It's O'Hair Who Is The Drain On His Pairings!

Continuing my catch up from missed reading last week, Jeff Patterson's look at the scoring average of playing partners for bickering tour players Rory Sabbatini and Sean O'Hair--who engaged in a spat after O'Hair reportedly claimed Rory's fast play antics were a burden to his fellow golfers--shows that it's slow-poke O'Hair who is dragging his mates down.

Taking just 2011 rounds into account, of which Sabbatini has had another competitor in his group 73 times, while for O'Hair it's been 43 times--players have shot 70.86 with Rory, but 72.33 with Sean. The current average score on tour is 71.49. The numbers don't lie, but do drop, from 70.86 to 70.68, if you take O'Hair out of Sabbatini's equation. The individuals in O'Hair's group were, on average, the week of the event more than 15 spots better on the World Ranking, too. Missing from this data, as well, is the opening-nine 42 Arjun Atwal carded at Pebble Beach -- while playing with O'Hair -- before he withdrew. (He would have had to shoot a 30 on the second nine in order to keep the average down.) Atwal couldn't take it any more.

Jerry Kelly doesn't seem to have a problem playing with Sabbatini. Ranked No. 149 heading into the Sony Open, he shot rounds of 69-66 when paired with the South African. Later this year, at the Mayakoba Golf Classic, ranked No. 146, he shot 67. Then at the Honda Classic, on easily the toughest course on tour to date and ranked No. 150, Kelly shot a final-round 67.