Searching for a Specialist: PGA Championship

by Josh Culp (futureoffantasy) Last Updated 2016-07-28 13:12:28

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Welcome to the one-year anniversary edition of the Search for a Specialist. Well, it’s only been 11 months actually, but this article debuted at last year’s PGA Championship.

In that inaugural edition we had nine specialists and found finishes of 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th as well as three other top 30s. We really started off with a bang! So let’s see if we can repeat that PGA Championship success this week.

Last week our specialist was Chez Reavie and he finished T14, while the secondary specialist, Kyle Reifers, missed the cut on the number. Close, but no cigar. Overall the top specialist has now found a top 20 in 45 percent of events. Very happy with that number since it’s basically the same strike-rate as a Rickie Fowler/Bubba Watson/Zach Johnson caliber of golfer.

This week we will look at Long Courses, Bentgrass Greens, Strong Field Events, and Par 70 Tracks.

Here we go…

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Long Courses

The course this week is Baltusrol Golf Club’s Lower Course which is just a pr 70 but it stretches out past 7,400 yards. That baseline of 7,400 is the yardage criteria I use to classify long courses, so this one definitely fits the bill.

On long courses we see bombers shine as expected, but golfers that are accurate off the tee can also flourish if they are good with their long irons. After all, it’s much easier to attack greens from the fairways, especially when the rough is extremely high like it will be this week.

The Top 10 Long Course Specialists are:

Brandt Snedeker (1.356 sg:long vs. 0.797 sg:total)
Daniel Berger (1.305 sg:long vs. 0.77 sg:total)
Harold Varner III (0.72 sg:long vs. 0.19 sg:total)
Matt Jones (0.745 sg:long vs. 0.275 sg:total)
Charley Hoffman (1.14 sg:long vs. 0.676 sg:total)
Bernd Wiesberger (0.738 sg:long vs. 0.274 sg:total)
Y.E. Yang (-0.109 sg:long vs. -0.571 sg:total)
Jamie Lovemark (0.701 sg:long vs. 0.252 sg:total)
Ernie Els (0.4 sg:long vs. -0.015 sg:total)
Rory McIlroy (2.527 sg:long vs. 2.149 sg:total)

There are some very intriguing names here. We can see that eight of the top 10 specialists are gaining more than 0.7 strokes per round when they head to long courses. That’s what we like to see, some quality specialists. Y.E. Yang does not fit that bill.

Some other names that see a big dip when we head to longer layouts include David Toms, James Hahn, Russell Knox, Bryce Molder, and William McGirt. They all have a top-25 rate of less than 15 percent on courses over 7,400 yards (since 2014).

On the positive side of the spectrum, Rory McIlroy is the most appealing here. He’s posted a top 25 in 15 of his last 16 starts on long courses (93%). The next closest is Henrik Stenson at 78%.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 47

Bentgrass Greens

The first angle helped spotlight some golfers that should shine tee-to-green, but this one will showcase who performs best on and around the greens.

Baltusrol’s greens used to be largely poa annua, but the turf management practices have improved greatly over the last 15 years and they are now almost entirely bentgrass which usually caters to the golfers that we generally think of as average (or even poor) putters.

The Top 10 Bentgrass Specialists remaining:

Ernie Els (0.475 sg:bentgrass vs. -0.015 sg:total)
Rickie Fowler (1.475 sg:bentgrass vs. 1.138 sg:total)
Billy Hurley III (0.405 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.11 sg:total)
Russell Henley (0.476 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.191 sg:total)
Rory McIlroy (2.415 sg:bentgrass vs. 2.149 sg:total)
Kyle Reifers (0.469 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.242 sg:total)
Henrik Stenson (1.795 sg:bentgrass vs. 1.602 sg:total)
Bernd Wiesberger (0.465 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.274 sg:total)
Brandt Snedeker (0.97 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.797 sg:total)
Cameron Tringale (0.555 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.387 sg:total)
.
So far we have a few repeats: Ernie, Rory, Wiesberger, and Snedeker.

Once again Rory stands out above the pack. He’s posted top 25s in 18-of-19 starts on bentgrass greens since 2014. That 95 percent number is 23% higher than the next golfer over the stretch.

Since the start of 2014, Fowler has a baseline top-25 rate of 52% but that increases to 63% when just looking at bentgrass events, so he is also someone we should try to target this week.

A few interesting names on the wrong side of this specialist angle are Roberto Castro, Jason Kokrak, and Zac Blair.

Kokrak has posted top 25s in just 10.5% of his starts on bentgrass, while his baseline T25-rate is right around 35! Does not sound like someone I want to take a risk on.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 20

Strong Field Events

The next thing we want to look at is performance against strong fields. I measure that using the OWGR strength of field rating for each event. Anything over 400 gets bucketed into the strong field category.

Of the 20 remaining possible specialists, seven of them pass the strong field test:

Kevin Chappell
Ernie Els
Rickie Fowler
Lee Westwood
Danny Willett
Henrik Stenson
Cameron Tringale

Kevin Chappell really raises him game to the level of competition he faces. Since the start of 2014, he’s finished inside the top 25 in 10 of 25 starts against strong fields. That 40 percent rate is better than golfers like Branden Grace, Marc Leishman, Martin Kaymer, and many others who often get associated with playing good in stronger field events.

On the opposite side of the rainbow, we have Jason Bohn. He’s rattled off top 25s in just 5% of strong field events since 2014, which is 23 percent lower than his baseline of 28%.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 7

Par 70 Courses

We could easily stop the search at the list above, but there is one more angle I want our specialist to pass this week. That is performance on par 70 layouts.

Par 70s feature just two par 5s, so this spotlights golfers that can really grind out the par 4s and not rely on par-5 scoring to save their rounds.

At this stop we lose Danny Willett due to small sample size of par 70s starts on the PGA TOUR. We also lose Ernie Els, Rickie Fowler, Cameron Tringale, and Lee Westwood. They were all so very close this week.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 2

The Specialists

Kevin Chappell
Henrik Stenson

Our specialist this week is Kevin Chappell.

We already heard about how good this Chap is against strong fields, but he’s even better on par 70 courses. Since 2014, he’s finished inside the top 25 in 60% of his starts on par 70s. That is 12th-best in the field when looking at golfers with at least 10 starts on par 70s over that time.

kevin-chappell-300x200

The best part is his salary. We only have to pay $6,700 for Chappell this week on DraftKings.

This second specialist needs no explanation. Stenson is coming off one of the greatest major championship performance in history and now he lines up perfectly for Baltusrol. There is always the potential for a letdown after a career win like that, but it wouldn’t be due to course fit. It looks like he lines up perfectly this week.

The Anti-Specialists

The golfers below are negative in all three angles this week. Basically the exact opposite of our specialists and we should try to avoid them this week or limit our exposure at the very least.

Jason Bohn
Ryan Moore
Brian Stuard
Kevin Streelman
Hideki Matsuyama
William McGirt
Russell Knox
Justin Thomas
Robert Streb
Keegan Bradley

Looking back at all anti-specialists, they’ve now finished outside the top 20 in 82% of their starts. No matter how tempting any of the names are above, I will continue to fade them based on that extremely low percentage of top-heavy payouts.

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 (including European Tour) 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	Bentgrass	Par 70	Long Courses	Strong Field	Specialist Rating
Ernie Els	$6,800	-0.015	-0.031	0.49	-0.066	0.414	0.238	0.269
Thorbjorn Olesen	$6,000	-0.146	-0.155	0.404	0	0	0.601	0.251
Brandt Snedeker	$7,500	0.797	0.658	0.173	0.498	0.559	-0.236	0.249
Kevin Chappell	$6,700	0.681	0.805	0.035	0.491	0.067	0.295	0.222
Daniel Berger	$6,600	0.77	1.4	-0.053	0.188	0.535	0.079	0.187
David Lingmerth	$6,300	0.128	0.869	0.089	0.585	-0.242	0.292	0.181
Bernd Wiesberger	$6,900	0.274	0.366	0.191	0	0.464	-0.084	0.143
Darren Clarke	$6,200	-1.802	0.189	0.578	0	0	-0.06	0.129
Henrik Stenson	$10,500	1.602	2.649	0.193	0.051	0.192	0.015	0.112
Rickie Fowler	$9,200	1.138	0.182	0.337	-0.167	0.048	0.213	0.108
Tony Finau	$6,900	0.698	0.525	0.296	0.175	-0.002	-0.075	0.098
Billy Horschel	$7,200	0.622	0.287	-0.119	0.571	0.053	-0.124	0.095
Russell Henley	$6,300	0.191	-0.117	0.284	0.052	0.179	-0.162	0.088
Danny Willett	$8,200	1.1	0.579	0.071	0	0.159	0.078	0.077
Scott Piercy	$7,400	0.298	0.378	0.12	0.36	0.138	-0.338	0.07
Soren Kjeldsen	$6,700	0.504	0.629	0.275	0	0	0	0.069
Harold Varner III	$6,600	0.19	0.24	0	0	0.53	-0.264	0.066
Victor Dubuisson	$7,200	0.137	-0.975	0.505	0	-0.059	-0.185	0.065
John Daly	$6,600	-1.344	-1.722	0	0.167	0	0	0.042
Cameron Tringale	$6,000	0.387	0.398	0.168	-0.181	0.167	0.009	0.041
Billy Hurley III	$5,700	0.11	0.502	0.295	0.209	0.154	-0.508	0.037
Rory McIlroy	$11,400	2.149	1.874	0.266	-0.444	0.378	-0.065	0.034
John Senden	$6,900	0.499	0.493	0.101	0.12	-0.212	0.113	0.031
J.B. Holmes	$7,700	0.749	0.98	0.093	-0.148	0.312	-0.157	0.025
Marc Leishman	$7,500	0.715	0.104	0.151	-0.037	0.025	-0.047	0.023
Smylie Kaufman	$6,500	0.414	-0.24	0.084	0	0.149	-0.144	0.022
Paul Casey	$7,600	0.961	-0.048	-0.121	0.265	0.097	-0.174	0.017
Brooks Koepka	$7,800	1.171	2.143	-0.219	0.322	0.23	-0.274	0.015
Matt Kuchar	$8,600	1.382	1.651	0.051	0.173	-0.02	-0.161	0.011
Andy Sullivan	$6,100	0.23	0.997	0	0	0	0.042	0.01
Martin Kaymer	$7,900	0.517	1.053	0.264	0.169	-0.441	0.045	0.009
Daniel Summerhays	$6,900	0.601	0.776	-0.29	0.094	0.213	0.019	0.009
Emiliano Grillo	$6,900	0.609	0.692	0.227	0	-0.087	-0.13	0.003
Charl Schwartzel	$7,300	0.921	1.251	-0.021	0.096	0.019	-0.085	0.002
Brad Lardon	$5,500	-7.466	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rod Perry	$5,500	-3.098	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rich Beem	$5,500	-2.834	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rocco Mediate	$6,500	-2.823	0	0	0	0	0	0
Soomin Lee	$5,900	-2.355	-0.805	0	0	0	0	0
Brandon Stone	$6,900	-2.296	0.202	0	0	0	0	0
Michael Block	$5,500	-2.146	0	0	0	0	0	0
Kristoffer Broberg	$6,300	-1.993	-0.881	0	0	0	0	0
Omar Uresti	$5,600	-1.91	0.101	0	0	0	0	0
Johan Kok	$5,500	-1.838	0	0	0	0	0	0
Yuta Ikeda	$5,600	-1.647	-0.945	0	0	0	0	0
Alex Noren	$6,700	-1.055	0.998	0	0	0	0	0
Brian Gaffney	$5,800	-0.892	0	0	0	0	0	0
Matt Dobyns	$5,700	-0.788	-1.231	0	0	0	0	0
Rikard Karlberg	$6,600	-0.725	0.4	0	0	0	0	0
Shaun Micheel	$5,600	-0.647	-3.404	0	0	0	0	0
Marcus Fraser	$6,800	-0.565	-0.089	0	0	0	0	0
James Morrison	$6,300	-0.507	-0.03	0	0	0	0	0
Scott Hend	$5,900	-0.36	-0.061	0	0	0	0	0
Nicolas Colsaerts	$6,700	-0.254	1.016	0	0	0	0	0
Hideto Tanihara	$5,800	-0.094	-0.405	0	0	0	0	0
Ryan Helminen	$5,500	-0.088	0	0	0	0	0	0
Bradley Dredge	$6,800	0	0.605	0	0	0	0	0
Jeung-hun Wang	$5,700	0	0.284	0	0	0	0	0
Mark Brown	$5,700	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Josh Speight	$5,700	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Joe Summerhays	$5,700	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Mitch Lowe	$5,600	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
David Muttitt	$5,600	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Brad Ott	$5,600	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Ben Polland	$5,500	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rich Berberian	$5,500	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rob Labritz	$5,500	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Wyatt Worthington II	$5,500	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Tommy Sharp	$5,500	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rick Schuller	$5,500	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Ross Fisher	$6,200	0.108	0.47	0	0	0	0	0
Thomas Pieters	$7,000	0.146	0.906	0	0	0	0	0
K.T. Kim	$6,000	0.225	0.287	0	0	0	0	0
Si Woo Kim	$6,100	0.468	0.488	0	0	0	0	0
Tyrrell Hatton	$6,600	0.564	1.578	0	0	0	0	0
Young-han Song	$5,900	0.665	0.498	0	0	0	0	0
Andrew Johnston	$6,500	0.716	0.59	0	0	0	0	0
Gregory Bourdy	$5,800	0.88	1.098	0	0	0	0	0
Chris Wood	$6,400	0.232	1.148	0	0	0	0	0
Jason Day	$11,700	1.964	1.977	-0.091	0.167	-0.085	0.006	-0.001
Matt Jones	$6,100	0.275	0.235	-0.173	-0.242	0.47	-0.089	-0.008
Zac Blair	$6,800	0.049	-0.432	-0.531	0.268	0.263	-0.034	-0.008
Brendan Steele	$6,000	0.744	0.646	-0.432	0.27	0.221	-0.093	-0.008
Matthew Fitzpatrick	$7,600	0.307	0.048	0	0	0	-0.038	-0.01
Lee Westwood	$7,900	0.742	1.209	0.05	-0.254	0.068	0.09	-0.011
Justin Rose	$9,800	1.562	0.483	0.164	-0.266	0.16	-0.109	-0.013
Kyle Reifers	$6,400	0.242	0.861	0.227	-0.486	0.375	-0.178	-0.015
Vijay Singh	$5,600	0.12	0.921	0.122	-0.062	0.009	-0.131	-0.016
Chris Kirk	$6,000	0.597	0.576	-0.036	0.411	-0.045	-0.413	-0.021
Louis Oosthuizen	$8,300	0.642	0.075	-0.123	-0.22	0.053	0.186	-0.026
Branden Grace	$8,000	0.644	0.724	-0.315	0.618	-0.301	-0.12	-0.029
Keegan Bradley	$7,700	0.774	0.644	-0.032	-0.006	-0.035	-0.068	-0.035
Dustin Johnson	$11,600	1.86	2.41	0.008	0	-0.178	-0.006	-0.044
George Coetzee	$6,200	0.028	-0.147	0.045	0	0	-0.238	-0.048
Adam Scott	$9,600	1.443	1.009	-0.258	-0.024	-0.066	0.127	-0.055
Jhonattan Vegas	$6,500	0.063	0.115	-0.126	0.009	0.197	-0.32	-0.06
Jamie Lovemark	$5,900	0.252	-0.817	-0.353	-0.016	0.449	-0.346	-0.067
Sergio Garcia	$9,400	1.688	2.007	-0.058	0.373	-0.568	-0.029	-0.07
Jim Furyk	$7,600	1.543	0.721	0.064	0.219	-0.461	-0.115	-0.073
Jordan Spieth	$11,100	1.738	1.359	0.084	-0.327	0.324	-0.388	-0.077
Ryan Palmer	$7,200	0.917	0.855	-0.126	0.223	-0.285	-0.119	-0.077
Bubba Watson	$9,000	1.491	0.438	-0.077	0.06	-0.182	-0.124	-0.081
Jamie Donaldson	$6,600	0.468	-0.226	-0.02	-0.362	0.006	0.052	-0.081
Thongchai Jaidee	$5,800	-0.524	0.978	0.193	0	-0.521	-0.006	-0.084
Gary Woodland	$6,700	0.748	1.498	-0.189	-0.094	0.167	-0.246	-0.091
Joost Luiten	$6,600	-0.062	0.373	-0.393	0	0.032	-0.004	-0.091
Padraig Harrington	$7,000	-0.449	0.1	-0.082	-0.107	-0.389	0.21	-0.092
Anirban Lahiri	$7,000	0.013	-0.055	0.144	0	-0.342	-0.173	-0.093
Graeme McDowell	$7,700	0.692	0.382	0.081	0.032	-0.62	0.097	-0.103
Rafa Cabrera Bello	$7,300	0.666	0.849	-0.147	0	0	-0.264	-0.103
Kiradech Aphibarnrat	$6,000	-0.41	-0.899	-0.115	0	-0.173	-0.129	-0.104
Danny Lee	$7,100	0.42	-0.199	0.02	-0.025	-0.002	-0.414	-0.105
Francesco Molinari	$6,100	0.81	1.089	-0.134	-0.222	-0.224	0.129	-0.113
Zach Johnson	$8,400	0.96	1.217	0.105	-0.339	-0.12	-0.117	-0.118
Kevin Kisner	$7,100	0.548	0.215	0.026	0.201	-0.358	-0.348	-0.12
Vaughn Taylor	$6,800	0.412	-0.205	-0.497	0	0	0	-0.124
Charley Hoffman	$6,000	0.676	0.124	-0.113	-0.291	0.464	-0.56	-0.125
Robert Streb	$6,900	0.577	0.194	-0.033	-0.037	-0.117	-0.328	-0.129
James Hahn	$6,000	-0.03	-0.081	-0.206	0.314	-0.562	-0.074	-0.132
Phil Mickelson	$10,200	1.222	1.886	-0.115	-0.351	0.187	-0.274	-0.138
Colt Knost	$7,000	0.414	0.639	-0.199	0.035	-0.116	-0.273	-0.138
Steve Stricker	$7,000	0.886	1.8	0.073	-0.334	-0.471	0.177	-0.139
Harris English	$7,300	0.78	0.825	-0.377	0.15	-0.01	-0.319	-0.139
Patton Kizzire	$6,200	0.302	-1.048	0	0	0	-0.569	-0.142
Byeong Hun An	$7,400	0.293	0.236	-0.253	0	0	-0.327	-0.145
Jim Herman	$6,300	0.005	-0.42	-0.078	-0.464	0.283	-0.322	-0.145
Jon Curran	$6,400	0.151	0.725	0.03	-0.322	-0.266	-0.06	-0.154
Luke Donald	$7,100	0.445	0.081	-0.352	0.293	-0.221	-0.338	-0.155
Troy Merritt	$5,700	-0.174	0.045	0.047	-0.081	-0.462	-0.131	-0.157
Jonas Blixt	$5,800	0.008	0.488	-0.058	-0.548	0.091	-0.113	-0.157
Aaron Baddeley	$6,800	0.28	0.283	-0.202	-0.344	0.203	-0.291	-0.158
Patrick Reed	$8,100	0.796	0.564	0.006	-0.385	-0.053	-0.253	-0.171
Bill Haas	$7,100	0.88	0.753	0.004	-0.334	-0.165	-0.244	-0.185
Webb Simpson	$7,500	0.742	1.354	-0.057	0.298	-0.169	-0.822	-0.188
Kevin Na	$6,700	1.007	0.68	-0.351	-0.266	0.138	-0.314	-0.198
Jimmy Walker	$7,600	1.026	-0.095	-0.184	-0.299	0.278	-0.591	-0.199
Greg Chalmers	$6,700	-0.479	-1.986	-0.06	0.136	-0.143	-0.734	-0.2
K.J. Choi	$6,200	0.273	0.261	-0.571	-0.318	-0.037	0.046	-0.22
Shane Lowry	$7,800	0.851	0.824	-0.505	0	-0.234	-0.169	-0.227
Freddie Jacobson	$5,900	0.432	0.27	-0.616	0.213	0.215	-0.744	-0.233
Justin Thomas	$7,200	0.728	0.49	-0.228	-0.402	-0.185	-0.19	-0.251
Russell Knox	$7,500	0.797	0.468	-0.218	-0.029	-0.794	-0.016	-0.264
Bryce Molder	$5,700	0.273	1.472	-0.534	0.043	-0.313	-0.278	-0.271
David Toms	$5,600	0.446	0.702	-0.04	0.211	-0.469	-0.8	-0.275
William McGirt	$7,000	0.482	0.692	-0.018	-0.02	-0.584	-0.499	-0.28
Y.E. Yang	$5,700	-0.571	0.146	-0.843	-0.44	0.462	-0.378	-0.3
Hideki Matsuyama	$8,800	1.223	-0.503	-0.248	-0.733	-0.123	-0.231	-0.334
Kevin Streelman	$7,000	0.181	0.684	-0.174	-0.642	-0.051	-0.529	-0.349
Brian Stuard	$5,900	0.063	-0.669	-0.285	-0.479	-0.178	-0.472	-0.353
Ryan Moore	$6,500	0.724	0.463	-0.264	-0.205	-0.375	-0.587	-0.358
Jason Kokrak	$5,900	0.533	0.174	-0.98	-0.272	0.231	-0.439	-0.365
Jason Bohn	$5,700	0.489	-0.666	-0.146	-0.16	-0.083	-1.087	-0.369
Roberto Castro	$6,300	-0.04	0.371	-0.476	-0.579	0.171	-0.72	-0.401
Jason Dufner	$7,100	0.579	0.937	-0.264	0.185	-1.396	-0.305	-0.445
Fabian Gomez	$6,500	-0.181	-1.112	-0.92	0.259	-0.459	-1.098	-0.555
Peter Malnati	$5,600	-0.551	-2.447	-1.562	-0.585	-0.307	0	-0.613