Searching for a Specialist: Dean & Deluca
Welcome to this week’s search for a specialist.
Doing a quick recap of last week, we see a brutal missed cut from our Specialist, Marc Leishman. He missed a putt from inside four feet to drop outside the cut line and then dropped a couple more on the final hole as he was trying to get back to the cut line. On the positive side, two of the four specialists grabbed top 20s (Danny Lee T18 and Chad Campbell T12).
After a couple mediocre weeks I decided to look at the overall performance of specialists. Since the start of the season, 69 percent of specialists have made the cut, 36 percent have grabbed top 20s and four specialists have won the tournament. If we narrow it down to JUST the top specialist of the week, then those numbers are 84% cuts made, 52% top 20s, and 3-of-25 have won the event. Not too shabby!
A 12 percent win-rate for the top specialist is pretty fantastic, and a cut made percentage of 84 is solid as well. In addition, I’ve decided to add a filter for golfers TOO FAR out of form. That comes as a result of a comment from johnnyjakes on last week’s article. It got me thinking, and I realized there is no reason Brendon Todd should have been a specialist. He should have been dropped off in that Baseline Performance GPP-Only stage. Thanks, Johnny.
Enough about the past, since we know our process is on point. Let’s move on to Fort Worth for this week’s DEAN & DELUCA.
In this edition we will look at Par 70 Tracks, Less-than-Driver Courses, and Windy Rounds. .
Here we go…
Par 70 Courses
Just like last week, we have another par 70 on our hands, and it checks out as the top angle this week.
Par 70 courses require golfers to remain steady and not rely on four par 5s to bail them out.
Golfers that perform better on par 70 tracks generally can hold their own on the par 4s and often pitch in a birdie or two on the par 3s.
The Top 10 Par 70 Specialists are:
Greg Owen (0.709 sg:par70 vs. -0.38 sg:total)
Chez Reavie (1.118 sg:par70 vs. 0.272 sg:total)
Brandt Snedeker (1.433 sg:par70 vs. 0.758 sg:total)
Camilo Villegas (0.771 sg:par70 vs. 0.12 sg:total)
Tim Herron (-0.286 sg:par70 vs. -0.914 sg:total)
Steve Marino (0.324 sg:par70 vs. -0.281 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (1.237 sg:par70 vs. 0.697 sg:total)
George McNeill (0.904 sg:par70 vs. 0.426 sg:total)
Jason Gore (0.461 sg:par70 vs. -0.001 sg:total)
Steven Bowditch (-0.016 sg:par70 vs. -0.474 sg:total)
Snedeker let us down last week, but he’s still a par 70 specialist. There is a good chance he bounces back with a strong finish this week.
Mahan is the anti-par 70 specialist this week. He’s lost strokes to the field in 10 of his last 12 starts on par 70 tracks. Given his current (lack of) form, there is no reason to bother with the Dallas resident.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 60
Less-than-Driver Courses
When courses force bombers to club down off the tee, length is neutralized. It’s not completely irrelevant, though. Someone who is long off the tee will still be hitting less club on their approach distances of the same length. I don’t know about you, but I can hit my 7-iron way better than my 5-iron.
That being said, here are the golfers that excel under these club-down-off-the-tee course conditions…
The top 10 Less-than-Driver Specialists:
Jim Furyk (2.309 sg:less-than-driver vs. 1.67 sg:total)
John Senden (0.993 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.493 sg:total)
Jason Dufner (0.933 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.505 sg:total)
Jason Gore (0.393 sg:less-than-driver vs. -0.001 sg:total)
Will Wilcox (0.855 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.484 sg:total)
Scott Piercy (0.653 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.317 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (1.028 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.697 sg:total)
Seung-yul Noh (0.385 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.094 sg:total)
Chris Kirk (0.857 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.569 sg:total)
John Huh (0.258 sg:less-than-driver vs. -0.02 sg:total)
Now this list is starting to look juicy for Colonial Country Club.
Furyk still has an the injury question mark hanging over his head, otherwise it’d be full stream ahead on the plodder.
This list really boils down to ball-strikers that don’t rely on driving distance off the tee.
The opposite of that is Tony Finau who BOMBS with the best of them. He arrives in pretty good form and also finished T19 in his debut last year. I wouldn’t let that fool you, as I think it’s a great week to fade the Finau.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 27
Windy Rounds
It’s rare to find an event where you can rely on wind to be a big factor year after year. The Puerto Rico Open is the first event that comes to mind. Other than that, some of the Florida tournaments have their share of wind, but it’s not consistent year to year.
Here in Fort Worth, it seems to be impossible to find a day in May where the wind isn’t blowing 15 MPH, and that’s no different this week.
The Top 10 Wind Specialist remaining are:
John Huh (0.687 sg:wind vs. -0.02 sg:total)
Scott Piercy (0.857 sg:wind vs. 0.317 sg:total)
George McNeill (0.899 sg:wind vs. 0.426 sg:total)
David Toms (0.862 sg:wind vs. 0.397 sg:total)
Kyle Stanley (0.223 sg:wind vs. -0.202 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (1.084 sg:wind vs. 0.697 sg:total)
Chris Kirk (0.897 sg:wind vs. 0.569 sg:total)
Ben Martin (0.523 sg:wind vs. 0.221 sg:total)
John Senden (0.784 sg:wind vs. 0.493 sg:total)
Robert Streb (0.824 sg:wind vs. 0.591 sg:total)
From here we can say goodbye to everyone’s favorite DFS golfer, Keegan Bradley #sarcasm.
Furyk also gets the boot, which is good, because we didn’t want to rely on the health of his wrist, anyway.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 16
Baseline Performance
This is the part where we separate the safe specialists from the GPP specialists. We don’t want our specialist to need a career week just to get their expected performance over field average.
Using a SG:Total threshold of 0.250 strokes per round, we can remove the following names:
Scott Brown
Ben Martin
Scott Langley
Jason Gore
John Huh
Kyle Stanley
The list above can definitely be sprinkled into GPPs, but they cannot be trusted.
Using our new form filter, we will also remove any golfers that have lost strokes to the field over the last 10 weeks on the PGA TOUR. You could say this is cheating and that we’re removing all the risk. Duh! That’s what we’re trying to do with this article… Dissect the course to see which golfers are a great fit and can be trusted to plug-and-play into lineups.
Of the 10 remaining candidates we can remove the following due to form:
Will Wilcox
George McNeill
Robert Streb
Wilcox could certainly fit the bill for a great GPP play, but let’s not get carried away as he’s making his tournament debut and still finding his form.
The Specialists
Kevin Chappell
Chris Kirk
John Senden
Scott Piercy
David Toms
David Hearn
Matt Kuchar
Our specialist this week is Kevin Chappell.
This may be the best form we’ve had a specialist arrive in. He’s posting top 10s left and right lately. He also flirted with 59 here at Colonial on his way to a 63 in 2014. If you can’t trust him this week, I don’t think you ever will.
Piercy just let A LOT of gamers down last week when he ballooned on Friday to miss the cut after nearly leading on Thursday. He’s also the only golfer on the specialist list without a top 25 here at Colonial (Does have a T26 in 2013 though). I’d say he comes with the most risk, but he still should bounce back nicely from last week’s MC.
Kirk and Toms are both past champs here (Kirk is defending this week). Everyone else should be good to go as well. A real solid group of names this week, if you ask me.
Best of luck everyone!
Below is a table with the full specialist data. Any fields with a 0 in them mean the sample size is not large enough. There is a minimum of 25 rounds to qualify for each angle. The SG:Total column is a baseline performance measure (since 2013-14), Form is the strokes gained per round over the last 10 weeks and all the other columns will show you their performance for that angle (per round) in comparison to the baseline strokes gained.
| Golfer | DK | SG:Total | Form | Par 70 | LT Driver | Wind | Specialist Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin Chappell | $9,600 | 0.697 | 2.101 | 0.54 | 0.33 | 0.387 | 0.419 | |
| Bill Haas | $8,700 | 0.871 | 0.85 | -0.189 | 1.059 | 0.342 | 0.404 | |
| Chris Kirk | $9,700 | 0.569 | 1.384 | 0.457 | 0.288 | 0.328 | 0.358 | |
| Jason Gore | $6,000 | -0.001 | -0.514 | 0.463 | 0.394 | 0.203 | 0.353 | |
| Tyler Aldridge | $6,000 | -0.268 | -0.12 | 0 | 1.043 | 0 | 0.348 | |
| John Huh | $6,800 | -0.02 | -1.794 | 0.03 | 0.278 | 0.707 | 0.338 | |
| John Senden | $7,400 | 0.493 | 0.862 | 0.214 | 0.5 | 0.29 | 0.335 | |
| George McNeill | $6,600 | 0.426 | -0.23 | 0.478 | 0.019 | 0.473 | 0.323 | |
| Scott Piercy | $6,800 | 0.317 | 0.886 | 0.089 | 0.335 | 0.539 | 0.321 | |
| Blayne Barber | $5,800 | -0.141 | -1.043 | -0.157 | 0.72 | 0.381 | 0.314 | |
| David Toms | $6,300 | 0.397 | 0.588 | 0.235 | 0.241 | 0.465 | 0.314 | |
| Kyle Stanley | $6,300 | -0.202 | 0.026 | 0.365 | 0.106 | 0.424 | 0.299 | |
| Bronson Burgoon | $5,900 | 0.288 | 0.37 | 0 | 0.47 | 0.324 | 0.265 | |
| Cameron Tringale | $7,000 | 0.411 | 0.643 | -0.015 | 0.429 | 0.375 | 0.263 | |
| Greg Owen | $6,000 | -0.38 | -0.535 | 1.088 | -0.477 | 0.174 | 0.262 | |
| Tim Herron | $5,800 | -0.914 | -1.689 | 0.627 | -0.581 | 0.738 | 0.261 | |
| Ben Martin | $6,900 | 0.221 | -0.098 | 0.197 | 0.265 | 0.301 | 0.255 | |
| Scott Langley | $6,700 | 0.099 | 0.416 | 0.402 | 0.136 | 0.074 | 0.204 | |
| Camilo Villegas | $6,100 | 0.12 | -0.51 | 0.651 | -0.031 | -0.013 | 0.202 | |
| David Hearn | $6,400 | 0.309 | 0.89 | 0.231 | 0.27 | 0.09 | 0.197 | |
| Will Wilcox | $6,700 | 0.484 | -0.067 | 0.097 | 0.371 | 0.106 | 0.191 | |
| Scott Brown | $6,400 | 0.228 | -0.096 | 0.296 | 0.157 | 0.101 | 0.185 | |
| Matt Kuchar | $11,000 | 1.34 | 1.594 | 0.175 | 0.237 | 0.116 | 0.176 | |
| Jason Dufner | $8,400 | 0.505 | 0.157 | 0.172 | 0.428 | -0.087 | 0.171 | |
| Charl Schwartzel | $9,000 | 0.825 | 0.54 | 0.061 | -0.015 | 0.434 | 0.16 | |
| Lucas Glover | $6,800 | -0.159 | 0.966 | -0.437 | 0.608 | 0.303 | 0.158 | |
| Steve Stricker | $7,500 | 0.723 | 0 | 0 | 0.333 | 0.14 | 0.158 | |
| Seung-Yul Noh | $6,300 | 0.094 | -0.479 | 0.257 | 0.291 | -0.076 | 0.157 | |
| Jim Furyk | $8,600 | 1.67 | 0 | 0.335 | 0.638 | -0.553 | 0.14 | |
| Chesson Hadley | $6,500 | -0.291 | -0.079 | -0.274 | 0.093 | 0.572 | 0.13 | |
| Jeff Overton | $6,500 | 0.099 | -0.919 | 0.229 | -0.022 | 0.18 | 0.129 | |
| Sean O’Hair | $6,900 | 0.146 | 0.486 | -0.142 | 0.389 | 0.1 | 0.116 | |
| Nick Taylor | $6,200 | -0.214 | 0.468 | -0.579 | 0.348 | 0.562 | 0.11 | |
| Robert Streb | $6,900 | 0.591 | -0.663 | 0.084 | 0.012 | 0.233 | 0.11 | |
| Kevin Kisner | $8,000 | 0.556 | -0.915 | 0.116 | 0.271 | -0.063 | 0.108 | |
| Patrick Reed | $10,000 | 0.797 | 1.147 | -0.29 | 0.384 | 0.195 | 0.097 | |
| Boo Weekley | $7,400 | 0.053 | 0.524 | 0.203 | -0.208 | 0.29 | 0.095 | |
| Vijay Singh | $6,000 | 0.059 | -0.416 | -0.023 | 0.003 | 0.295 | 0.091 | |
| Brendon de Jonge | $6,000 | 0.191 | -0.893 | 0.344 | 0.072 | -0.153 | 0.087 | |
| Mark Hubbard | $6,100 | -0.059 | -0.001 | -0.094 | 0.283 | 0.061 | 0.083 | |
| Matt Jones | $6,100 | 0.221 | -1.569 | -0.386 | 0.544 | 0.076 | 0.078 | |
| Tom Hoge | $6,700 | 0.103 | 0.208 | 0.341 | 0.213 | -0.325 | 0.076 | |
| Patton Kizzire | $7,900 | 0.654 | 0.532 | 0 | 0.365 | -0.142 | 0.074 | |
| Ricky Barnes | $6,700 | -0.004 | 0.295 | -0.092 | 0.094 | 0.219 | 0.074 | |
| Brandt Snedeker | $8,900 | 0.758 | 0.432 | 0.675 | -0.218 | -0.242 | 0.072 | |
| Brett Stegmaier | $5,900 | -0.154 | -1.31 | 0 | 0.192 | 0 | 0.064 | |
| Emiliano Grillo | $6,700 | 0.487 | 0.531 | 0 | 0 | 0.148 | 0.049 | |
| Shawn Stefani | $6,200 | 0.21 | -0.894 | 0.348 | -0.162 | -0.045 | 0.047 | |
| Daniel Summerhays | $7,000 | 0.594 | 0.939 | 0.017 | -0.02 | 0.138 | 0.045 | |
| Jhonattan Vegas | $6,600 | 0.057 | 0.65 | 0.184 | -0.009 | -0.049 | 0.042 | |
| Carl Pettersson | $5,800 | 0.01 | -2.626 | 0.296 | 0.049 | -0.236 | 0.036 | |
| Stewart Cink | $8,300 | 0.304 | 0 | 0.227 | -0.298 | 0.148 | 0.026 | |
| Fabian Gomez | $6,700 | -0.076 | -0.519 | 0.357 | 0.223 | -0.503 | 0.026 | |
| Troy Merritt | $6,400 | -0.227 | -0.105 | -0.104 | 0.205 | -0.028 | 0.024 | |
| Ken Duke | $6,200 | -0.35 | -0.682 | 0.279 | -0.065 | -0.146 | 0.023 | |
| Smylie Kaufman | $7,600 | 0.519 | -0.135 | 0 | 0.048 | 0 | 0.016 | |
| Jimmy Walker | $8,500 | 1.076 | -0.259 | -0.284 | -0.085 | 0.403 | 0.012 | |
| Ian Poulter | $7,700 | 0.467 | 0.19 | 0.315 | -0.168 | -0.117 | 0.01 | |
| Angel Cabrera | $6,000 | -0.295 | -0.579 | 0.41 | -0.382 | 0 | 0.009 | |
| Sung Kang | $6,400 | 0.308 | -0.556 | 0 | 0.027 | 0 | 0.009 | |
| Danny Lee | $8,800 | 0.516 | 0.819 | 0.119 | -0.091 | -0.009 | 0.007 | |
| Brian Harman | $6,900 | 0.318 | 0.062 | 0.334 | -0.025 | -0.291 | 0.006 | |
| Keith Clearwater | $5,700 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Franklin Corpening | $5,700 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Kramer Hickok | $5,700 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Steve Flesch | $5,800 | -1.49 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Martin Piller | $6,400 | -0.206 | 0.354 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Bryson DeChambeau | $7,700 | 0.486 | 0.826 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Freddie Jacobson | $7,100 | 0.456 | 0.473 | 0.13 | -0.156 | -0.007 | -0.011 | |
| Tyrone Van Aswegen | $6,100 | -0.254 | -0.731 | 0.397 | -0.524 | 0.047 | -0.027 | |
| Chez Reavie | $7,300 | 0.272 | 0.438 | 0.846 | -0.511 | -0.425 | -0.03 | |
| Hudson Swafford | $6,100 | 0.07 | -0.527 | 0.075 | -0.137 | -0.069 | -0.044 | |
| Chad Campbell | $6,500 | 0.355 | 0.409 | 0.145 | -0.123 | -0.185 | -0.054 | |
| Ryan Palmer | $8,100 | 0.922 | 0.393 | 0.208 | 0.057 | -0.439 | -0.058 | |
| Jordan Spieth | $12,800 | 1.731 | 1.782 | -0.602 | 0.037 | 0.385 | -0.06 | |
| Charley Hoffman | $10,400 | 0.738 | 1.595 | -0.372 | 0.198 | -0.016 | -0.063 | |
| Colt Knost | $8,300 | 0.487 | 1.359 | 0.008 | -0.31 | 0.11 | -0.064 | |
| Adam Scott | $11,300 | 1.495 | 1.266 | 0.028 | -0.058 | -0.173 | -0.068 | |
| Martin Laird | $6,500 | 0.18 | -0.24 | 0.236 | -0.29 | -0.181 | -0.078 | |
| Bryce Molder | $7,100 | 0.252 | 1.321 | -0.108 | 0.09 | -0.231 | -0.083 | |
| Anirban Lahiri | $7,100 | 0.033 | 0.091 | 0 | 0 | -0.251 | -0.084 | |
| Keegan Bradley | $6,800 | 0.774 | 0.012 | 0.134 | 0.048 | -0.439 | -0.086 | |
| Marc Leishman | $7,800 | 0.747 | 0.562 | 0.063 | -0.246 | -0.092 | -0.092 | |
| Louis Oosthuizen | $9,500 | 0.713 | 0.268 | -0.338 | -0.067 | 0.125 | -0.093 | |
| Kevin Na | $9,200 | 1.036 | 0.426 | -0.385 | 0.227 | -0.127 | -0.095 | |
| Harris English | $7,300 | 0.73 | -0.199 | 0.04 | -0.421 | 0.096 | -0.095 | |
| Brendon Todd | $5,900 | 0.374 | -2.158 | 0.158 | -0.458 | 0.013 | -0.095 | |
| Zac Blair | $6,300 | 0.119 | 0.184 | 0.334 | -0.256 | -0.378 | -0.1 | |
| J.J. Henry | $5,700 | -0.297 | -0.713 | 0.379 | -0.217 | -0.466 | -0.101 | |
| Chris Stroud | $6,500 | 0.22 | 0.077 | -0.116 | -0.243 | 0.046 | -0.104 | |
| Michael Kim | $6,500 | -0.166 | 0.482 | 0 | -0.214 | -0.109 | -0.108 | |
| Vaughn Taylor | $5,800 | 0.555 | -0.428 | 0 | 0.344 | -0.699 | -0.118 | |
| Derek Fathauer | $5,700 | -0.178 | -0.806 | -0.225 | 0.055 | -0.185 | -0.118 | |
| Webb Simpson | $7,000 | 0.648 | -0.586 | 0.328 | -0.358 | -0.327 | -0.119 | |
| Roberto Castro | $7,600 | -0.086 | 0.982 | -0.508 | 0.075 | 0.053 | -0.126 | |
| William McGirt | $7,000 | 0.453 | 0.413 | -0.009 | 0.024 | -0.42 | -0.135 | |
| Hiroshi Iwata | $6,300 | -0.167 | -1.581 | 0 | 0 | -0.434 | -0.145 | |
| Steven Bowditch | $5,700 | -0.474 | -3.278 | 0.458 | 0.007 | -0.913 | -0.149 | |
| Jason Kokrak | $6,800 | 0.554 | 0.408 | -0.31 | 0.105 | -0.245 | -0.15 | |
| Steve Marino | $6,900 | -0.281 | -0.146 | 0.606 | -0.453 | -0.608 | -0.152 | |
| Chad Collins | $6,100 | -0.14 | -0.062 | -0.432 | 0.006 | -0.033 | -0.153 | |
| Johnson Wagner | $5,800 | -0.029 | 0.319 | -0.493 | 0.161 | -0.135 | -0.156 | |
| Brian Stuard | $6,200 | 0.139 | 0.074 | -0.562 | 0.18 | -0.113 | -0.165 | |
| Ben Crane | $6,200 | -0.193 | 0.261 | 0.193 | -0.19 | -0.511 | -0.169 | |
| Geoff Ogilvy | $6,400 | -0.396 | -0.329 | -0.429 | -0.104 | 0.015 | -0.173 | |
| Adam Hadwin | $6,600 | 0.242 | 0.417 | -0.273 | 0.03 | -0.293 | -0.179 | |
| Scott Stallings | $6,800 | -0.316 | 0.897 | -0.144 | -0.294 | -0.109 | -0.183 | |
| Si Woo Kim | $5,900 | 0.522 | 0.647 | 0 | -0.315 | -0.307 | -0.207 | |
| Jim Herman | $6,200 | 0.027 | -0.208 | -0.517 | 0.015 | -0.127 | -0.21 | |
| Andrew Loupe | $6,600 | -0.046 | 0.111 | -0.635 | 0.049 | -0.046 | -0.211 | |
| Jerry Kelly | $7,200 | 0.514 | 0.492 | -0.305 | -0.265 | -0.095 | -0.221 | |
| Jon Curran | $6,600 | 0.092 | -0.263 | -0.434 | -0.222 | -0.021 | -0.226 | |
| Zach Johnson | $10,700 | 0.887 | 0.608 | -0.454 | -0.02 | -0.307 | -0.26 | |
| Aaron Baddeley | $6,600 | 0.236 | 0.471 | -0.277 | -0.188 | -0.358 | -0.274 | |
| Jonas Blixt | $7,500 | 0.006 | 0.006 | -0.564 | 0.025 | -0.338 | -0.292 | |
| Peter Malnati | $5,900 | -0.4 | -1.412 | -0.684 | 0.267 | -0.465 | -0.294 | |
| Kevin Streelman | $7,100 | 0.113 | -0.483 | -0.808 | -0.151 | 0.009 | -0.317 | |
| Jason Bohn | $6,300 | 0.53 | -2.06 | -0.193 | -0.506 | -0.28 | -0.326 | |
| Kyle Reifers | $7,000 | 0.166 | 0.56 | -0.656 | -0.328 | -0.226 | -0.403 | |
| Tony Finau | $8,200 | 0.728 | 0.897 | 0.222 | -1.134 | -0.372 | -0.428 | |
| Hunter Mahan | $5,900 | 0.275 | -0.962 | -1.194 | -0.241 | 0.067 | -0.456 |