While all eyes were on Jeev Milkha Singh and Padraig Harrington in the battle to win the Volvo Masters and the Order of Merit respectively, Club de Golf Valderrama was also the stage for deciding the 2006European Tour Statisticscategories.
The most prestigious category, for Stroke Average, went to Ernie Els with an average score from 52 rounds of 70.02 after Sergio Garcia relinquished first place in the final week when his Stroke Average fell from 69.98 to 70.04 during the Volvo Masters. The Els-Garcia combination at the top reversed their positions from the previous season when Garcia came out on top.
Garcia, however, did have the consolation of winning the Scrambles category, getting up and down 66.1% of the time.
Thailand’s Thaworn Wiratchant proved to be the season’s hottest putter, topping both the Putts per Greens in Regulation and the Average Putts per Round categories with 1.718 putts per GIR and 28 per round.
Rookie Christian L Nilsson from Sweden put on a big-hitting display to win the Driving Distance Category with a staggering 314.1 yard average drive, more than eight yards longer than the previous year.
Titch Moore is renowned for his big-hitting but it was his accuracy during the 2006 season which enabled him to win the Greens in Regulation category, successfully finding the putting surface 75.6% of the time.
Another of the long hitters, Italy’s Emanuale Canonica, showed he possesses a deft touch around the greens by topping the Sand Saves category, getting up and down 75.9% of times from the bunker.
Driving Accuracy went to Englishman Oliver Whiteley, who marked his rookie season by hitting 77.7% of the fairways.
Statistics for every player on The European Tour can be found under theStats sectionon europeantour.com and within every player biography.
