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Searching for a Specialist: The PLAYERS

by Josh Culp (futureoffantasy) Last Updated 2016-05-12 13:16:29

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Welcome back, folks. Let our search for a specialist begin.

Like always, let’s recap last week quickly. If you’re an optimist you’d say 50 percent of the specialist earned top 25s last week! That’s good. Realistically, our main man Patrick Rodgers missed the cut and Charles Howell III also let us down. I really try to strive for getting 80 percent of the specialists through the cut, so 50 percent is a down week, for sure.

Looking deeper we see that Rodgers was on the cut line entering the last hole before he doubled it and missed the cut. This was not the difficult No 18, either, he was closing on No. 9. Had he just scribbled a par we would be looking at a much different narrative. That’s why it’s always important to trust the process.

This week we will look at Less-than-Driver Courses, Bermuda Greens, and Par 72 Tracks.

Here we go…

Less-than-Driver Courses

The top angle this week is the less-than-driver. When the field averages less than 280 yards off the tee, it generally tells us that golfers are clubbing down frequently. When you look at quotes form golfers at TPC Sawgrass, they back up that claim.

There is also the exception with a few golfers. Some golfers are stubborn and refuse to club down (Bubba, cough cough, DJ). Others are not long enough off the tee to begin with… so driver is still the play for them.

What less-than-driver courses do is take out the distance part of the equation (off the tee). That means short game and approach game is where you want to focus.

The Top 10 Less-than-Driver Specialists are:

Bill Haas (1.931 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.878 sg:total)
Matt Every (0.36 sg:less-than-driver vs. -0.592 sg:total)
Padraig Harrington (0.234 sg:less-than-driver vs. -0.431 sg:total)
Jim Furyk (2.309 sg:less-than-driver vs. 1.689 sg:total)
Jason Day (2.407 sg:less-than-driver vs. 1.895 sg:total)
John Senden (0.993 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.499 sg:total)
Matt Jones (0.765 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.29 sg:total)
Jamie Lovemark (0.84 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.374 sg:total)
Cameron Tringale (0.84 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.386 sg:total)
Jason Dufner (0.933 sg:less-than-driver vs. 0.492 sg:total)

Jim Furyk is the prototype of the less-than-driver specialist, but his wrist injury leaves a cloud of doubt over him for the time being.

Jason Day is a bomber, but he’s also IN THE ZONE in terms of short game. His incredible scrambling and putter allow him to contend on less-than-driver courses despite his distance off the tee being negated.

It’s not too surprising to see Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, and Tony Finau at the bottom of this list. They like to bomb-and-gouge a course to death so restrictions off the tee to not sit well with them. These are not complete fade options because they still possess high eagle probability on the par 5s this week. If they manage to squeak through the cut, they have the firepower to rack up DK points. If you are running less than 10 lineups, I would avoid this trio, though.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 72

Bermuda Greens

When it first started tracking bermuda performance I though it was a stretch to have any significant correlation.

Boy, was I wrong! Some golfers just can’t get it done on bermuda, while others need them in order to contend.

The top 10 Bermuda Specialists:

Matt Every (0.142 sg:bermuda vs. -0.592 sg:total)
Fabian Gomez (0.504 sg:bermuda vs. -0.035 sg:total)
Ben Martin (0.783 sg:bermuda vs. 0.269 sg:total)
Jason Gore (0.512 sg:bermuda vs. 0.044 sg:total)
Bryce Molder (0.653 sg:bermuda vs. 0.193 sg:total)
Luke Donald (0.849 sg:bermuda vs. 0.499 sg:total)
Jason Dufner (0.835 sg:bermuda vs. 0.492 sg:total)
Ryan Palmer (1.249 sg:bermuda vs. 0.924 sg:total)
John Huh (0.358 sg:bermuda vs. 0.047 sg:total)
Phil Mickelson (1.395 sg:bermuda vs. 1.093 sg:total)

What I’ve noticed is that even the worst bermuda performer can have a great week on bermuda greens, but those top finishes are few and far between as you scroll down the list.

I would say anyone under a -0.250 in the Bermuda column should be faded in cash games, but they can still be sprinkled in some GPPs.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 46

Par 72 Courses

The next angle is par 72 courses. Sometimes this is mental and sometimes its just a statistical fit. Some golfers prefer to have four par 5s on the layout.

Par 72s put a lot of golfers at ease, because they know if they bogey (or even double), they can bounce back if they have a few par 5s left in their round.

The Top 10 Par 72 Specialists that remain are:

Erik Compton (0.676 sg:par72 vs. -0.055 sg:total)
Chesson Hadley (0.131 sg:par72 vs. -0.246 sg:total)
Nick Taylor (0.187 sg:par72 vs. -0.19 sg:total)
Mark Wilson (-0.033 sg:par72 vs. -0.394 sg:total)
Jamie Lovemark (0.696 sg:par72 vs. 0.374 sg:total)
Phil Mickelson (1.408 sg:par72 vs. 1.093 sg:total)
Francesco Molinari (1.056 sg:par72 vs. 0.752 sg:total)
Kevin Na (1.316 sg:par72 vs. 1.048 sg:total)
Harold Varner III (0.392 sg:par72 vs. 0.139 sg:total)
Charley Hoffman (0.951 sg:par72 vs. 0.728 sg:total)

There is nothing too alarming for this angle. Luke Donald and William McGirt are the two lowest golfers remaining. Neither of them are fade-worthy, though. I suggested to fade McGirt last week because his inconsistency on long, par 72s. He went on to make the cut and also grab a Hole-in-One! Doh. I would call them both viable GPP plays this week, though.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 23

Baseline Performance

This is the part where we separate the safe specialists from the GPP specialists. We don’t want our specialist to need a career week just to get their expected performance over field average.

Using a SG:Total threshold of 0.250 strokes per round, we can remove the following names:

Bryce Molder
Brian Stuard
Harold Varner III
Sean O’Hair
David Lingmerth
Erik Compton
Steve Wheatcroft
Nick Taylor
Chesson Hadley
Peter Malnati
Mark Wilson

Last week this area had four golfers and they included Roberto Castro, Steve Wheatcroft, and Lucas Glover. Yeah, I’d say you could find some GPP gold in here from time-to-time.

The Specialists

Bill Haas
Jamie Lovemark
Matt Jones
Phil Mickelson
Francesco Molinari
Kevin Na
Charley Hoffman
Cameron Tringale
Daniel Berger
David Hearn
Kevin Kisner
Charles Howell III

Our specialist for this week’s PLAYERS is Bill Haas!

bill-haas-300x200

First of all, this list is longer than most weeks, but I didn’t want to switch up the process just to condense the list. Secondly, this list has a lot more golfers with shady course history. That includes Charles Howell III, Cameron Tringale, and even Phil Mickelson (despite his win here).

If you’re going to avoid any of these specialists, those might be the three. Or maybe that makes them great GPP plays since the course history buffs will be off their trail? Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

Jamie Lovemark is making his debut here, but could fit nicely his first time around.

Matt Jones and Kevin Kisner arrive out of form, but this could be a track to correct that.

Daniel Berger is an interesting case. He was a specialist last week on a driver-heavy course and is also positive in the less-than-driver category. I guess he’s a man of extremes and he’s able to adapt his game plan to fit both style of courses, but struggles if the preferred strategy is somewhere in between.

Haas, Na, Molinari, Hoffman, and Hearn all enter the week with no form concerns and also sport some decent course results. If I had to rate my favorite specialists this week, it would start with this five-pack.

Below is a table with the full specialist data. Any fields with a 0 in them mean the sample size is not large enough. The SG:Total column is a baseline performance measure (since 2013-14) 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 Bermuda Par 72 LT Driver Specialist Rating
Matt Every $5,500 -0.592 0.735 -0.196 0.952 0.497
Bill Haas $7,500 0.878 0.077 0.191 1.052 0.44
Erik Compton $5,600 -0.055 0.267 0.731 0.236 0.411
Jamie Lovemark $7,000 0.374 0.071 0.322 0.466 0.286
Matt Jones $5,700 0.29 0.187 0.194 0.475 0.285
Patton Kizzire $7,300 0.868 -0.071 0.738 0.151 0.273
Bryce Molder $6,200 0.193 0.46 0.199 0.15 0.27
Mark Wilson $5,800 -0.394 0.171 0.361 0.275 0.269
Jason Gore $5,800 0.044 0.468 -0.027 0.349 0.263
Jason Dufner $6,700 0.492 0.343 -0.021 0.442 0.255
Phil Mickelson $9,100 1.093 0.302 0.315 0.137 0.251
Nick Taylor $5,900 -0.19 0.045 0.378 0.325 0.249
Padraig Harrington $6,000 -0.431 0.086 -0.016 0.665 0.245
Francesco Molinari $6,700 0.752 0.217 0.304 0.201 0.241
Kevin Na $7,800 1.048 0.234 0.268 0.215 0.239
Steve Wheatcroft $5,500 -0.13 0.164 0.204 0.344 0.237
Sean O’Hair $6,200 0.13 0.168 0.127 0.404 0.233
Chesson Hadley $6,100 -0.246 0.191 0.378 0.049 0.206
Ben Martin $6,300 0.269 0.514 -0.118 0.218 0.204
Charley Hoffman $7,900 0.728 0.153 0.223 0.208 0.195
Cameron Tringale $6,100 0.386 0.077 0.037 0.453 0.189
Rafa Cabrera Bello $7,100 0.668 0 0.564 0 0.188
Vaughn Taylor $5,600 0.579 -0.035 0.246 0.32 0.177
Daniel Berger $8,000 0.68 0.077 0.14 0.304 0.174
Chad Collins $6,000 -0.094 -0.004 0.54 -0.04 0.166
David Lingmerth $7,000 0.042 0.175 0.024 0.286 0.162
Chris Kirk $7,800 0.581 0.223 -0.018 0.277 0.161
Patrick Reed $8,700 0.807 -0.026 0.126 0.374 0.158
David Hearn $6,100 0.294 0.032 0.142 0.284 0.153
Peter Malnati $5,400 -0.25 0.164 0.148 0.118 0.143
Scott Piercy $6,300 0.304 0.108 -0.045 0.349 0.137
John Huh $6,000 0.047 0.311 -0.116 0.211 0.135
John Senden $6,800 0.499 -0.043 -0.078 0.494 0.124
Brian Stuard $5,700 0.15 0.17 0.029 0.169 0.123
Justin Thomas $7,200 0.746 -0.103 0.341 0.116 0.118
Kevin Kisner $7,700 0.573 0.053 0.041 0.254 0.116
Ryan Palmer $6,900 0.924 0.325 -0.034 0.055 0.116
Jason Kokrak $6,500 0.567 0.244 -0.001 0.093 0.112
Matt Kuchar $8,100 1.287 0.063 -0.017 0.29 0.112
Fabian Gomez $6,000 -0.035 0.54 -0.4 0.182 0.108
Harold Varner III $6,400 0.139 0.013 0.252 0.054 0.106
Luke Donald $6,900 0.499 0.35 -0.44 0.406 0.105
Gary Woodland $7,000 0.664 0.285 0.231 -0.207 0.103
Brendan Steele $7,000 0.748 0.275 0.124 -0.103 0.099
Scott Pinckney $5,400 -0.145 0.119 0.417 -0.239 0.099
Sergio Garcia $9,900 1.614 0.206 0.103 -0.013 0.099
Jordan Spieth $11,400 1.753 -0.066 0.335 0.015 0.094
Davis Love III $5,400 -0.39 0.168 -0.3 0.389 0.086
Jhonattan Vegas $6,300 0.057 0.102 0.162 -0.009 0.085
Patrick Rodgers $6,300 0.264 0.222 0.235 -0.203 0.085
Charles Howell III $6,700 0.73 0.039 0.184 0.018 0.08
Jimmy Walker $8,000 1.13 0.167 0.2 -0.138 0.076
Morgan Hoffmann $5,900 0.005 0.121 -0.317 0.395 0.066
Kevin Chappell $7,600 0.653 0.056 -0.236 0.374 0.065
Danny Willett $8,900 1.207 0 0.184 0 0.061
Smylie Kaufman $6,800 0.615 -0.04 0.269 -0.048 0.061
Johnson Wagner $5,900 -0.022 -0.278 0.304 0.154 0.06
Byeong-Hun An $7,400 0.288 0 0.172 0 0.057
Boo Weekley $6,100 -0.002 0.22 0.084 -0.154 0.05
Henrik Stenson $9,500 1.5 -0.039 -0.206 0.389 0.048
Troy Merritt $5,900 -0.204 0.265 -0.308 0.182 0.047
Ricky Barnes $5,700 -0.011 0.152 -0.121 0.102 0.044
Bernd Wiesberger $6,500 0.377 0 0.129 0 0.043
J.B. Holmes $7,400 0.694 -0.301 0.292 0.121 0.038
Matthew Fitzpatrick $6,600 0.635 0 0.111 0 0.037
Alex Cejka $5,900 0.196 0.034 -0.07 0.126 0.03
Zach Johnson $8,300 0.926 -0.103 0.251 -0.059 0.03
Russell Henley $7,100 0.207 -0.035 0.041 0.071 0.026
Jason Day $11,100 1.895 -0.379 -0.069 0.512 0.022
Andy Sullivan $6,800 0.07 0 0.062 0 0.021
Marc Leishman $7,300 0.792 -0.072 0.408 -0.29 0.015
Kevin Streelman $6,300 0.143 0.072 0.152 -0.181 0.014
Jonas Blixt $5,900 -0.04 -0.341 0.305 0.072 0.012
Brooks Koepka $7,700 1.057 0.064 0.023 -0.052 0.012
Retief Goosen $5,900 0.112 -0.019 0.228 -0.181 0.009
James Hahn $6,400 -0.028 0.025 0.08 -0.083 0.007
Daniel Summerhays $6,600 0.58 0.036 -0.014 -0.006 0.005
Scott Brown $5,700 0.241 0.091 -0.229 0.144 0.002
Robert Streb $6,100 0.609 0.039 -0.028 -0.005 0.002
Bernhard Langer $5,800 0.326 0 0 0 0
Soren Kjeldsen $6,600 0.27 0 0 0 0
Jeff Overton $5,400 0.117 -0.045 0.075 -0.04 -0.003
Freddie Jacobson $6,100 0.447 0.033 0.075 -0.146 -0.013
Emiliano Grillo $6,700 0.561 -0.35 0.296 0 -0.018
Andres Gonzales $5,500 -0.517 -0.355 0.388 -0.092 -0.02
George McNeill $6,000 0.434 0.064 -0.135 0.011 -0.02
Adam Hadwin $5,700 0.232 -0.259 0.148 0.04 -0.023
Colt Knost $6,100 0.365 0.004 0.113 -0.188 -0.024
Louis Oosthuizen $8,400 0.722 -0.097 0.081 -0.077 -0.031
Branden Grace $8,600 0.613 -0.061 -0.302 0.261 -0.034
Jim Herman $5,500 0.072 -0.302 0.227 -0.03 -0.035
Ian Poulter $6,500 0.503 -0.033 0.11 -0.204 -0.042
Jim Furyk $6,900 1.689 -0.4 -0.346 0.62 -0.042
Russell Knox $7,600 0.836 0.097 -0.259 0.031 -0.044
Brendon de Jonge $5,500 0.198 -0.056 -0.142 0.065 -0.044
Billy Horschel $8,200 0.629 0.041 0.016 -0.195 -0.046
Keegan Bradley $6,200 0.786 -0.112 -0.069 0.036 -0.048
Martin Kaymer $7,200 0.462 -0.338 -0.075 0.258 -0.052
Kyle Reifers $6,100 0.134 -0.342 0.479 -0.296 -0.053
Will Wilcox $6,200 0.534 -0.025 -0.469 0.321 -0.057
Jerry Kelly $5,700 0.499 0.156 -0.08 -0.25 -0.058
Paul Casey $7,900 1.041 0.066 -0.135 -0.11 -0.06
Zac Blair $6,000 0.122 0.147 -0.089 -0.26 -0.067
Justin Rose $10,300 1.633 -0.248 0.12 -0.107 -0.078
Adam Scott $10,000 1.475 -0.1 -0.102 -0.039 -0.08
Carl Pettersson $5,400 0.053 -0.017 -0.233 0.006 -0.081
Hudson Swafford $5,600 0.056 -0.166 0.045 -0.123 -0.081
Danny Lee $7,500 0.49 -0.187 -0.006 -0.065 -0.086
Ryan Moore $6,600 0.744 0.192 -0.05 -0.406 -0.088
Harris English $6,500 0.753 0.159 0.016 -0.445 -0.09
Graham DeLaet $6,900 0.736 -0.13 -0.161 0.019 -0.091
Rickie Fowler $10,600 1.229 -0.093 -0.226 0.034 -0.095
Steven Bowditch $5,300 -0.414 -0.28 0.015 -0.053 -0.106
Spencer Levin $6,000 0.123 -0.177 -0.167 0.025 -0.106
Camilo Villegas $5,800 0.135 0.047 -0.326 -0.046 -0.109
K.J. Choi $6,200 0.274 0.064 0.034 -0.43 -0.11
Jon Curran $5,600 0.043 -0.246 0.078 -0.173 -0.114
Rory Mcilroy $11,700 2.146 -0.211 0.203 -0.337 -0.115
Brandt Snedeker $8,100 0.797 -0.178 0.081 -0.257 -0.118
William McGirt $6,400 0.452 0.085 -0.479 0.025 -0.123
Brian Harman $6,100 0.329 -0.09 -0.263 -0.036 -0.129
Graeme Mcdowell $6,500 0.718 -0.431 -0.082 0.1 -0.138
Shawn Stefani $5,600 0.251 -0.009 -0.216 -0.203 -0.143
Martin Laird $6,400 0.192 -0.02 -0.109 -0.302 -0.144
Vijay Singh $5,500 0.036 -0.155 -0.314 0.026 -0.147
Hideki Matsuyama $9,700 1.333 -0.241 0.054 -0.274 -0.154
Si Woo Kim $5,800 0.461 -0.351 0.054 -0.254 -0.183
Chad Campbell $5,600 0.318 -0.141 -0.349 -0.085 -0.192
Carlos Ortiz $5,600 -0.159 -0.292 0.194 -0.504 -0.2
Kiradech Aphibarnrat $6,500 -0.079 -0.655 0.054 0 -0.2
Chez Reavie $6,400 0.246 -0.257 0.127 -0.485 -0.205
Ernie Els $6,000 -0.02 -0.486 -0.162 0.027 -0.207
Hunter Mahan $5,900 0.295 -0.562 0.084 -0.262 -0.247
Jason Bohn $5,700 0.576 -0.188 -0.016 -0.552 -0.252
Chris Stroud $5,800 0.256 -0.552 0.067 -0.279 -0.255
J.J. Henry $5,500 -0.323 -0.523 -0.151 -0.191 -0.288
Greg Owen $5,800 -0.354 0.073 -0.499 -0.503 -0.31
Ken Duke $5,600 -0.377 -0.06 -0.87 -0.038 -0.323
Brendon Todd $5,400 0.42 -0.399 -0.132 -0.503 -0.345
Shane Lowry $6,400 0.758 -0.533 -0.345 -0.415 -0.431
Tony Finau $6,800 0.739 -0.838 0.302 -1.145 -0.56
Dustin Johnson $10,200 1.694 -0.642 0.075 -1.274 -0.614
Bubba Watson $9,300 1.617 -0.123 -0.097 -1.626 -0.616

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.