Searching for a Specialist: AT&T Pebble Beach
Welcome back to the search for a specialist. Each week we look at a variety of angles to determine which golfers should be a great fit for the course or courses.
Checking in with last week’s search, we got 5-of-7 specialists to finish inside the top 45 at the WM Phoenix Open while two missed the cut. Not a bad week, but let’s try to get a podium finish this week!
Our next search will look at performance on California Courses, Par 72 Courses, Easy-to-Hit Fairways, and Short Courses.
Two angles that I wanted to include but couldn’t due to sample size were poa annua greens and links-style courses. These two angles have some of the largest correlation to success here, but over half the field doesn’t have enough rounds to qualify. Check the spreadsheet linked at the bottom for those numbers as I will include them there.
Here we go….
California Courses
The PGA TOUR makes its rounds in California early in the year before heading to Florida, Texas, and the rest of the East Coast.
There is something unique about playing on the Left Coast that really clicks for some golfers. So let’s point them out and target them as potential course specialists this week.
The top 10 California specialists in the field are:
Alex Prugh (0.978 sg:cali vs. -0.265 sg:total)
K.J. Choi (1.523 sg:cali vs. 0.318 sg:total)
Dustin Johnson (2.494 sg:cali vs. 1.549 sg:total)
Matt Every (0.416 sg:cali vs. -0.427 sg:total)
J.B. Holmes (1.484 sg:cali vs. 0.654 sg:total)
Andres Gonzales (0.463 sg:cali vs. -0.364 sg:total)
Will MacKenzie (0.768 sg:cali vs. -0.048 sg:total)
Colt Knost (1.065 sg:cali vs. 0.256 sg:total)
Jimmy Walker (1.843 sg:cali vs. 1.053 sg:total)
Hunter Mahan (1.145 sg:cali vs. 0.361 sg:total)
This trims off a couple of heavy hitters including Brandt Snedeker, Bubba Watson, Justin Rose, and Phil Mickelson.
Mickelson had to skip some Cali events last year, so his sample size doesn’t quite meet the threshold. It’s too bad, because he’s won quite a few events here. He’s still a great play this week even though we eliminate him here.
Same goes for Snedeker. He’s 0.073 strokes worse in California since the start of 2013-14. That performance difference is so tiny, but still worse than his baseline strokes gained:total. It’s clear he likes Pebble Beach since he’s the defending champ and two-time winner. He’s just not our specialist this week.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 55
Par 72 Tracks
The next thing we want to look at is par 72 tracks. And by tracks, I mean courses, not songs or horse tracks.
Golfers that perform best on par 72 venues are usually great at taking advantage of par 5s, since there will be so many of them. Three of the four rounds this week will be played on the par 72 courses and even the other one (Shore Course) will be played on a par 71 that features four par 5s.
The correlation between par 72 specialists and Pebble Beach performance is very good, so here are the top 10 par 72 specialists that remain:
Andrew Loupe (0.445 sg:par72 vs. -0.181 sg:total)
Chad Collins (0.507 sg:par72 vs. -0.036 sg:total)
Derek Fathauer (0.305 sg:par72 vs. -0.114 sg:total)
Kevin Na (1.523 sg:par72 vs. 1.12 sg:total)
J.B. Holmes (1.049 sg:par72 vs. 0.654 sg:total)
Jonas Blixt (0.224 sg:par72 vs. -0.156 sg:total)
Lucas Glover (0.019 sg:par72 vs. -0.337 sg:total)
Andres Gonzales (-0.048 sg:par72 vs. -0.364 sg:total)
Jordan Spieth (2.07 sg:par72 vs. 1.773 sg:total)
Steven Bowditch (0.062 sg:par72 vs. -0.234 sg:total)
Say goodbye to Ken Duke, who has missed the cut in 12 of his last 18 starts on par 72 tracks.
It’s sad to see Daniel Summerhays go as well since he’s 0.030 strokes worse on par 72 venues. Nowhere near fade territory, but not a specialist this week.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 40
Easy-to-Hit Fairways
The three course rotation this week feature three short courses that force you to club down off the tee. We will talk about both of those angles in a second. But first, less club equals more fairways hit.
Course that allow more fairways-hit generally favor the inaccurate hitters because even they can hit 65+ percent if they are hitting 3-wood or 3-iron off the tee.
Of our remaining 40 golfers, there are top 10 easy fairways specialists:
Charlie Beljan (0.092 sg:easy fairways vs. -0.804 sg:total)
Jordan Spieth (2.625 sg:easy fairways vs. 1.773 sg:total)
Bryce Molder (0.88 sg:easy fairways vs. 0.04 sg:total)
David Lingmerth (0.746 sg:easy fairways vs. 0.076 sg:total)
Luke Guthrie (0.639 sg:easy fairways vs. 0.076 sg:total)
Patrick Reed (1.26 sg:easy fairways vs. 0.735 sg:total)
Steven Bowditch (0.247 sg:easy fairways vs. -0.234 sg:total)
Brian Stuard (0.613 sg:easy fairways vs. 0.152 sg:total)
Sean O’Hair (0.428 sg:easy fairways vs. 0.069 sg:total)
Bill Haas (1.197 sg:easy fairways vs. 0.842 sg:total)
Say goodbye to K.J. Choi since he’s missed the cut in seven of his last 13 starts when the course allows a field average of 67 percent or more fairways hit. This event has shown an average of 69.6 percent since 2010. The fifth-easiest stop on TOUR.
J.B. Holmes also gets the boot here. He’s about 3/4 of a shot worse on easy-to-hit fairway courses. He doesn’t miss the cut often, but he’s finished inside the top 20 just once in his last 15 starts on these venues.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 27
Short Courses
Despite there being three courses this week, we can still use this angle since they are all under 7,00 yards. Very short by PGA TOUR standards.
Of our remaining 27 golfers, there are top 5 short course specialists that stand out above the rest:
Jimmy Walker (2.317 sg:short vs. 1.053 sg:total)
Brian Stuard (0.842 sg:short vs. 0.152 sg:total)
Bryce Molder (0.702 sg:short vs. 0.04 sg:total)
Pat Perez (0.817 sg:short vs. 0.217 sg:total)
Bill Haas (1.412 sg:short vs. 0.842 sg:total)
As you can see, Walker is yielding a SG:Total of 2.317 on short courses since the start of 2013-14. That is Jordan Spieth level of play, and really something to take note of.
The biggest dropouts here are Dustin Johnson and Hunter Mahan. Neither has played over 20 rounds on short courses over the past two seasons, so it’s impossible with the data set we have to call them specialists. So, we ditch them from our search instead.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 13
Baseline Performance
We’re down to 13 potential specialists now but let’s narrow that down even further. If we want our golfers to gain at least a stroke over the field this week, then they must have a baseline Strokes Gained:Total of 0.250 or higher per round.
Using this criteria, we can eliminate Pat Perez, Kevin Streelman, Jon Curran, Brian Stuard, Bryce Molder, Michael Putnam, Jim Herman, Chad Collins, and D.A. Points.
A few of these names may hit it big this week, but there is just too much risk to depend on that. Heck, Perez, and Molders could be considered course horses, Putnam is 4-for-4 here, Curran finished T10 in his debut last year, and D.A. Points won this event back in 2011.
Basically, this lists makes for very high-risk, high-reward type of GPP plays this week. We want our true list of specialists to have some more dependability, so let’s see who is remaining…
The Specialists
Jimmy Walker
Bill Haas
Patrick Reed
Matt Jones
After a long elimination process, Jimmy Walker steps out of the fire as our specialist of the week!
Walker is known for his success on the West Coast, and in this event, so the specialist tag makes sense.
Reed and Jones also have some success here at Pebble Beach. Bill Haas is the interesting one, since he’s 0-for-1 at this event and hasn’t played it since 2006. It could be a perfect fit, based on his performance at similar courses and events but there could also be a reason why he hasn’t returned since his debut.
Check out the full Specialist Table for more detailed data. I included a few extra categories in the spreadsheet to use as tiebreakers. They include poa annua, links, and less-than-driver performance. You can sort and filter to your heart’s desire. Best of luck in all your matchups this week.