Insider: Putting, winning go together on Champions Tour

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Thanks to his excellent putting stats, Fred Couples has won twice on the Champions Tour this year.

A year ago, Loren Roberts finished No. 2 on the Champions Tour in putting average with 1.714 putts per green in regulation.

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This year, nine golfers have performed better statistically in the same category and a 10th, Tommy Armour III, is at 1.714.

A year ago, the top 10 putters in the final statistics used less than 29 putts per round. This year, that number stands at 19 golfers.

There has been no shortage of bullet point highlights in the early stages of the Champions Tour season but it doesn't take long for putting excellence to emerge as a focal point on the performance charts. And, once again, the correlation between putting and winning is direct.

Take a look at these two facts from last week's Toshiba Classic:

• Ronnie Black had 11 one-putt greens in Sunday's final round.

"Only 11?" said Black, who shot 65 to finish runner-up to Fred Couples.

• Tom Watson needed just 22 putts in his final-round 62 and finished T5.

Watson is the statistical leader in both putting categories. He is averaging 26.50 putts per round and has a 1.597 putting average. Watson has won two of his three starts -- the Wendy's Skin Game with Jack Nicklaus and at Hualalai a week later.

The three individual tournament winners -- Couples (twice), Watson and Bernhard Langer, along with Black and Michael Allen -- are in the top six in both putting categories.

Black made a recent swing change, and it caused him some problems in the final round at Newport Beach Country Club. Not to worry. He had the antidote: A smoking hot putter.

"I was a putting genius," Black said. "So that makes up for a lot of fun shots."

Of course, he used "fun" as a euphemism.

Black finished with four straight one-putt greens, a sequence that began with a 40-foot eagle putt at the 15th.

"Particularly the last six holes, I putted the ball just beautifully," said Black, who didn't have a three-putt at Newport Beach and now has played 140 holes without a three-putt, the best current streak on the Champions Tour.

"That's the way I make money. I hit the ball pretty solid. I don't hit it nearly as close as some of the other guys. I'm a good scrambler. I'm a good competitor and I make putts. I have not made putts like this for a while. This is the best I've putted in, I don't know, quite a while. I haven't put a time frame on it but it's years. So I'm excited about that."

Black made some technical changes, what he calls "very simple stuff, releasing the putter a lot better and just hitting it right on the button.

"For some reason, I got my optics where I can see down the line better," he said. "I just couldn't see the line. All of a sudden it's just opened up like a picture."

Watson returned to the Champions Tour after a layoff. Until he arrived at Newport Beach, he had not hit a putt in three weeks since playing in Dubai. It didn't matter.

"I had a good thought in my mind from Dubai, because I made some field goals in the last nine holes there," Watson said. "I made three nice long putts there to kind of put me back in the top 10. That's always a good feeling when you leave a tournament like that. Sometimes you can over-practice. You go out and you practice, you lose that feeling by over-practicing. If anything, I under-practice."

Couples is tied for No. 2 with Allen with a putting average of 1.624 and is second in putts per round at 27.44. At the Toshiba Classic, Couples was third with a 1.619 putting average.

For Couples, a positive mind-set and huge comfort zone is the key to his outstanding putting on the Champions Tour.

"Out here, I feel like I make less mistakes, so far," he said. "It's been three tournaments, but that's really what I see. I just am not all of a sudden a better putter because I'm 50. That I can guarantee."

Champions Tour Insider notes:

• Couples leads the Charles Schwab Cup race with 691 points, 291 ahead of Langer. Watson is in third place with 390 points, followed by Tom Lehman (291) and Black (211) ... Couples' 54-hole total of 18-under-par 195 at Newport Beach was one shy of the all-time tournament record set by Jay Haas in 2002.

• Couples has nine consecutive rounds in the 60s in as many starts this year and is now 56-under-par in those nine rounds. Couples became the sixth player in Toshiba Classic history to win this tournament in his first appearance. The others: Gary McCord (1999), Jose Maria Canizares (2001), Rodger Davis (2003), Mark Johnson (2005) and Brad Bryant (2006).

• At the Cap Cana Championship, Couples will try to become the first player to win three consecutive starts since Haas in 2006. Haas won the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, FedEx Kinko's Classic and the Senior PGA Championship. With two wins in his first three starts, Couples joins a group which includes Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Dale Douglass and Bruce Fleisher.

David Peoples made his Champions Tour debut at the Toshiba Classic by shooting three rounds in the 60s to finish T9.

Chien-Soon Lu, who is conditionally exempt after finishing 12th at the National Qualifying Tournament, earned his spot at the Toshiba Classic with a top 10 finish at Allianz. He backed it up with T3 at Newport Beach. With $153,000, he's 12th on the money list.