Putting Strokes Gained

I see the PGA Tour have changed their Putting Stats to "Putting Strokes Gained" this year. Lucas Glover was 127th with this stat last year is at present 1st on the list this year.
http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?02564
It is believed to be a better measure of putting performance than using putts per round.

"Who was the best putter on the PGA TOUR last year? Does taking 32 putts necessarily
represent a poor putting round for a PGA TOUR pro? Current putting stats don’t provide
convincing answers to these questions. This note gives a brief introduction to putts
gained, a better way to measure putting skill and rank putters on the PGA TOUR."
http://www.columbia.edu/~mnb2/broadie/Assets/putting_strokes_gained_20110113.pdf

I don't understand why they should change the format, because it's not going to be a real comparison. As an example I go out today and do 36 putts and in the morning I do 30, I would shoot up the stats list by 6 gained, when the real facts are that I took an average of 33 putts, which isn't hot but more factual.

Doc wrote:I don't understand why they should change the format, because it's not going to be a real comparison. As an example I go out today and do 36 putts and in the morning I do 30, I would shoot up the stats list by 6 gained, when the real facts are that I took an average of 33 putts, which isn't hot but more factual.

If you read the pdf it explains how they have done it but they have taken into account the distance of putts on a hole as well as the average putts per hole rather than just the number of putts per round.

Its actually a good change, it helps reflect far more accurately the strokes on the green per GIR than before

I think putting stats are severely flawed by the very nature of the game. The only true measurement that matters is stroke average. Does it really matter if you shoot level par with 18 GIR and 2 putts per green or miss 18 GIR and chip and putt every time? You could stiff your 2nd shot on every hole to 4 feet then miss every time or chip to 30 feet and hole every one.

Bottom line is you shoot level par either way.