Searching for a Specialist: Shriners Open
As we head out of Napa Valley and land in Las Vegas, it was clear that many of our specialists from last year suffered from a classic case of Napa red-wine hangovers.
Matsuyama was surprisingly mediocre and Bowditch certainly didn’t hold up his end of the bargain as he packed his clubs early and likely spent the weekend touring as many vineyards as possible. That is the Fall Series for you.
This week is very promising as we’ve seen plenty of repeatable course history at TPC Summerlin. Combining some course horses with our list of specialists provided at the end of this article will give us a great group of targets this week.
We’re going to start out search for a specialist by looking at bentgrass greens performance, then look at performance on easy courses and against weak fields. We’ll end up having a peek at strokes gained on courses that yield high green-in-regulation numbers and use par 71 performance as our last piece!
Bentgrass Greens
Let’s kick things off with bentgrass specialists. The process here is to look at overall performance since the start of the 2013-14 season and compare that to performance on courses that feature bentgrass greens (sg:bent).
Bentgrass specialists are not always the top-tier putters that generally lead the strokes gained:putting category year-in and year-out.
Here are the top 10 bentgrass specialists in this week’s field:
Greg Owen (0.991 sg:bent vs. -0.45 sg:total)
Rickie Fowler (0.75 sg:bent vs. 1.07 sg:total)
Scott Pinckney (0.637 sg:bent vs. -0.22 sg:total)
Scott Piercy (0.406 sg:bent vs. 0.25 sg:total)
Tony Finau (0.402 sg:bent vs. 0.76 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (0.402 sg:bent vs. 0.58 sg:total)
Adam Hadwin (0.393 sg:bent vs. 0.19 sg:total)
Colt Knost (0.386 sg:bent vs. 0.21 sg:total)
Chad Campbell (0.347 sg:bent vs. 0.34 sg:total)
Steven Bowditch (0.322 sg:bent vs. -0.06 sg:total)
Everyone else that performs better on bentgrass greens: Kyle Stanley, Tyrone Van Aswegen, Derek Ernst, Angel Cabrera, Jon Curran, Carl Pettersson, Will Wilcox, Charlie Beljan, Geoff Ogilvy, Hunter Mahan, Stewart Cink, Brandt Snedeker, Tim Clark, Hudson Swafford, Graham DeLaet, Luke Guthrie, Vijay Singh, John Huh, Russell Henley, Jonas Blixt, Scott Langley, Chris Stroud, Nick Watney, Davis Love III, Kevin Kisner, Troy Merritt, Steve Wheatcroft.
Just like that, we’ve cut our list of potential specialists down to 37 golfers.
We just lost last week’s 54-hole leader, Brendan Steele as he’s been nearly half a shot worse, per round, on bentgrass greens. Some heavy hitters like Jason Bohn and Ryan Palmer get cut out of the specialist search as well. A couple of course horses, Webb Simpson and Ryan Moore, get the boot as well. In their case, class is permanent and they are able to overcome the course and still beat up on the little guy each year.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 37
Easy Courses
When majors come around and we know courses will play tough, it’s so important to see which golfers can whether those tough conditions. It’s just as important to see which golfers can handle a shootout.
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Battling an easy course is all about mindset. If you go on a stretch of four of five holes without a birdie, you can’t let that get in your head and have yourself start to “force it” and then slide off the tracks even further. It is odd to say it, but patience can be key, even on easy tracks.
Of the 37 bentgrass specialists we have remaining, here are the top 10 golfers in terms of easy course performance compared to their typical output:
Scott Piercy (1.131 sg:easy vs. 0.249 sg:total)
Russell Henley (0.669 sg:easy vs. 0.092 sg:total)
Nick Watney (0.941 sg:easy vs. 0.365 sg:total)
Carl Pettersson (0.838 sg:easy vs. 0.269 sg:total)
Tim Clark (0.455 sg:easy vs. -0.082 sg:total)
Derek Ernst (-0.557 sg:easy vs. -1.057 sg:total)
Davis Love III (0.225 sg:easy vs. -0.248 sg:total)
Steve Wheatcroft (0.56 sg:easy vs. 0.092 sg:total)
Colt Knost (0.681 sg:easy vs. 0.213 sg:total)
Brandt Snedeker (1.164 sg:easy vs. 0.71 sg:total)
We can eliminate 11 more golfers at this stage as they don’t have what it takes to go low on a consistent basis.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 25
Weak Field Performance
Performance against weak fields is an important factor to look at with a field like this. It’s not like last week where Rory and Rose show up to make the field stronger than usual. This week’s field is not strong, no questions asked.
Looking at all events with an OWGR strength of field rating that equals 250 or easier, these golfers pass the test and make up our list of specialists for the week:
Steven Bowditch (0.624 sg:weak vs. -0.065 sg:total)
Jonas Blixt (0.553 sg:weak vs. -0.121 sg:total)
Tim Clark (0.588 sg:weak vs. -0.082 sg:total)
Kyle Stanley (0.179 sg:weak vs. -0.395 sg:total)
Russell Henley (0.655 sg:weak vs. 0.092 sg:total)
Carl Pettersson (0.809 sg:weak vs. 0.269 sg:total)
Derek Ernst (-0.581 sg:weak vs. -1.057 sg:total)
Scott Piercy (0.65 sg:weak vs. 0.249 sg:total)
Vijay Singh (0.458 sg:weak vs. 0.124 sg:total)
Scott Pinckney (0.116 sg:weak vs. -0.217 sg:total)
Alright, we only lost a couple golfers in that stage, but it was important to eliminate them and showcase the top weak field specialists above.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 23
Easy GIR
It wouldn’t be a shootout if there wasn’t a part of the course that made it easier than usual. This week it comes in the greens. They are over 7,500 square feet on average, which is 1,000 square feet larger than TOUR average. Add in the elevation and it means that many golfers will be coming in with wedge-in-hand.
Courses with easy greens to hit can take out the element of scrambling. These are the top 10 specialists in terms of Easy GIR courses (sg:easy GIR):
Scott Piercy (1.347 sg:easy GIR vs. 0.249 sg:total)
Russell Henley (0.963 sg:easy GIR vs. 0.092 sg:total)
Brandt Snedeker (1.435 sg:easy GIR vs. 0.71 sg:total)
Davis Love III (0.399 sg:easy GIR vs. -0.248 sg:total)
Nick Watney (0.743 sg:easy GIR vs. 0.365 sg:total)
Derek Ernst (-0.724 sg:easy GIR vs. -1.057 sg:total)
Kyle Stanley (-0.066 sg:easy GIR vs. -0.395 sg:total)
John Huh (0.263 sg:easy GIR vs. -0.04 sg:total)
Troy Merritt (0.087 sg:easy GIR vs. -0.201 sg:total)
Tim Clark (0.197 sg:easy GIR vs. -0.082 sg:total)
GOLFERS REMAINING: 21
Par 71 Performance
Courses that feature a par 71 scorecard can be considered the “in-betweeners.” On the extreme side of things, you have par 70s and par 72s which tell us a lot. Par 71s are just too in-the-middle to really be a top factor. In this instance, we use it as our final tiebreaker and eliminate the following 11 golfers: Nick Watney, Jonas Blixt, Kyle Stanley, Scott Langley, Colt Knost, Russell Henley, Steven Bowditch, Brandt Snedeker, Carl Pettersson, Will Wilcox, Steve Wheatcroft.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 10
The Specialist
We’ve narrowed down the field to just 10 specialists. They include the following names:
Scott Piercy
Tim Clark
Derek Ernst
Davis Love III
Troy Merritt
Adam Hadwin
Hudson Swafford
John Huh
Luke Guthrie
Chris Stroud
We can’t leave without crowning one specialist for the week. The honor of specialist this week goes to Scott Piercy!
Not only does this bomber fit the specialist mold in all aspects, he is also a Las Vegas resident! The way he plays the game, still makes him risky for cash-game lineups, but he is one of the top GPP options this week. It would not be surprising in the slightest to see him hoisting the trophy come Sunday.
The full Specialist Table is available for you to sort and filter to your heart’s desire. Best of luck in all your matchups this week.