Searching for a Specialist: The Barclays
It’s Playoff Time! Let’s get this race to the FedExCup started with a good group of specialists.
To achieve our full list of specialists, we will look at performance against strong fields and par 70 tracks, before having a look at short course performance.
As a tiebreaker, we will have a look at Poa annua performance as well as history on Donald Ross courses. Here we go.
Strong Field Performance
Let’s get right to the heart of the matter this week and start with a smaller list of potential specialists.
Editor’s Note: Haven’t heard? We’ve got DraftKings PGA incentives, which include full projections and expert picks from Notorious, as well as top plays from 2014 FSWA Golf Writer of the Year, Gibbathy! Expert Consensus Rankings and a Weekly Course Analysis are also included. Find out more about our incentives offerings here!
To do that, we look at historical performance of golfers when playing against a strong field. Our definition of strong field is based off the OWGR.com strength of field rating. Anything higher than a 400 is considered a strong field.
Looking at strong field performance (sg:strong) and comparing it to each golfer’s expected strokes gained, these are the 10 golfers have the largest differential. After that, we have list of remaining strong field specialists:
David Lingmerth (1.152 sg:strong vs. 0.147 sg:total)
Rickie Fowler (1.398 sg:strong vs. 0.754 sg:total
Adam Scott (1.605 sg:strong vs. 1.22 sg:total)
Erik Compton (0.345 sg:strong vs. -0.021 sg:total)
Ian Poulter (0.746 sg:strong vs. 0.385 sg:total)
Daniel Berger (0.697 sg:strong vs. 0.356 sg:total)
Marc Leishman (0.864 sg:strong vs. 0.592 sg:total)
Dustin Johnson (1.56 sg:strong vs. 1.291 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (0.656 sg:strong vs. 0.432 sg:total)
Brandt Snedeker (0.923 sg:strong vs. 0.737 sg:total)
Everyone else that performs better against strong fields: Jonas Blixt, Davis Love III, Padraig Harrington, George McNeill, Patrick Reed, Bryce Molder, John Senden, Rory Sabbatini, Chesson Hadley, Jason Day, Kevin Na, Russell Henley, Russell Knox, Bill Haas, Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson, David Hearn, Stewart Cink, Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, Kevin Kisner.
If you don’t do your best work when the field gets tough, you really need not apply this week.
Some high-profile names get eliminated right away, including Bubba Watson, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Matt Kuchar, Brooks Koepka, and Jim Furyk.
Like I always say, we are looking for a specialist here. Someone that has a high probability to exceed their expectations. The list of names above could certainly still win this week.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 31
Par 70 Courses
Next on the agenda is to look at which golfers don’t rely on par 5s. Using strokes gained on par 70s (sg:par70), we can really focus in on great scramblers and/or putters.
It’s not always the case but par 70s really don’t allow you to give back many strokes. You have to be able to scramble for pars or make those clutch eight-foot par saves. Not relying on easier birdies or eagles on par 5s to make up ground.
Of the 31 golfers left on our list, we can get rid of eight more listed below:
Dustin Johnson (1.261 sg:par70 vs. 1.291 sg:total)
Bryce Molder (-0.231 sg:par70 vs. -0.013 sg:total)
Lee Westwood (0.494 sg:par70 vs. 0.755 sg:total)
Padraig Harrington (-1.047 sg:par70 vs. -0.757 sg:total)
Chesson Hadley (-0.546 sg:par70 vs. -0.233 sg:total)
Kevin Na (0.595 sg:par70 vs. 0.957 sg:total)
Jordan Spieth (1.111 sg:par70 vs. 1.528 sg:total)
Erik Compton (-0.581 sg:par70 vs. -0.021 sg:total)
Spieth and DJ are the two major casualties in this round of cuts. Over the last two years, Spieth has racked up 22 top 10s, only four of them coming on par 70 tracks.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 23
Short Courses
Size matters…Especially when it comes to the length of a PGA TOUR course.
Looking roughly at the bottom 25% of course lengths, we can start to gather who performs best when the course is less than 7,100 yards.
Of the 23 golfers on our list, we can weed out 12 more at this stage. Here are the six golfers that don’t perform as well on short courses (sg:short):
John Senden ( 0.436 sg:short vs. 0.45 sg:total )
Russell Knox ( 0.732 sg:short vs. 0.748 sg:total )
Russell Henley ( -0.007 sg:short vs. 0.253 sg:total )
David Lingmerth ( -0.186 sg:short vs. 0.147 sg:total )
George McNeill ( 0.164 sg:short vs. 0.67 sg:total )
David Hearn ( -0.162 sg:short vs. 0.383 sg:total )
We’re not going to lose sleep over cutting out any of the above golfers from our search.
However, six more golfers haven’t even played 20 rounds on short courses over the past two seasons. So, we can also exclude Ian Poulter, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose, and Phil Mickelson.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 11
Final Cuts
After stage three, we are left with 11 golfers. This is already a very nice short list, but we can trim up the fat even more!
If you want to avoid the tiebreaker angles, then here is our list of specialists:
Brandt Snedeker
Rory Sabbatini
Kevin Chappell
Bill Haas
Davis Love III
Daniel Berger
Patrick Reed
Marc Leishman
Jonas Blixt
Kevin Kisner
Stewart Cink
This week we have a couple angles included in the full table at the bottom, but not heavily relied on. These are performance on Donald Ross Design courses and performance on poa annua greens.
These get listed as “tiebreaker angles” because of small samples sizes (Poa) and sample size needing to be stretched back to 2008 to be relevant (Donald Ross). Because of these caveats, I will only be excluding the negatives, not the zeros.
Looking at the full table, we can see that Kevin Chappell gets snipped because of his performance on poa annua greens.
Then heading over to Donald Ross territory, Stewart Cink gets eliminated.
Finally, we can also exclude Daniel Berger due to the 80/20 rule of form I introduced last week.
GOLFERS REMAINING: 8
Specialists
We’ve done a lot of nipping and tucking but the hard work pays off, as we are now left with eight specialists:
Brandt Snedeker
Rory Sabbatini
Bill Haas
Davis Love III
Patrick Reed
Marc Leishman
Jonas Blixt
Kevin Kisner
The Specialist
After narrowing our list down to eight specialists, it’s now time to crown the top specialist of the week. That man is Brandt Snedeker. His main asset this week is par 70 performance, but there really aren’t any weak spots to his specialists profile.
Snedeker’s worst category this week is poa annua performance. Anyone that has watched golf for a while knows that Sneds is a self-proclaimed lover of poa greens. If our poa sample dated back further, he would certainly be an even better specialist!
Please use the table below to filter and sort to your heart’s desire.
| Golfer | Par 70 | Short Course | Strong Field | Donald Ross | Poa | Top20 L5 | Specialist Rating |
| Bryce Molder | -0.218 | 0.679 | 0.108 | 0.649 | 0.925 | Y | 0.429 |
| Camilo Villegas | 0.618 | 0.082 | -0.125 | 1.365 | 0.000 | N | 0.388 |
| Fabian Gomez | 0.661 | 1.232 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.379 |
| Brandt Snedeker | 0.889 | 0.216 | 0.186 | 0.329 | 0.084 | Y | 0.341 |
| Rory Sabbatini | 0.680 | 0.830 | 0.102 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.322 |
| Padraig Harrington | -0.290 | 0.000 | 0.146 | 1.589 | 0.000 | Y | 0.289 |
| Kevin Chappell | 0.819 | 0.546 | 0.225 | 0.000 | -0.167 | Y | 0.285 |
| Bill Haas | 0.166 | 0.898 | 0.062 | 0.265 | 0.000 | Y | 0.278 |
| J.J. Henry | 0.496 | 0.361 | -0.460 | 0.913 | 0.000 | Y | 0.262 |
| Ian Poulter | 0.950 | 0.000 | 0.360 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.262 |
| Rickie Fowler | 0.297 | 0.000 | 0.644 | 0.323 | 0.000 | Y | 0.253 |
| Davis Love III | 0.441 | 0.001 | 0.153 | 0.652 | 0.000 | Y | 0.249 |
| Dustin Johnson | -0.030 | 0.000 | 0.269 | -0.605 | 1.612 | Y | 0.249 |
| Daniel Berger | 0.617 | 0.281 | 0.341 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.248 |
| Pat Perez | 0.683 | 0.924 | -0.921 | 0.000 | 0.498 | Y | 0.237 |
| David Lingmerth | 0.498 | -0.333 | 1.005 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.234 |
| Jeff Overton | 0.235 | 0.737 | -0.285 | 0.437 | 0.000 | N | 0.225 |
| Greg Owen | 1.113 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.223 |
| Ken Duke | 0.399 | 0.722 | -0.497 | 0.485 | 0.000 | Y | 0.222 |
| Chris Kirk | 0.528 | 0.433 | -0.104 | 0.233 | 0.000 | Y | 0.218 |
| John Peterson | 0.204 | 0.816 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.204 |
| Carl Pettersson | 0.414 | 0.151 | -0.367 | 0.790 | 0.000 | Y | 0.198 |
| Colt Knost | 0.261 | 0.716 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.195 |
| Nick Watney | 0.443 | 0.486 | -0.295 | 0.304 | 0.000 | N | 0.188 |
| Patrick Reed | 0.236 | 0.356 | 0.109 | 0.237 | 0.000 | Y | 0.188 |
| Marc Leishman | 0.411 | 0.203 | 0.271 | 0.022 | 0.000 | Y | 0.182 |
| Harris English | 0.269 | 1.011 | -0.385 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.179 |
| Scott Piercy | 0.575 | 0.485 | -0.922 | 0.745 | 0.000 | Y | 0.177 |
| James Hahn | 0.296 | -0.015 | -0.185 | 0.000 | 0.773 | Y | 0.174 |
| Andres Gonzales | 0.000 | 0.852 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.170 |
| Mark Wilson | 0.148 | 0.176 | 0.000 | 0.482 | 0.000 | N | 0.161 |
| Keegan Bradley | 0.411 | 0.359 | -0.177 | -0.492 | 0.697 | Y | 0.160 |
| Matt Jones | -0.119 | 0.231 | -0.002 | -0.135 | 0.820 | Y | 0.159 |
| J.B. Holmes | 0.186 | 0.000 | -0.178 | 0.000 | 0.778 | N | 0.157 |
| Gary Woodland | 0.023 | 1.521 | -0.256 | -0.504 | 0.000 | Y | 0.157 |
| Spencer Levin | 0.174 | 0.286 | 0.000 | 0.312 | 0.000 | N | 0.155 |
| Jonas Blixt | 0.151 | 0.380 | 0.184 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.143 |
| Brendon de Jonge | 0.378 | 0.657 | -0.339 | -0.001 | 0.000 | N | 0.139 |
| Jimmy Walker | -0.180 | 2.047 | -0.396 | -1.087 | 0.289 | N | 0.135 |
| Billy Horschel | 0.720 | 0.025 | -0.031 | -0.049 | 0.000 | N | 0.133 |
| Jason Gore | 0.634 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.127 |
| Tony Finau | 0.477 | 0.138 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.123 |
| Kevin Kisner | 0.388 | 0.226 | 0.001 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.123 |
| Brendan Steele | 0.198 | 0.518 | -0.151 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.113 |
| Zac Blair | 0.163 | 0.372 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.107 |
| Alex Cejka | -0.261 | 0.685 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.085 |
| Chad Collins | -0.125 | 0.545 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.084 |
| Justin Rose | 0.151 | 0.000 | 0.002 | 0.227 | 0.000 | Y | 0.076 |
| John Huh | 0.126 | 0.105 | -0.059 | 0.200 | 0.000 | N | 0.074 |
| Jordan Spieth | -0.417 | 0.000 | 0.002 | 0.000 | 0.767 | Y | 0.070 |
| Daniel Summerhays | -0.150 | -0.028 | -0.165 | 0.000 | 0.690 | Y | 0.070 |
| Phil Mickelson | 0.031 | 0.000 | 0.033 | 0.284 | 0.000 | Y | 0.069 |
| Tim Clark | 0.362 | 0.284 | -0.963 | 0.631 | 0.000 | N | 0.063 |
| Shawn Stefani | 0.119 | 0.732 | -0.544 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.061 |
| Jason Day | 0.300 | 0.000 | 0.091 | -0.120 | 0.000 | Y | 0.054 |
| Brian Harman | 0.329 | 0.477 | -0.552 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.051 |
| Russell Knox | 0.192 | -0.016 | 0.064 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.048 |
| Charles Howell III | -0.006 | 0.144 | -0.477 | 0.542 | 0.000 | Y | 0.041 |
| Brooks Koepka | 0.188 | 0.000 | -0.043 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.029 |
| Adam Scott | 0.322 | 0.000 | 0.384 | -0.575 | 0.000 | Y | 0.026 |
| Jerry Kelly | -0.163 | 0.426 | -0.428 | 0.288 | 0.000 | Y | 0.024 |
| Luke Donald | 0.220 | 0.000 | -0.345 | 0.228 | 0.000 | Y | 0.020 |
| Webb Simpson | 0.035 | 0.650 | -1.003 | 0.404 | 0.000 | Y | 0.017 |
| Matt Kuchar | 0.131 | 0.842 | -0.192 | -0.728 | 0.000 | Y | 0.011 |
| Jason Dufner | 0.166 | 0.000 | -0.172 | 0.057 | 0.000 | Y | 0.010 |
| Henrik Stenson | -0.289 | 0.000 | -0.081 | 0.401 | 0.000 | Y | 0.006 |
| Chris Stroud | 0.245 | 0.444 | -0.273 | -0.385 | 0.000 | Y | 0.006 |
| Jon Curran | 0.020 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | 0.004 |
| Russell Henley | 0.205 | -0.261 | 0.065 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.002 |
| Carlos Ortiz | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | 0.000 |
| Adam Hadwin | -0.009 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.002 |
| Danny Lee | 0.117 | -0.190 | -0.008 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.016 |
| Ben Martin | 0.235 | 0.125 | -0.447 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.017 |
| Hudson Swafford | 0.016 | 0.547 | -0.658 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | -0.019 |
| Matt Every | -0.283 | 0.828 | -0.661 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | -0.023 |
| Chad Campbell | 0.225 | -0.199 | 0.000 | -0.191 | 0.000 | Y | -0.033 |
| David Hearn | 0.349 | -0.546 | 0.025 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.034 |
| Troy Merritt | 0.015 | 0.332 | -0.544 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.039 |
| Ryan Palmer | -0.025 | 0.127 | -0.318 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | -0.043 |
| Graham DeLaet | 0.104 | 0.194 | -0.516 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.043 |
| Lee Westwood | -0.261 | 0.000 | 0.033 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.046 |
| Jim Furyk | 0.316 | 0.000 | -0.077 | -0.304 | -0.177 | Y | -0.048 |
| Vijay Singh | -0.235 | -0.214 | -0.121 | 0.310 | 0.000 | Y | -0.052 |
| Johnson Wagner | -0.379 | -0.236 | 0.000 | 0.355 | 0.000 | Y | -0.052 |
| Charl Schwartzel | 0.249 | 0.000 | -0.069 | -0.461 | 0.000 | Y | -0.056 |
| Sean O’Hair | -0.266 | -0.093 | -0.155 | 0.208 | 0.000 | Y | -0.061 |
| Jason Kokrak | -0.177 | 0.364 | -0.502 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.063 |
| Morgan Hoffmann | -0.036 | -0.197 | -0.118 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.070 |
| William McGirt | 0.129 | 0.202 | -1.008 | 0.299 | 0.000 | Y | -0.076 |
| Steven Bowditch | 0.047 | -0.166 | -0.265 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.077 |
| Brendon Todd | -0.043 | 0.434 | -0.887 | 0.000 | 0.103 | Y | -0.079 |
| Erik Compton | -0.560 | -0.207 | 0.366 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.080 |
| Scott Brown | 0.275 | -0.069 | -0.609 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.081 |
| Robert Streb | -0.112 | 0.027 | -0.322 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.081 |
| Charley Hoffman | -0.170 | 0.139 | -0.468 | 0.071 | 0.000 | Y | -0.085 |
| John Senden | 0.168 | -0.014 | 0.104 | -0.742 | 0.000 | Y | -0.097 |
| Sang-moon Bae | -0.093 | 0.191 | -0.626 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | -0.106 |
| George McNeill | 0.423 | -0.506 | 0.146 | -0.603 | 0.000 | N | -0.108 |
| Stewart Cink | 0.253 | 0.066 | 0.025 | -0.896 | 0.000 | Y | -0.110 |
| Steve Wheatcroft | -0.563 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.113 |
| Ryan Moore | -0.168 | 0.000 | -0.500 | 0.093 | 0.000 | Y | -0.115 |
| Jim Herman | -0.298 | -0.312 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.122 |
| Martin Laird | 0.429 | 0.137 | -1.171 | -0.051 | 0.000 | Y | -0.131 |
| Paul Casey | 0.235 | 0.000 | -0.449 | -0.493 | 0.000 | Y | -0.141 |
| Cameron Tringale | -0.051 | -0.613 | -0.114 | 0.000 | 0.048 | N | -0.146 |
| Will Wilcox | 0.305 | -1.045 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.148 |
| Kevin Streelman | -0.912 | 0.335 | -0.661 | 0.493 | 0.000 | N | -0.149 |
| Chesson Hadley | -0.313 | -0.583 | 0.098 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | -0.160 |
| Nick Taylor | 0.000 | -0.827 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | N | -0.165 |
| Jason Bohn | -0.268 | 0.229 | -0.840 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.176 |
| Hunter Mahan | -1.024 | 0.000 | -0.051 | -0.477 | 0.625 | N | -0.186 |
| Ryo Ishikawa | -0.629 | -0.286 | -0.114 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.206 |
| Boo Weekley | 0.308 | -0.022 | -1.026 | -0.301 | 0.000 | Y | -0.208 |
| Kyle Reifers | -1.024 | -0.187 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.242 |
| Zach Johnson | -0.626 | -0.282 | -0.233 | -0.117 | 0.000 | Y | -0.252 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | -0.637 | 0.000 | -0.200 | -0.499 | 0.000 | Y | -0.267 |
| Scott Pinckney | -0.748 | -0.657 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.281 |
| Kevin Na | -0.362 | -0.247 | 0.088 | -1.144 | 0.000 | Y | -0.333 |
| Justin Thomas | -1.207 | -0.237 | -0.430 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Y | -0.375 |
| Bubba Watson | -0.105 | 0.000 | -0.258 | -2.173 | 0.000 | Y | -0.507 |