"The importance of the long game versus the short game is surprising to many people"

If you had any doubt that 2014 will be the year of stats in golf--as Jaime Diaz asserts--then David Barrett's cover story in Golf World may change your mind.

There is plenty to cover in the story, but since first hearing about the research, I've been most fascinated by Mark Broadie's assertion that putting is overrated and ball striking underrated.

Players can sometimes win with mediocre or even substandard putting, but much more rarely with mediocre play from tee to green -- in 2012 and 2013 combined, 10 players won while ranking worse than 25th in strokes gained/putting but only two did so ranking worse than 25th from tee to green.

Another conclusion Broadie draws from the data is that driving distance is a greater factor than driving accuracy to scoring. That's the reason long hitters like Bubba Watson populate the top of the strokes gained/driving standings, though accuracy is important enough to hurt a very wild driver like distance-leader Luke List. A 20-yard advantage in driving distance leads to a fractional advantage on every stroke, and over the long run that adds up. Strokes gained/driving also reflects the advantage gained by being able to go for the green on reachable holes more often, an edge that isn't reflected in traditional stats like greens in regulation.

Most intriguing is how much of the outside-the-box thinking has been fueled in part by people like Broadie, but credit the PGA Tour and ShotLink guru Steve Evans for encouraging academics to go all Moneyball on the numbers.

Ultimately, the biggest takeaway may be that we are in for some fascinating analysis in the years go come.