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Searching for a Specialist: St. Jude Classic

by Josh Culp (futureoffantasy) Last Updated 2016-06-09 13:33:12

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Welcome back to another specialist search.

Doing a quick recap of last week, Marc Leishman completely redeemed himself from his blunder a few weeks ago. This time around he finished T11 to provide a nice boost to lineups. Overall, seven of nine specialists finished inside the top 30, four were T11 or better. That’s what we like to see!

In this edition we keep it simple and look at Par 70 Courses, Hard-to-Hit Fairways, and Bermuda Greens.

Here we go…

Par 70 Courses

When par 70 tracks are on the docket, we must focus on golfers that can handle the par 4s and even par 3s. The par 5s are always the easiest scoring holes, so when there are less of them, it becomes more important to “survive” the par 3s and 4s.

The Top 10 Par 70 Specialists are:

Greg Owen (0.636 sg:par70 vs. -0.382 sg:total)
Andres Romero (0.759 sg:par70 vs. -0.091 sg:total)
Derek Ernst (-0.244 sg:par70 vs. -0.987 sg:total)
Tim Herron (-0.192 sg:par70 vs. -0.846 sg:total)
Camilo Villegas (0.705 sg:par70 vs. 0.105 sg:total)
Steve Marino (0.247 sg:par70 vs. -0.3 sg:total)
Robert Allenby (-0.377 sg:par70 vs. -0.874 sg:total)
Steven Bowditch (0.047 sg:par70 vs. -0.448 sg:total)
George McNeill (0.857 sg:par70 vs. 0.416 sg:total)
Billy Hurley III (0.468 sg:par70 vs. 0.051 sg:total)

Camilo Villegas is very interesting since he’s a course horse. There is nothing that stands out about him statistically, so perhaps it’s just his affinity for par 70 venues that helps him thrive here, year after year.

On the flip side we have Peter Malnati who is nearly 3/4 of a shot worse per round on par 70s. However, he sports some Tennessee connections, so this is a case where I’m willing to overlook the par 70 stats and not completely fade Peter.

Andrew Loupe is also on the wrong side here. He’s lost 28 strokes to the field over his last 15 starts on par 70s. His birdie or better percentage may be juicy but there will be no birdies to be had if he’s slamming his trunk early.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 58

Hard-to-Hit Fairways

The field averages just under 56 percent of fairways hit since 2010 at TPC Southwind. That’s LOW.

When fairways are tough to hit, it puts a premium on driving accuracy or golfers that can score out of the rough.

The Top 10 Hard Fairway Specialists remaining:

Tyrone Van Aswegen (0.389 sg:hard fairways vs. -0.247 sg:total)
Camilo Villegas (0.605 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.105 sg:total)
Ben Crane (0.26 sg:hard fairways vs. -0.177 sg:total)
Retief Goosen (0.554 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.152 sg:total)
J.J. Henry (0.084 sg:hard fairways vs. -0.303 sg:total)
Michael Thompson (0.342 sg:hard fairways vs. -0.041 sg:total)
Fabian Gomez (0.289 sg:hard fairways vs. -0.092 sg:total)
Seung-yul Noh (0.455 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.094 sg:total)
Harris English (1.134 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.775 sg:total)
Brian Davis (-0.051 sg:hard fairways vs. -0.364 sg:total)
.
Well, how about that, Villegas again.

Harris English also likes a good challenge off the tee. He’s beat the field average by two or more strokes in 24 of his last 66 rounds played on tough-to-hit fairways.

The bottom of the list features Derek Ernst and Steven Bowditch. Both of their baseline strokes gained are so low, it’s remarkable that they can ooze to the bottom of the list still. I would stay far away from them.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 27

Bermuda Greens

TPC Southwind has featured bermuda greens since 2004.

Bermuda features more grain than bent/poa so golfers that grew up playing these green surfaces can usually find an advantage. Others will struggle to gauge the greens speeds as they don’t quite know the effects as well of down-grain versus against-the-grain when chipping and putting.

The Top 10 Bermuda Specialists remaining are:

Fabian Gomez (0.391 sg:bermuda vs. -0.092 sg:total)
Ben Martin (0.671 sg:bermuda vs. 0.228 sg:total)
Brian Davis (-0.017 sg:bermuda vs. -0.364 sg:total)
John Rollins (-0.532 sg:bermuda vs. -0.873 sg:total)
Ryan Palmer (1.259 sg:bermuda vs. 0.967 sg:total)
Boo Weekley (0.275 sg:bermuda vs. 0.042 sg:total)
Seung-yul Noh (0.326 sg:bermuda vs. 0.094 sg:total)
Zac Blair (0.268 sg:bermuda vs. 0.111 sg:total)
Tom Hoge (0.272 sg:bermuda vs. 0.14 sg:total)
Mark Wilson (-0.245 sg:bermuda vs. -0.369 sg:total)

How much does Ben Martin like playing on bermuda? Nine of his last 30 starts on bermuda have gone for top 20s. Sure, he will stike some weeks on other surfaces, but you’re gaining a nice advantage by limiting your Martin ownership to only weeks played on bermuda greens.

Tyrone Van Aswegen is someone to avoid based on bermuda performance. Sure, he’s a great par-3 scorer, but he loses two or more strokes to the field in about 30 percent of his rounds played on bermuda. You’re basically assured of one blowup round, and that’s hard to recover from. I guess they don’t like Bermuda in South Africa.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 17

Baseline Performance

Using our first baseline filter, we can eliminate golfers that have lost strokes to the field over the last 10 weeks of stroke-play events (Current Form):

John Rollins
Brian Davis
Ben Martin
Seung-Yul Noh
Morgan Hoffmann
Michael Thompson
Greg Owen
Camilo Villegas
Fabian Gomez

There are some interesting names on this list. I can’t trust any of them, but Hoffmann is the only one of the nine who doesn’t have a top 10 at TPC Southwind. Maybe that means he’s due this year? Regardless, those are all GPP-only plays.

The second baseline filter is long-term strokes gained. If you’re losing strokes to the field most weeks, we want to limit our exposure to GPPs only. This week that includes Ben Crane and Mark Wilson. I would consider Crane more than Wilson, since Crane is a Nashville resident and a past winner here (2014).

The Specialists

Ryan Palmer
Harris English
Tom Hoge
Retief Goosen
Zac Blair
Boo Weekley

Our specialist this week is Ryan Palmer.

This is the third time Palmer has been on the list, but first time being the feature specialist. His previous two yielded finishes of 26th (Honda) and 13th (Sony).

ryan-palmer-300x200

This is also the first time Tom Hoge has ever been a specialist. He’s still early in his career but if he goes well this week, we may have a nice piece of the puzzle in terms of which tracks to target Hoge at in the future.

Four of these specialists were also specialists at the Sony Open, so that may be a nice correlated event to look at if you need a tiebreaker.

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 Hard FW Bermuda Specialist Rating
Greg Owen $6,400 -0.382 -0.688 1.018 0.3 0.08 0.466
Fabian Gomez $7,200 -0.092 -0.894 0.299 0.381 0.483 0.388
Camilo Villegas $6,900 0.105 -0.774 0.6 0.5 0.043 0.381
John Rollins $5,800 -0.873 -0.221 0.259 0.264 0.341 0.288
Jason Bohn $7,300 0.527 -1.165 -0.188 1.264 -0.238 0.279
Seung-Yul Noh $7,200 0.094 -0.361 0.241 0.361 0.232 0.278
Ryan Palmer $10,800 0.967 1.102 0.291 0.237 0.292 0.273
Jason Gore $5,900 -0.009 -0.384 0.41 -0.023 0.43 0.272
Gary Woodland $10,400 0.697 1.536 -0.002 0.477 0.265 0.247
Ben Martin $7,600 0.228 -0.134 0.203 0.071 0.442 0.239
Michael Thompson $7,000 -0.041 -0.639 0.251 0.382 0.08 0.238
Brian Davis $5,600 -0.364 0 0.041 0.313 0.347 0.234
Ben Crane $7,000 -0.177 0.325 0.22 0.437 0.023 0.227
Harris English $9,900 0.775 0.528 0.153 0.359 0.094 0.202
Tom Hoge $7,900 0.14 0.439 0.397 0.063 0.132 0.197
Retief Goosen $7,600 0.152 0.924 0.141 0.401 0.026 0.189
Tyrone Van Aswegen $5,700 -0.247 -0.579 0.388 0.636 -0.46 0.188
Zac Blair $6,800 0.111 0.337 0.296 0.1 0.157 0.184
Carlos Ortiz $6,100 -0.212 -1.519 0 0.832 -0.328 0.168
Billy Hurley III $5,800 0.051 -0.1 0.417 0.266 -0.211 0.157
Cameron Percy $6,800 -0.065 -0.153 0.278 0 0.184 0.154
Boo Weekley $8,000 0.042 0.622 0.169 0.058 0.233 0.154
Mark Wilson $6,100 -0.369 0.462 0.18 0.154 0.124 0.153
Tim Wilkinson $7,200 -0.112 1.137 0.393 0.277 -0.213 0.152
Morgan Hoffmann $6,100 0.009 -0.461 0.149 0.149 0.121 0.14
Martin Laird $6,300 0.172 -0.529 0.196 0.229 -0.022 0.134
George McNeill $6,800 0.416 0.262 0.441 -0.134 0.064 0.124
Robert Allenby $5,400 -0.874 -2.092 0.497 -0.354 0.203 0.116
Andres Romero $5,800 -0.091 -0.24 0.85 -0.369 -0.138 0.115
John Merrick $6,200 -0.414 -0.214 -0.145 0.221 0.264 0.113
Shawn Stefani $6,700 0.213 -0.686 0.33 0.02 -0.034 0.105
J.J. Henry $6,300 -0.303 -0.733 0.352 0.387 -0.45 0.097
Stuart Appleby $5,700 0.153 0.276 0.288 -0.371 0.365 0.094
Scott Stallings $7,100 -0.335 0.614 -0.21 0.63 -0.18 0.08
Ken Duke $6,500 -0.412 -1.372 0.134 -0.023 0.122 0.078
Stewart Cink $6,100 0.272 -0.45 0.13 0.212 -0.113 0.076
David Hearn $8,400 0.325 0.972 0.271 -0.082 0.032 0.074
Thomas Aiken $7,500 -0.125 0.225 0 0 0.207 0.069
Rob Oppenheim $5,700 -0.455 -0.66 0 0 0.201 0.067
Derek Ernst $6,400 -0.987 -0.206 0.743 -0.726 0.173 0.063
Justin Leonard $6,300 -0.144 -0.135 -0.078 0.228 0.032 0.061
Brooks Koepka $11,100 1.096 1.156 0.205 -0.047 0.018 0.058
Scott Langley $5,600 0.093 0.146 0.372 -0.161 -0.038 0.058
Phil Mickelson $11,300 1.076 1.055 -0.383 0.284 0.27 0.057
Brett Stegmaier $5,500 -0.198 -1.155 0 0 0.157 0.052
Trevor Immelman $5,400 -0.77 -1.215 0.129 0.183 -0.164 0.049
Bronson Burgoon $6,200 0.225 0.193 0 0 0.137 0.046
Tyler Aldridge $6,400 -0.191 0.077 0 0 0.124 0.041
Scott Brown $7,100 0.203 -0.307 0.197 -0.222 0.096 0.024
Luke List $6,600 0.582 0.702 0 0 0.07 0.023
Cameron Smith $6,800 0.172 -0.301 0 0 0.041 0.014
David Toms $7,600 0.408 0.632 0.243 -0.181 -0.021 0.013
Kyle Stanley $6,500 -0.206 -0.023 0.342 -0.046 -0.285 0.004
Bud Cauley $7,200 0.144 0.951 0.382 0 -0.38 0
Frank Lickliter II $5,600 -2.05 -2.313 0 0 0 0
Darron Stiles $5,700 -1.791 -1.113 0 0 0 0
Ted Purdy $6,000 -0.782 -0.763 0 0 0 0
Lucas Lee $5,700 -1.552 -0.714 0 0 0 0
Steve Flesch $5,800 -1.377 -0.653 0 0 0 0
Rhein Gibson $5,500 -1.173 -0.541 0 0 0 0
Andrew Landry $5,800 -0.859 -0.504 0 0 0 0
Billy Mayfair $5,400 -0.762 -0.5 0 0 0 0
Marc Turnesa $5,500 -0.401 -0.406 0 0 0 0
Michael Bradley $5,500 -1.216 -0.364 0 0 0 0
Abraham Ancer $5,600 -1.381 -0.215 0 0 0 0
Joe Affrunti $5,900 -1.934 -0.168 0 0 0 0
Rod Pampling $5,900 -0.267 -0.037 0 0 0 0
Frederick Janneck $5,400 0 0 0 0 0 0
Philip Barbaree $5,400 0 0 0 0 0 0
Loren Personett $5,500 0 0 0 0 0 0
Richard H. Lee $5,500 0 0 0 0 0 0
Hayden Springer $5,600 0 0 0 0 0 0
Wes Homan $5,800 0 0 0 0 0 0
Matthew NeSmith $6,400 0 0 0 0 0 0
Robby Shelton $6,700 0 0 0 0 0 0
Wesley Bryan $9,000 0 0 0 0 0 0
Lee McCoy $6,700 -0.031 0 0 0 0 0
Shaun Micheel $5,500 -0.253 0 0 0 0 0
Arjun Atwal $6,000 -0.438 0 0 0 0 0
Richard Sterne $7,100 -1.266 0 0 0 0 0
Kelly Kraft $5,700 -0.278 0.111 0 0 0 0
Henrik Norlander $6,500 -0.041 0.193 0 0 0 0
Bobby Wyatt $7,300 -0.195 0.71 0 0 0 0
Martin Piller $7,700 0.013 0.8 0 0 0 0
Harold Varner III $7,500 0.116 0.301 0 -0.004 -0.001 -0.002
D.A. Points $5,900 -0.764 -0.767 0.178 -0.341 0.149 -0.005
Cameron Beckman $5,400 -1.384 -3.171 0 0 -0.014 -0.005
Vaughn Taylor $6,900 0.512 -0.444 0 0 -0.017 -0.006
Robert Garrigus $7,000 -0.16 0.337 0.306 0.027 -0.363 -0.01
Chad Campbell $7,800 0.388 0.553 0.204 -0.054 -0.19 -0.013
Brendon Todd $6,100 0.346 -2.232 0.093 0.218 -0.355 -0.015
Michael Kim $6,800 -0.302 0.055 0 0 -0.054 -0.018
Daniel Berger $10,100 0.727 1.536 -0.152 -0.029 0.117 -0.021
Charles Howell III $9,400 0.731 1.174 -0.099 0.034 -0.009 -0.025
Tim Herron $5,600 -0.846 -0.957 0.654 0 -0.733 -0.026
Steve Marino $6,600 -0.3 -0.238 0.547 0 -0.629 -0.027
Brendon de Jonge $6,400 0.178 -0.887 0.296 -0.344 -0.05 -0.032
Sam Saunders $5,700 -0.478 -0.454 0.015 -0.059 -0.071 -0.038
Padraig Harrington $6,900 -0.452 -1.117 0.082 -0.266 0.067 -0.039
Mark Hubbard $5,900 -0.073 -0.141 -0.132 -0.027 0.031 -0.043
Hudson Swafford $7,400 0.066 -0.449 0.062 -0.012 -0.182 -0.044
Freddie Jacobson $7,000 0.441 0.059 0.067 -0.235 0.029 -0.046
Matt Jones $7,700 0.214 -0.91 -0.399 0.136 0.121 -0.047
Brian Gay $6,000 -0.608 -1.127 0.356 0 -0.499 -0.047
Cameron Tringale $7,300 0.395 0.28 -0.068 -0.235 0.122 -0.06
Chesson Hadley $6,200 -0.306 -0.252 -0.322 -0.074 0.2 -0.066
Blayne Barber $6,600 -0.125 -0.682 -0.086 -0.596 0.466 -0.072
Wes Roach $5,800 -0.285 -0.2 -0.229 0 0.004 -0.075
Carl Pettersson $6,000 -0.004 -2.829 0.257 -0.518 0.031 -0.077
D.J. Trahan $5,900 -0.972 -0.593 0 0 -0.245 -0.082
Si Woo Kim $6,900 0.49 0.322 0 0 -0.252 -0.084
Sung Kang $6,200 0.259 -0.33 0 0 -0.255 -0.085
Jeff Overton $5,900 0.088 -0.882 0.2 -0.413 -0.052 -0.088
Alex Prugh $6,300 -0.385 -1.296 -0.425 0.324 -0.169 -0.09
Dawie van der Walt $5,800 -0.306 -0.728 0 0 -0.287 -0.096
Jerry Kelly $7,300 0.504 0.395 -0.32 -0.189 0.197 -0.104
Tom Gillis $6,300 -0.474 -0.465 0 0 -0.368 -0.123
Chad Collins $6,700 -0.13 0.006 -0.382 0.04 -0.029 -0.124
Luke Guthrie $6,400 0.001 -1.228 -0.058 -0.199 -0.123 -0.127
Troy Merritt $7,100 -0.195 -0.67 -0.011 -0.586 0.199 -0.133
Aaron Baddeley $6,500 0.224 0.361 -0.294 0.116 -0.225 -0.134
Colt Knost $9,700 0.445 1.217 -0.102 -0.392 0.084 -0.137
Steve Wheatcroft $5,700 -0.209 -0.507 -0.547 -0.06 0.181 -0.142
Erik Compton $6,100 -0.089 -0.613 -0.415 -0.244 0.231 -0.143
Brice Garnett $6,300 -0.195 -0.06 0.129 -0.412 -0.185 -0.156
Miguel Angel Carballo $6,000 -0.892 -1.371 0 0 -0.491 -0.164
Will Wilcox $7,400 0.459 -0.127 0.041 -0.508 -0.036 -0.168
D.H. Lee $5,600 -1.459 -2.848 0 0 -0.515 -0.172
Russell Henley $8,500 0.173 0.796 -0.081 -0.389 -0.055 -0.175
Scott Pinckney $6,400 -0.134 0.093 -0.463 -0.111 0.035 -0.18
Dustin Johnson $12,800 1.687 2.297 -0.26 0.339 -0.621 -0.181
Steven Bowditch $6,000 -0.448 -2.648 0.495 -0.745 -0.347 -0.199
Dicky Pride $5,500 -0.877 -0.711 0 0 -0.601 -0.2
Will MacKenzie $6,600 0.085 0.777 -0.188 -0.366 -0.049 -0.201
Kyle Reifers $9,200 0.234 0.963 -0.373 0.223 -0.458 -0.203
Peter Malnati $5,400 -0.44 -1.303 -0.746 -0.097 0.204 -0.213
Hiroshi Iwata $6,600 -0.221 -1.201 0 0 -0.651 -0.217
Ernie Els $6,900 -0.047 -0.125 0.01 -0.24 -0.46 -0.23
Brian Stuard $6,000 0.139 -0.345 -0.562 -0.35 0.155 -0.252
Andrew Loupe $6,500 -0.053 -0.462 -0.623 -0.277 0.14 -0.253
Francesco Molinari $8,100 0.81 0.855 -0.249 -0.77 0.256 -0.255
Steve Stricker $7,500 0.689 -0.109 -0.566 0 -0.28 -0.282
Derek Fathauer $5,800 -0.191 -1.254 -0.238 -0.315 -0.311 -0.288
Andres Gonzales $6,300 -0.484 -0.219 -0.223 -0.304 -0.405 -0.31
Graeme Mcdowell $8,200 0.77 0.357 -0.025 -0.641 -0.357 -0.341
Justin Hicks $6,500 -0.198 0.103 -0.04 -0.79 -0.206 -0.345
Jamie Donaldson $7,800 0.503 0.7 -0.573 -0.454 -0.013 -0.347
Whee Kim $6,600 -0.164 0.326 -0.625 -0.73 0.217 -0.379
Jon Curran $8,300 0.086 0.215 -0.407 -0.599 -0.233 -0.413
Johnson Wagner $6,200 -0.021 0.259 -0.442 -0.76 -0.289 -0.497

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.