price in 1998.
This was Maggert's third win in 407 PGA Tour starts. His first win was at the 1993 Walt Disney World/Oldsmobile Classic and came in his 91st PGA Tour start. His second win was at 1999 WGC-Accenture Match Play and came in his 226th PGA Tour start.
In Maggert's 407 PGA Tour starts he has shot 65 in the final round seven times. His career low in the final round is 64, which he has done six times.
In 21 PGA Tour events in 2006, Maggert is only the fourth player to come-from-behind to win and joins Kirk Triplett as the only two winners in '06 who didn't play in the final group.
Maggert's 9-under winning total is only the third single-digit winning total on the PGA Tour in 2006. The others were by Stuart Appleby (8 under at the Mercedes Championships) and Phil Mickelson (7 under at the Masters). It's the first time since the FedEx St. Jude Classic moved to the TPC at Southwind in 1989 that this had happened. The last time that a winner of the FedEx finished in single digits under par was in 1986, when Mike Hulbert won with an 8-under figure.
You can E-mail Sal Johnson at sjohnson@golfonline.com.
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