Searching for a Specialist: Tour Championship

by Josh Culp (futureoffantasy) Last Updated 2016-09-23 14:21:19

Welcome back to another specialist search, the final search of the 2015-16 season.

Last week in Italy we had five specialists finish top 20 while three missed the cut and the main man Soren didn’t want to battle the elements and withdrew two holes into his second round. The other four finished somewhere in between. A lot of good with a dabble of bad.

At East Lake we are going to look at Par 70 and Bermuda performance and then finish with Tough-to-Hit Fairways and Driver-Heavy stats.

Here we go…

Par 70 Courses

This week’s course (East Lake) stretches out past 7,300 yards but it’s just a par 70 with only two par 5s to take advantage of.

That means we want to focus on par-4 scoring this week as they make up 12 of the 18 holes. Six of those par 4s are over 450 yards as well, so long-iron play will come in handy.

The Top 10 Par 70 Specialists are:

Brandt Snedeker (1.313 sg:par70 vs. 0.809 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (0.982 sg:par70 vs. 0.647 sg:total)
Paul Casey (1.281 sg:par70 vs. 0.989 sg:total)
Kevin Kisner (0.845 sg:par70 vs. 0.582 sg:total)
Jason Day (2.261 sg:par70 vs. 2.012 sg:total)
Daniel Berger (0.929 sg:par70 vs. 0.73 sg:total)
Jason Dufner (0.758 sg:par70 vs. 0.591 sg:total)
Matt Kuchar (1.471 sg:par70 vs. 1.354 sg:total)
Charl Schwartzel (1.009 sg:par70 vs. 0.9 sg:total)
Jhonattan Vegas (0.169 sg:par70 vs. 0.074 sg:total)

Snedeker is the big winner here as his strokes gained per round rises half a stroke over his baseline when taking on a par 70. Over four rounds, that’s two whole strokes over his typical output!

If you look at the PGA TOUR’s par 4 scoring stat, you’ll see a lot of these guys near the top. In fact, seven of the top 10 above are also inside the top 15 this year in terms of par 4 scoring.

The worst in the field in terms of par-4 scoring is Justin Thomas and it’s no coincidence that he’s fourth to last in terms of Par 70 performance versus baseline.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 13

Bermuda Greens

East Lake has featured bermuda greens since a redesign after the 2007 edition.

Bermudagrass greens often favor the traditionally good putters and/or anyone that grew up playing on the surface. For others, they struggle to read the grain and that makes putting a nightmare when you can’t dial in your speed control.

The 9 Bermuda Specialists remaining:

Daniel Berger (0.998 sg:bermuda vs. 0.73 sg:total)
Jason Dufner (0.827 sg:bermuda vs. 0.591 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (0.821 sg:bermuda vs. 0.647 sg:total)
Jhonattan Vegas (0.222 sg:bermuda vs. 0.074 sg:total)
Russell Knox (0.962 sg:bermuda vs. 0.822 sg:total)
Paul Casey (1.128 sg:bermuda vs. 0.989 sg:total)
Matt Kuchar (1.411 sg:bermuda vs. 1.354 sg:total)
Kevin Kisner (0.638 sg:bermuda vs. 0.582 sg:total)
William McGirt (0.51 sg:bermuda vs. 0.494 sg:total)

Berger Time often takes place on bermuda grass. He’s posted top 20s in his last five starts on bermuda, including a victory at the St. Jude Classic.

Dufner often struggles on the greens but he grew up on bermuda and enjoys it better than bent. The chance of a poor putting week is always there for Duff, but it’s much less likely on bermuda greens.

Jason Day is on the negative side of the list. It should be noted that he’s improved drastically on bermuda this season. Despite him citing troubles on bermuda in the past, he’s overcome those issues to win twice on bermuda this year (PLAYERS, API).

Schwartzel rarely plays on bermuda (12 bermuda starts since 2014). Since he makes his own schedule, that may tell you how he feels about the grass.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 9

Hard-to-Hit Fairways

Since 2010 the field has averaged just 54% of fairways hit here at East Lake Golf Club. That is low.

There are two types of golfers that typically excel on tough-fairway tracks. First, you have the extremely accurate that can still find fairways at a high clip despite the difficulty. Second, you have the bombers that smash it far enough that the approach shots from the rough are that much closer to the target.

The 5 Hard-to-Hit Fairway Specialists remaining:

William McGirt (0.929 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.494 sg:total)
Jhonattan Vegas (0.384 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.074 sg:total)
Daniel Berger (0.98 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.73 sg:total)
Paul Casey (1.09 sg:hard fairways vs. 0.989 sg:total)
Matt Kuchar (1.404 sg:hard fairways vs. 1.354 sg:total)

Four of the golfers above have favorable grades in terms of Distance from Edge of Fairway. That means accuracy is the name of the game for them, while Vegas takes care of business with distance, instead.

We lose Kisner, Chappell, Knox, and Dufner, at this stage, but none of them are fade-worthy based on tough-fairway performance.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 5

Driver-Heavy Courses

Since 2010 the field has averaged nearly 290 yards off the tee at East Lake.

One, that could partially due to the best players reaching the finale, and the best players being longer off the tee. However, there is something more to it than that, and Chris Kirk backed that up with his statement in 2014:

“I’d say this course and Boston are probably the most similar as far as it’s a lot of drivers and it’s a long golf course and not a whole lot of wedges in. So it’s going to favor guys that are hitting their drivers real well and obviously putting well.”

If we look at other courses where the field average over 285 yards off the tee, then we can eliminate William McGirt and Matt Kuchar from out list of five potential specialists.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 3

The Specialists

Daniel Berger
Jhonattan Vegas
Paul Casey

Our specialist this week is Daniel Berger!

It’s Berger Time! The man who crushed hearts early this season after withdrawing after one tee shot, is now the specialist for East Lake. The Florida native and resident is well-familiarized with bermudagrass greens. He crushes par 4s (10th on TOUR). He’s 62nd in Distance from Edge of Fairway so he’s not as wildly inaccurate as his 142nd driving accuracy might indicate. All great signs for Berger as he makes a final push for the Ryder Cup captain’s pick.

Vegas is one with a really low baseline, but he checks the boxes in terms of course fit compared to his historical baseline. Plus, his 2016 form ain’t too shabby, making him an interesting GPP option this week.

Lastly, Paul Casey ticks all the boxes as well and he’s finished top 5 here in both previous appearances so the history lines up well with the supposed course fit.

The Anti-Specialists

The golfers below are negative in all 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.

This week the anti-specialists are:

Jordan Spieth
Patrick Reed
Hideki Matsuyama

Woah, woah, woah. Jordan Spieth!? He’s the defending champ here and also finished runner-up in 2013. This is a case where course history may trump supposed lack of course fit. There must be something special about the sightlines and/or green complexes at East Lake that really fit his eye. In fact, it’s likely the greens because he’s lapped the field in putting during both of his good weeks here. Of course that all went out the window in R3 of the 2014 edition when he only made 44 feet of putts, leading to a 10-over 80. Not a pure fade here but definitely an interesting fade option.

Patrick Reed is someone I’d be more than happy to fade this week. He’s lost 2+ strokes to the field in five of his eight rounds here at East Lake. If he doesn’t come out guns blazing then I could see him going through the motions and leaving immediately for Hazeltine the moment his fourth round ends.

Matsuyama is someone who gets downgraded when he can’t feast on par 5s. Of course, his baseline is so high to begin with, he’s still a worthy play if you like the price point of $8,600 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 with positive numbers being a good thing.