Searching for a Specialist: Northern Trust Open
How ‘bout them specialists! We narrowed down the field last week to Jimmy Walker, Patrick Reed, Matt Jones, and Bill Haas. All four finished T11 or better for the week at the AT&T Pro-Am. Not too shabby.
Let’s see if we can build on that momentum as we head to Pacific Palisades, California, for this week’s Northern Trust Open.
Our search this week will look at performance on Poa annua Greens, California Courses, and finish up by looking at Hard Course performance. Three angles, Keep It Simple!
Here we go….
Poa annua Greens
My sample of course-specific stats goes back to the start of the 2013-14 season. The sample size for poa annua greens is starting to get to a usable level. That’s fantastic news as this angle boasts some of the best correlations with success at past Northern Trust Open editions.
The top 10 Poa annua specialists in the field are:
Scott Stallings (1.061 sg:poa vs. -0.379 sg:total)
Kyle Reifers (1.2 sg:poa vs. 0.064 sg:total)
Carlos Ortiz (1.019 sg:poa vs. -0.039 sg:total)
Freddie Jacobson (1.435 sg:poa vs. 0.482 sg:total)
Martin Laird (1.084 sg:poa vs. 0.203 sg:total)
K.J. Choi (1.149 sg:poa vs. 0.268 sg:total)
Derek Fathauer (0.746 sg:poa vs. -0.092 sg:total)
Dustin Johnson (2.408 sg:poa vs. 1.577 sg:total)
Morgan Hoffmann (0.819 sg:poa vs. 0.103 sg:total)
J.B. Holmes (1.389 sg:poa vs. 0.676 sg:total)
DJ is a horse on poa greens. Over his last nine starts on poa annua, he’s rattled off five top 5s in addition to a ninth-place finish.
While the sample size is now usable, there still are some golfers that get trimmed here due to small sample sizes on poa greens. That includes Charl Schwartzel, Paul Casey, Adam Scott, Patrick Rodgers, Sergio Garcia, and Rory McIlroy.
Those are some big names, and should still be great plays. But we have to cut out some of the fat if we want to find a true course specialist.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 49
California Courses
Poa and Cali almost go hand-in-hand. There is something about the Golden State that differs from the typical East Coast courses, though. For that reason, we are going to look at performance in this state specifically.
Of the 49 golfers left in our search, we can eliminate the following due to lack of sample in California or poor performance in the Golden State:
Bubba Watson
Padraig Harrington
Tyrone Van Aswegen
Robert Streb
Zac Blair
GOLFERS REMAINING: 44
Hard Courses
This next angle is a good one. Most of the 2015-16 season has been played on easy-peasy courses. Tracks where golfers walk off the 18th green upset if they aren’t 3-or-4-under-par.
That’s completely different this week since par is a great score here at Riviera Country Club. If we look at past performance on courses where the field average 0.75 strokes-over-par or harder, then we can find some hard course specialists.
Of our remaining 44 golfers, these are top 10 hard course specialists:
Daniel Summerhays (1.506 sg:hard vs. 0.559 sg:total)
Matt Jones (1.188 sg:hard vs. 0.427 sg:total)
Steven Bowditch (0.549 sg:hard vs. -0.182 sg:total)
Seung-yul Noh (0.838 sg:hard vs. 0.115 sg:total)
Jordan Spieth (2.482 sg:hard vs. 1.8 sg:total)
Andrew Loupe (0.501 sg:hard vs. -0.099 sg:total)
Brendan Steele (1.353 sg:hard vs. 0.786 sg:total)
William McGirt (0.946 sg:hard vs. 0.408 sg:total)
Freddie Jacobson (0.991 sg:hard vs. 0.482 sg:total)
Dustin Johnson (2.023 sg:hard vs. 1.577 sg:total)
As you can see we get some pretty elite specialists there in Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson… and then we get Andrew Loupe and Steven Browditch.
Spieth is an absolute monster on tough tracks. He’s finished 1st or 2nd-place in six of his last 16 starts that meet this criteria. Don’t be afraid to go back to the Spieth Well this week.
You wouldn’t think Summerhays likes tough courses if you watched him balloon last week at Pebble Beach. However, he’s landed inside the top 30 in seven of his last eight starts that played 3/4 of a stroke-over-par or harder.
Some golfers we eliminate due to their decreased performance on difficult courses include Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Tony Finau, and Bryce Molder.
We’ve seen Keegan, Molder, and Matsuyama contend here at Riviera, so don’t ignore them this week. However, they are NOT our specialist at the NTO.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 21
Baseline Performance
This may be my favorite section of the article each week. This is where we trim the fat to make the specialists more reliable.
The criteria I like to use is a baseline Strokes Gained:Total of 0.250 or higher. Over four rounds, that would equal out to at least one stroke gained over the field.
This week we can use this SG: Total cutoff to eliminate the following names:
Seung-yul Noh
Scott Langley
James Hahn
Erik Compton
Will MacKenzie
Chad Collins
Andrew Loupe
Angel Cabrera
Steven Bowditch
Like usual, we see some golfers with some legit course history here. That includes the defending champion, James Hahn. This list is not recommended for use in cash games, but could provide a needed GPP spark. The majority of these guys should be under 2 percent owned.
Basically this list above provides some names that “could hit” if they bring their A game and leave people wondering how or why in the world you rostered Chad Collins!
The Specialists
K.J. Choi
J.B. Holmes
Dustin Johnson
Matt Jones
Freddie Jacobson
Daniel Summerhays
Brendan Steele
Jordan Spieth
Jimmy Walker
William McGirt
Brendon Todd
Pat Perez
The specialist of the week award goes to K.J. Choi!
Choi has a longggg history of success of Riviera Country Club. His history starts decades before my database of course-specific stats starts. It’s good to see there is a reason for his Riviera CC success and we don’t have to blindly follow course history.
The list is a little longer than usual this week, but it does provide a good mix of studs, middle-tier options, and bargain-bin golfers to choose from.
Golfers like Summerhays, McGirt, Todd, and Perez may be hard to stomach on a roster considering some of their recent performances. However, the numbers are saying this could be a time to buy low!
The studs like JB, DJ, Spieth, and Walker are nice to see. They all have very nice track records here and should continue to perform well if these numbers hold true.
Check out the full Specialist Table for more detailed data. I included a few extra categories in the spreadsheet to use as tiebreakers. You can sort and filter to your heart’s desire. Best of luck in all your matchups this week.