Searching for a Specialist: RBC Canadian Open

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Welcome back. It’s time for another search; there are specialists out there waiting to be caught.

Last week we got got stung by Oosthuizen and his zero-birdie effort. He threw in a hole-in-one just to tease us, but imploded on Friday to easily miss the cut. DJ did his part with a top 10 despite finding trouble on the difficult par-4 11th. Fowler did not overcome that same hole, as his blowup led to a strong fade down to the middle of the pack.

Can you spot any trend with the specialists? DJ performed as expected while Fowler and Oosthy did not. Oosthy went off in Group #11 on Thursday, Fowler in Group #16 while DJ had a favorable PM tee time (Group #40).

That was the story of the week as you basically had to be on the right end of the weather draw if you wanted to contend. That’s how it goes sometimes, especially at The Open. It’s also possible I made a mistake by not including wind specialists last week as the forecast made it clear as the week went on that it would get real nasty.

This week we will look at Bentgrass Greens, Par 72 Courses, and Tough-to-Hit Fairways.

Here we go…

Bentgrass Greens

This week we head to Glen Abbey Golf Club and it’s an interesting week on the greens. Last year, this course used 10 poa annua greens and 8 bentgrass greens (due to ice damage the year before). Since then, they’ve relaid all the greens and all 18 are now bentgrass.

With fresh greens, we can lean a bit less on course history and a bit more on course fit. Which is perfect for what we’re doing here.

The Top 10 Bentgrass Specialists are:

D.H. Lee (-0.611 sg:bentgrass vs. -1.481 sg:total)
Steve Marino (0.358 sg:bentgrass vs. -0.307 sg:total)
Bud Cauley (0.761 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.182 sg:total)
Johnson Wagner (0.476 sg:bentgrass vs. -0.047 sg:total)
Chad Campbell (0.923 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.404 sg:total)
Ernie Els (0.51 sg:bentgrass vs. -0.008 sg:total)
Scott Pinckney (0.221 sg:bentgrass vs. -0.185 sg:total)
Tony Finau (1.079 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.726 sg:total)
Chris Stroud (0.595 sg:bentgrass vs. 0.249 sg:total)
Robert Garrigus (0.274 sg:bentgrass vs. -0.071 sg:total)

We can tell a lot about this week’s field just from the list above. Six of the bentgrass specialists actually start with a negative baseline strokes gained. We might be looking for the best-smelling turd this week.

Campbell is a very interesting case here. Since 2014, he’s tallied top 25s in 8-of-21 starts (38%) on bentgrass. His overall top-25 rate over that time is just 23%, so we see a very nice boost, plus he sports top 20s in both of his visits to Glen Abbey.

Equally interesting (in the other way) is Andrew Loupe. Over his last 18 starts on bentgrass, he hasn’t found a single top 25. Sounds like an easy fade? Well, his best angle is par 72 courses, and Glen Abbey fits the bill. This is one to watch closely, but I would lean on the side of fading.

Jhonny Vegas is also concerning, since he seems to be popular in the DFS community, and he posted an 11-under 60 last week at the Barbasol. However, that was on bermuda, and looking at his last 24 starts on bentgrass, we can see he’s finished top 25 in just two of them! His ability to score on par 5s makes him interesting, but the odds of him collecting a nice finishing bonus is not good.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 54

Par 72 Courses

By now we know what kind of golfers generally play better on par 72 courses.

With extra par 5s on the course, bombers can take advantage of the additional scoring chances. This week we have four reachable par 5s, but we still want golfers that can score better than the field on the par 5s.

The Top 10 Par 72 Specialists remaining:

Hiroshi Iwata (0.089 sg:par72 vs. -0.269 sg:total)
Kyle Reifers (0.603 sg:par72 vs. 0.246 sg:total)
Scott Pinckney (0.17 sg:par72 vs. -0.185 sg:total)
Bud Cauley (0.524 sg:par72 vs. 0.182 sg:total)
Tony Finau (0.99 sg:par72 vs. 0.726 sg:total)
Johnson Wagner (0.215 sg:par72 vs. -0.047 sg:total)
Stewart Cink (0.515 sg:par72 vs. 0.255 sg:total)
Andres Gonzales (-0.169 sg:par72 vs. -0.413 sg:total)
Angel Cabrera (-0.11 sg:par72 vs. -0.334 sg:total)
Emiliano Grillo (0.819 sg:par72 vs. 0.606 sg:total)
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After looking at two angles, we have a few repeats: Tony Finau, Bud Cauley, Johnson Wagner, and Scott Pinckney.

Pinckney is interesting because he’s bare-minimum this week. His baseline is low, but not THAT low. Could be a good flier for stars & scrubs lineups this week.

Bud Cauley is not to be trusted (especially after his 11th-hour WD at the Quicken Loans National. His upside sure is nice, though. Risk…Reward.

Finau has become an auto-play on bentgrass early in his career and this week looks to be no different. He’s a bit in the negative in our last angle, so he’s not a complete knockout play, but a very good one.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 13

Tough-to-Hit Fairways

The field has average 57 percent of fairways hits over its last four editions. That is pretty low and with reports this week saying the course is playing firm and firm, we should expect tee shots to be rolling out, leading to a lot of long drives but also a lot of missed fairways.

We’ve talked about this before but tough-to-hit fairways caters to the bombers or the extremely accurate. If you are capable of shooting arrows off the tee and still landing in the fairway then you’re going to be in great shape, having the ability to put more spin on the ball on your approach shots.

The firm and fast fairways will make that tough to do for most of the field, though. That is where length becomes an advantage. Hitting a wedge out of the rough is going to be better than hitting a 7-iron.

There are 21 golfers we kick to the curb here, but three golfers we lose here only due to small sample size of hard-fairway courses:

Hiroshi Iwata
Bud Cauley
Wes Roach
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If you do the same with the other angles, Harold Varner III is also 0 or better in all three angles. His sample size is too small for bentgrass courses. He’s actually lost 8 strokes to the field in five starts on bentgrass but that’s too small of a sample to make conclusions, so we can throw him into the GPP pile.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 4

Baseline Performance

Looking at current form we can eliminate golfers that are in too much of a rut at the moment. That means we can get rid of Angel Cabrera and Stewart Cink as they are both off their game. It’s hard to blame Cink, considering the situation going on with his wife. It’s safest to avoid him for the foreseeable future.

The Specialists

Chez Reavie
Kyle Reifers

Our specialist this week is Chez Reavie.

Our current form filter goes back 10 weeks, so all starts since the Wells Fargo Championship. Reavie is just 3-for-6 during that stretch, but his T18 at the Byron Nelson provided enough juice to keep him in positive form. His missed cuts were all within two of the number, so he’s been close even when he’s off.

chez-reavie-300x200

That could mean we’re in for a nice cut sweat, but with a 3-for-4 record at Glen Abbey that includes a win (2008), I like our chances.

Reifers does not possess that kind of course history. In fact, he’s 0-for-2 at Glen Abbey, but the numbers suggest the course could fit his game better than four previous rounds would suggest.

This looks like a good week to take a step back and say, “Really?” We only have two specialists and they are Reifers and Reavie. Is says a lot about the type of field we are dealing with. I wouldn’t blame anyone if they played extremely light this week and rested up for the final major of the season, next 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.

Robert Allenby
Sam Saunders
Stuart Appleby
Whee Kim
Spencer Levin
Scott Brown
D.A. Points
George McNeill
Chris Kirk

Kirk is probably the only one people are considering decent exposure on this week. He’s also the closest to not being an anti-specialists. I am going to fade him just because the numbers on these anti-specialists continue to be less-than-stellar. At the same time, I wouldn’t spend much time trying to talk anyone out of him this week. His baseline talent is much better than a large majority of the field this week.

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 72 Hard FW Specialist Rating
Bud Cauley $6,900 0.182 0.694 0.579 0.342 0 0.307
Chez Reavie $7,100 0.227 0.061 0.061 0.022 0.765 0.283
Angel Cabrera $6,200 -0.334 -0.628 0.223 0.224 0.306 0.251
Kyle Reifers $8,000 0.246 0.878 0.243 0.357 0.101 0.234
Carlos Ortiz $6,700 -0.324 -1.6 -0.392 0.192 0.863 0.221
Stewart Cink $7,100 0.255 -1.466 0.214 0.259 0.147 0.207
Rory Sabbatini $6,100 -0.128 -3.442 -0.145 0.108 0.632 0.198
Patton Kizzire $7,400 0.347 -0.807 0 0.58 0 0.193
Scott Pinckney $5,500 -0.185 -0.437 0.406 0.355 -0.189 0.191
Scott Stallings $6,000 -0.334 -0.062 -0.343 0.235 0.648 0.18
Tyrone Van Aswegen $6,700 -0.215 0.199 0.288 -0.445 0.693 0.178
Patrick Rodgers $6,300 0.195 -0.185 -0.187 0.128 0.562 0.168
Tony Finau $9,300 0.726 0.708 0.352 0.264 -0.13 0.162
Chad Collins $5,900 -0.084 -0.044 -0.087 0.459 0.102 0.158
Hiroshi Iwata $6,000 -0.269 -0.771 0.109 0.358 0 0.156
Ben Crane $7,400 -0.152 0.401 -0.046 0.053 0.438 0.148
Nick Taylor $7,200 -0.182 -0.224 -0.03 0.313 0.158 0.147
Mark Wilson $7,300 -0.369 0.166 -0.012 0.291 0.147 0.142
Emiliano Grillo $8,500 0.606 0.62 0.249 0.212 -0.058 0.135
Luke List $6,600 0.557 0.157 0 0.396 0 0.132
Kelly Kraft $6,000 -0.4 -0.755 0 0.371 0 0.124
J.J. Henry $5,500 -0.328 -0.593 0.071 -0.074 0.369 0.122
Brett Stegmaier $5,800 -0.04 0.097 0 -0.262 0.598 0.112
Adam Hadwin $8,700 0.264 0.432 0.287 0.208 -0.183 0.104
Charley Hoffman $8,900 0.676 0.124 -0.113 0.249 0.17 0.102
Daniel Summerhays $7,000 0.614 0.989 -0.272 -0.004 0.581 0.102
Erik Compton $6,200 -0.081 -0.483 -0.126 0.682 -0.259 0.099
Henrik Norlander $5,800 -0.058 -0.176 0 0.267 0 0.089
K.J. Choi $6,800 0.26 0.073 -0.639 0.045 0.838 0.081
Dustin Johnson $12,500 1.837 2.36 -0.014 -0.059 0.314 0.08
Martin Piller $6,900 -0.302 -0.503 0 0.238 0 0.079
Seung-Yul Noh $6,900 0.087 -0.466 -0.45 0.152 0.529 0.077
D.H. Lee $6,500 -1.481 -1.82 0.87 -0.64 0 0.077
Bronson Burgoon $6,000 0.225 0.135 0 0.212 0 0.071
Brendon Todd $6,200 0.29 -2.107 0.143 -0.103 0.17 0.07
Johnson Wagner $7,500 -0.047 -0.061 0.523 0.262 -0.582 0.068
Peter Malnati $5,600 -0.514 -2.314 0 0.202 -0.013 0.063
David Hearn $7,900 0.375 1.072 0.177 0.116 -0.108 0.061
Jimmy Walker $7,700 1.012 -0.404 -0.206 0.182 0.201 0.059
Tim Wilkinson $7,000 -0.146 0.282 0.115 -0.253 0.307 0.056
Tyler Aldridge $6,100 -0.197 -0.531 0 0.161 0 0.054
Steve Marino $6,400 -0.307 -0.193 0.665 -0.508 0 0.052
Wes Roach $6,000 -0.202 0.861 0.052 0.103 0 0.052
Richard H. Lee $6,500 -0.465 0.22 -0.022 0.163 0 0.047
Robert Streb $7,600 0.568 0.165 -0.05 0.011 0.173 0.045
Billy Hurley III $7,700 0.104 0.516 0.3 -0.322 0.152 0.043
Jonas Blixt $6,900 0.009 0.384 -0.057 0.32 -0.149 0.038
William McGirt $7,700 0.487 0.855 -0.01 -0.381 0.489 0.033
Hudson Swafford $7,000 0.109 0.521 0.085 0.006 -0.002 0.03
Harold Varner III $7,800 0.247 0.553 0 0.02 0.068 0.029
Chad Campbell $6,800 0.404 0.931 0.519 -0.397 -0.041 0.027
Rob Oppenheim $6,200 -0.227 0.101 0 0.075 0 0.025
Kevin Streelman $8,200 0.188 0.731 -0.168 0.104 0.128 0.021
Brandt Snedeker $10,300 0.766 0.371 0.14 0.044 -0.121 0.021
Dawie van der Walt $6,500 -0.422 -0.518 0 0.059 0 0.02
Ernie Els $7,200 -0.008 -0.06 0.518 -0.209 -0.255 0.018
Steve Wheatcroft $6,100 -0.16 -0.237 -0.095 0.171 -0.037 0.013
Thomas Aiken $6,400 -0.159 -0.25 0 0.039 0 0.013
Jhonattan Vegas $7,300 0.009 -0.375 -0.231 0.079 0.183 0.01
Matt Kuchar $10,600 1.365 1.575 0.032 0.02 -0.025 0.009
Vaughn Taylor $5,700 0.401 -0.196 -0.576 0.274 0.317 0.005
Ryan Palmer $8,000 0.922 0.886 -0.126 -0.005 0.146 0.005
Robert Garrigus $8,300 -0.071 1.446 0.345 -0.324 -0.018 0.001
Dave Levesque $5,500 -1.116 0 0 0 0 0
Garrett Rank $5,500 -4.819 0 0 0 0 0
Blair Hamilton $5,600 -0.451 0 0 0 0 0
Brad Fritsch $5,600 0.007 0 0 0 0 0
Hugo Bernard $5,600 0 0 0 0 0 0
Andrew Landry $5,700 -0.423 0.644 0 0 0 0
Jordan Niebrugge $5,700 0.083 -0.983 0 0 0 0
Taylor Moore $5,800 0 0 0 0 0 0
Jared du Toit $5,900 0 0 0 0 0 0
Branson Ferrier $6,200 0 0 0 0 0 0
Billy Kennerly $7,000 0 0 0 0 0 0
Dan McCarthy $7,200 0 0 0 0 0 0
Ted Potter, Jr. $7,200 -0.128 0 0 0 0 0
Adam Cornelson $7,400 0 0 0 0 0 0
Matthew Fitzpatrick $6,800 0.33 0.064 0 0 0 0
Michael Johnson $7,800 0 2.601 0 0 0 0
K.T. Kim $7,400 0.324 0.382 0 0 0 0
Bryson DeChambeau $8,100 0.494 0.421 0 0 0 0
Jon Rahm $8,600 1.204 1.081 0 0 0 0
Kyle Stanley $6,100 -0.198 0.029 0.322 -0.245 -0.081 -0.001
George Coetzee $5,700 -0.059 -0.335 -0.004 -0.011 0 -0.005
Camilo Villegas $5,800 0.066 -0.465 -0.196 -0.318 0.495 -0.006
Greg Owen $6,500 -0.445 -1.164 0.122 -0.41 0.268 -0.007
Rhein Gibson $7,000 -1.202 -0.941 0 -0.032 0 -0.011
Chris Stroud $6,300 0.249 0.267 0.346 0.032 -0.418 -0.013
Kevin Kisner $8,300 0.535 0.025 0.005 -0.022 -0.03 -0.016
Michael Thompson $7,600 -0.048 -0.255 -0.409 0.064 0.286 -0.019
Si Woo Kim $6,700 0.409 0.094 0 -0.073 0 -0.024
Tom Hoge $7,500 0.062 -0.173 0.057 -0.328 0.198 -0.024
Rod Pampling $6,600 -0.27 -0.292 0.132 -0.206 0 -0.025
Hunter Mahan $6,300 0.191 -1.646 0.145 0.058 -0.277 -0.025
John Senden $7,300 0.479 0.458 0.078 -0.031 -0.121 -0.025
Danny Lee $9,100 0.41 -0.103 0.003 0.077 -0.157 -0.026
Cameron Tringale $7,900 0.365 0.136 0.133 0.09 -0.309 -0.029
Jim Herman $6,600 0.029 -0.357 -0.039 0.158 -0.23 -0.037
Shawn Stefani $6,800 0.258 0.094 0.084 -0.308 0.107 -0.039
Ricky Barnes $7,200 0.003 0.162 -0.133 -0.204 0.203 -0.045
Andres Gonzales $7,100 -0.413 0.14 0.106 0.245 -0.492 -0.047
Mark Hubbard $6,100 -0.149 -0.942 -0.191 0.21 -0.163 -0.048
Jason Day $12,300 1.965 1.985 -0.095 -0.053 0.001 -0.049
Mike Weir $6,600 -2.059 -3.373 0.137 -0.294 0 -0.052
Justin Leonard $6,400 -0.146 -0.255 -0.352 -0.05 0.23 -0.057
Chris Kirk $8,200 0.575 0.377 -0.07 -0.063 -0.052 -0.062
Chesson Hadley $5,700 -0.284 -0.281 -0.444 0.363 -0.116 -0.066
Andrew Loupe $7,200 -0.205 -1.228 -0.572 0.571 -0.197 -0.066
Roberto Castro $8,400 -0.034 1.083 -0.494 0.256 0.029 -0.07
Colt Knost $7,100 0.452 0.888 -0.128 0.166 -0.281 -0.081
Jerry Kelly $6,000 0.457 -0.257 0.013 0.026 -0.285 -0.082
George McNeill $6,300 0.386 -0.405 -0.064 -0.081 -0.111 -0.085
John Huh $7,300 0 -0.782 0.005 -0.122 -0.151 -0.089
Jon Curran $7,600 0.155 0.799 0.04 0.144 -0.483 -0.1
Sung Kang $5,800 0.143 -0.016 0 -0.304 0 -0.101
Michael Kim $6,900 -0.063 0.399 0 0.021 -0.344 -0.107
Martin Laird $7,100 0.175 -0.098 -0.431 -0.115 0.217 -0.11
Graham DeLaet $7,500 0.715 -0.2 0.126 -0.205 -0.283 -0.121
Morgan Hoffmann $6,700 -0.001 -0.472 -0.173 -0.318 0.125 -0.122
Ben Martin $7,500 0.251 -0.005 -0.217 -0.179 0.024 -0.124
Alex Cejka $6,300 0.194 0.214 -0.312 0.031 -0.115 -0.132
Brian Harman $6,800 0.363 0.761 0.009 -0.259 -0.147 -0.132
Zac Blair $5,600 0.073 -0.37 -0.498 0.039 0.062 -0.133
Vijay Singh $6,400 0.119 0.683 0.125 -0.314 -0.21 -0.133
Brendon de Jonge $6,200 0.171 -0.372 0.095 -0.139 -0.374 -0.139
Greg Chalmers $6,300 -0.477 -2.547 -0.06 -0.374 0 -0.145
Derek Fathauer $7,600 -0.089 0.053 -0.249 0.221 -0.412 -0.147
Jeff Overton $5,600 0.032 -1.063 -0.095 0.109 -0.492 -0.159
Geoff Ogilvy $6,300 -0.395 -0.656 0.135 0.02 -0.639 -0.161
Carl Pettersson $5,900 -0.142 -2.917 0.073 -0.155 -0.421 -0.168
Sean O’Hair $6,600 0.129 0.235 -0.231 0.048 -0.329 -0.171
D.A. Points $5,900 -0.71 0.153 -0.385 -0.044 -0.104 -0.178
Graeme Mcdowell $7,800 0.732 0.524 0.139 0.02 -0.722 -0.188
Brian Stuard $7,700 0.07 -0.753 -0.279 0.004 -0.306 -0.194
Scott Brown $6,600 0.215 -0.631 -0.151 -0.183 -0.251 -0.195
Bryce Molder $8,100 0.286 1.911 -0.524 0.185 -0.247 -0.196
Jason Gore $6,400 -0.051 -0.674 -0.674 0.019 0.023 -0.211
Ken Duke $5,800 -0.396 -0.598 -0.267 -0.638 0.224 -0.227
Steven Bowditch $6,700 -0.655 -2.862 0.092 0.032 -0.806 -0.227
Jim Furyk $9,900 1.529 0.485 0.053 -0.271 -0.483 -0.233
Spencer Levin $6,100 0.071 -0.69 -0.253 -0.18 -0.267 -0.233
Whee Kim $5,900 -0.194 -0.649 -0.166 -0.052 -0.507 -0.242
Stuart Appleby $5,900 0.129 -0.157 -0.323 -0.12 -0.367 -0.27
Sam Saunders $7,100 -0.333 0.778 -0.233 -0.551 -0.038 -0.274
Derek Ernst $5,500 -1.006 -0.766 0.093 -0.203 -0.717 -0.276
Will Wilcox $7,300 0.434 -0.736 0.103 -0.45 -0.525 -0.291
Will MacKenzie $7,000 0.087 0.323 -0.667 0.074 -0.336 -0.31
Robert Allenby $6,700 -0.866 -1.636 -0.245 -0.408 -0.31 -0.321
Troy Merritt $6,900 -0.199 -0.159 0.004 -0.382 -0.592 -0.323
Cameron Smith $6,500 -0.067 -1.56 -0.399 0.133 -1.16 -0.476
Blayne Barber $5,700 -0.083 -0.236 -1.046 0.036 -0.596 -0.535

About the Author

futureoffantasy
Josh Culp (futureoffantasy)

Josh didn’t own a set of golf clubs until after college but his love for the game now grows exponentially. He uses in-depth statistical analysis while trying to avoid the landmines that come with using traditional, outdated PGA stats. He can be found elsewhere writing for Rotoworld and Future of Fantasy. He can be found on twitter @futureoffantasy.