Searching for a Specialist: TOUR Championship

The Ryder Cup is right around the corner, but before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to put a ribbon on the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season.

Before we head to Paris, let’s look at East Lake Golf Club to see what golfers make enjoy the challenge it has to offer.

This week our search will look at performance on Bermuda Greens, Driver-Heavy Courses, Strong Field Events, and Performance in the Summer.

We will compare this performance to each golfer’s baseline performance to see how much each golfer should over- or under-perform this week at the TOUR Championship.

Here we go …

Bermuda Greens

East Lake features bermudagrass rough and bermuda on the greens, as well.

Some golfers have more experience on this turf or their games are better suited for the test of grainy bermuda. Let’s see who they are.

The 10 Bermuda Specialists:

Tiger Woods (2.578 sg:bermuda vs. 2.065 sg:total)
Webb Simpson (2.454 sg:bermuda vs. 1.975 sg:total)
Bryson DeChambeau (2.199 sg:bermuda vs. 1.739 sg:total)
Billy Horschel (1.77 sg:bermuda vs. 1.428 sg:total)
Francesco Molinari (2.316 sg:bermuda vs. 2.068 sg:total)
Patrick Cantlay (2.436 sg:bermuda vs. 2.263 sg:total)
Gary Woodland (1.843 sg:bermuda vs. 1.684 sg:total)
Marc Leishman (2.078 sg:bermuda vs. 1.928 sg:total)
Rory McIlroy (2.968 sg:bermuda vs. 2.826 sg:total)
Justin Thomas (2.527 sg:bermuda vs. 2.393 sg:total)

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Quantity: The golfers that have the most strokes gained on bermuda since 2014 are Webb Simpson, Justin Thomas, Billy Horschel, Dustin Johnson, and Jason Day.

Tiger talked about how practiced exclusively on bermuda before his comeback, so that might explain why the stats lean in this direction at the moment.

Guys like Webb and Horschel are very vocal about their love of bermuda.

Driver-Heavy Courses

East Lake is a par 70 but it stretches out to nearly 7,400 yards.

When you go through on a hole-by-hole basis you quickly see there aren’t many doglegs to worry about. The landing areas are tight but there isn’t much edge to laying back. You might as well hit the big stick here because the fairways will be tough to find, regardless of what club you hit off the tee.

The Top 10 Driver-Heavy Specialists:

Bubba Watson (2.389 sg:driver-heavy vs. 1.846 sg:total)
Paul Casey (2.869 sg:driver-heavy vs. 2.342 sg:total)
Jon Rahm (2.851 sg:driver-heavy vs. 2.473 sg:total)
Rory McIlroy (3.076 sg:driver-heavy vs. 2.826 sg:total)
Gary Woodland (1.916 sg:driver-heavy vs. 1.684 sg:total)
Hideki Matsuyama (2.58 sg:driver-heavy vs. 2.39 sg:total)
Patrick Reed (2.177 sg:driver-heavy vs. 1.989 sg:total)
Rickie Fowler (2.672 sg:driver-heavy vs. 2.516 sg:total)
Phil Mickelson (2.271 sg:driver-heavy vs. 2.141 sg:total)
Cameron Smith (1.281 sg:driver-heavy vs. 1.169 sg:total)

Quantity: Golfers with the most weighted strokes gained on driver-heavy courses since 2014 are Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Paul Casey, Rickie Fowler, and Justin Thomas.

Not too shocking to see guys like Bubba, Casey, Rahm, Woodland, and Rory at the top of the list when it comes to courses that allow you to hit drivers.

On the flip side here, you have guys like Tiger, Tommy, and Moli near the bottom. Tiger has crushed it on less-than-driver courses during the 2018 season, so it’s easy to see why the numbers would look this way. Overall, I would expect his career-long view to look much different.

Strong Fields

Some golfers are just happy to be in Atlanta this week.

Others are trying to cement their name into history. It may seem silly to some since the FedExCup is still rather young, but some of these guys are already hungry to add FEC trophies to their career list of achievements…

The Top 10 Strong Field Specialists:

Bryson DeChambeau (2.172 sg:strong vs. 1.739 sg:total)
Kyle Stanley (1.764 sg:strong vs. 1.386 sg:total)
Xander Schauffele (1.927 sg:strong vs. 1.558 sg:total)
Tony Finau (2.202 sg:strong vs. 2.012 sg:total)
Bubba Watson (2.021 sg:strong vs. 1.846 sg:total)
Aaron Wise (1.632 sg:strong vs. 1.488 sg:total)
Rory McIlroy (2.959 sg:strong vs. 2.826 sg:total)
Rickie Fowler (2.639 sg:strong vs. 2.516 sg:total)
Justin Thomas (2.507 sg:strong vs. 2.393 sg:total)
Brooks Koepka (2.393 sg:strong vs. 2.291 sg:total)

Quantity: Most weighted strokes gained against strong fields since 2014 are Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, and Jason Day.

Finau has earned the reputation for beating up on weak fields, but it’s clear that is an old narrative. Sure, his only win came in a weak field, but it’s not due to his overall performance once you adjust for field strength. He has plenty of big weeks against the strongest of fields. It’s just a matter of time before one falls his way.

Summer Season

Some golfers fire all their shots early in the season, but some golfers peak during these summer months.

Part of that has to do with weather conditions, which then leads to different course conditions. Part of this has to do with scheduling. Those golfers that play 25-to-30 events a season are usually worn out by the time the summer is coming to an end.

Let’s see who shines in the summer…

The Top 10 Summer Specialists:

Xander Schauffele (2.167 sg:summer vs. 1.558 sg:total)
Tiger Woods (2.531 sg:summer vs. 2.065 sg:total)
Francesco Molinari (2.511 sg:summer vs. 2.068 sg:total)
Keegan Bradley (1.884 sg:summer vs. 1.635 sg:total)
Kevin Na (1.9 sg:summer vs. 1.748 sg:total)
Jason Day (2.866 sg:summer vs. 2.737 sg:total)
Brooks Koepka (2.417 sg:summer vs. 2.291 sg:total)
Bryson DeChambeau (1.86 sg:summer vs. 1.739 sg:total)
Gary Woodland (1.804 sg:summer vs. 1.684 sg:total)
Patrick Reed (2.094 sg:summer vs. 1.989 sg:total)

Quantity: Most weighted strokes gained in the summer since 2014 are Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, and Justin Rose.

The highest percentage of go-low rounds in the summer belongs to DJ, Rory, Tiger, Day, Rose, Fowler, Brooks, Rahm, and JT. All elite golfers but also extremely long off the tee. There may be something about the summer weather that helps the big hitters even more so than usual.

The Specialist

Paul Casey

The specialist this week is Paul Casey!

After searching through four angles, there is one (English)man left standing as our specialist.

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Casey backs up his course fit with course history as well. He has finished 4th or 5th in all four appearances at East Lake. During those 16 rounds, he’s never been lower than T7 after any round here.

The downside? He arrives off a mid-tournament WD and his recent form is slacking.

There are pros and cons here because he’s extremely cheap across the board. Casey should be strongly considered this week, especially in GPPs. I would understand the logic of fading him, in case you are worried about his middling form or recent WD (actual injury or weather related?) … but it’s tough to completely ignore this course fit.

The Anti-Specialists

We have a few golfers that qualify as specialists this week but who does the opposite, grading out negatively in all of the angles?

Patton Kizzire
Tommy Fleetwood

I think if you were already considering Kizzire with his form then you know any course is going to be tough for him right now. On the flip side, Tommy Lad shows up here, but I don’t think any course could stop him right now, considering his steady play all season. I think a full fade might be extreme, but this could be a reason to cut down your exposure or avoid a chalky value play if you want to get frisky.

Super Simple Specialist Ratings

The goal of this article is to isolate course fit, to see who should outperform their baseline.

However, anyone with common sense knows that baseline talent (and current form) can’t be ignored when handicapping golf.

Combining Baseline Strokes Gained with Current Form and Specialist Rating, we get a Top 20 ranking that looks like this:

Dustin Johnson
Rory Mcilroy
Justin Thomas
Justin Rose
Tommy Fleetwood
Jason Day
Rickie Fowler
Brooks Koepka
Tony Finau
Webb Simpson
Tiger Woods
Hideki Matsuyama
Jon Rahm
Patrick Cantlay
Bryson DeChambeau
Patrick Reed
Paul Casey
Francesco Molinari
Gary Woodland
Phil Mickelson

It’s hard to argue with DJ who is #1 in long-term performance and also #1 in total strokes gained over the last 8 weeks which dates back to his win at Glen Abbey. The only thing potentially holding him back is the relationship rumors. Will those off-the-course troubles spill over and affect his on-the-course play?

Even with Tommy as an anti-specialist, he shows up at #5 on the list. Goes to show that course fit shouldn’t be overvalued.

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 30 rounds to qualify for each angle.

The SG:TOTAL column is a baseline performance measure (since 2014). It is time-weighted so more recent results count for more than finishes from years ago.

HISTORY column is a weighted performance metric based on course history. I’ve made small adjustments for sample sizes but be sure to check on number of course rounds before blindly following this number.

FORM looks at the total strokes gained, adjusted to field strength, over the last 8 weeks (PGA TOUR and European Tour).

SIMPLE RATING looks at SGTotal, FORM, and SPECIALIST RATING to create a simple rating that includes course fit but doesn’t overweight it.

Golfer DK FD FDRFT SG: Total History Form Bermuda Driver-Heavy Strong Field Summer Specialist Rating Simple Rating
Xander Schauffele $7,000 $8,900 $14,600 1.558 2.624 44.021 -0.068 0.033 0.369 0.61 0.236 128
Bryson DeChambeau $8,400 $11,200 $15,100 1.739 0 76.732 0.46 -0.15 0.433 0.121 0.216 84
Paul Casey $6,800 $9,100 $13,900 2.342 2.729 36.242 0.036 0.527 0.039 0.094 0.174 89
Bubba Watson $6,500 $9,300 $14,000 1.846 1.289 33.904 -0.16 0.543 0.175 0.049 0.152 122
Rory Mcilroy $10,700 $10,900 $16,800 2.826 2.437 71.313 0.142 0.251 0.133 -0.016 0.128 31
Gary Woodland $6,700 $8,700 $13,600 1.684 1.378 71.197 0.159 0.232 -0.077 0.12 0.109 97
Patrick Reed $6,900 $10,000 $13,800 1.989 0.817 60.232 0.071 0.189 -0.009 0.105 0.089 88
Jon Rahm $7,700 $9,500 $14,700 2.473 1.855 41.96 0 0.378 -0.114 0.018 0.071 80
Justin Thomas $10,300 $11,000 $16,300 2.393 2.513 81.171 0.134 0.058 0.113 -0.031 0.068 45
Francesco Molinari $8,200 $10,300 $14,800 2.068 0 55.368 0.248 -0.454 0.005 0.443 0.061 90
Rickie Fowler $9,100 $9,700 $15,300 2.516 0.656 50.66 -0.22 0.157 0.123 0.101 0.04 68
Kyle Stanley $6,100 $7,600 $13,200 1.386 0.778 55.552 0.032 -0.257 0.378 0 0.038 132
Aaron Wise $6,100 $7,400 $13,100 1.488 0 44.184 0 0 0.144 0 0.036 141
Webb Simpson $7,500 $10,100 $14,600 1.975 1.633 86.849 0.479 -0.2 -0.186 0.016 0.027 74
Keegan Bradley $6,200 $9,100 $13,400 1.635 0.75 57.039 -0.334 0.103 -0.031 0.249 -0.003 119
Jason Day $8,000 $10,500 $14,900 2.737 1.955 56.428 0.112 -0.196 -0.067 0.13 -0.005 62
Tiger Woods $9,500 $10,800 $16,000 2.065 1.161 77.731 0.514 -0.875 -0.127 0.466 -0.005 76
Justin Rose $11,400 $11,200 $17,000 2.766 2.251 65.363 -0.076 -0.074 0.048 -0.008 -0.028 55
Patrick Cantlay $7,100 $8,900 $14,000 2.263 0.778 67.231 0.172 -0.374 0.093 -0.009 -0.029 81
Kevin Na $6,000 $8,100 $12,700 1.748 -0.152 50.928 -0.18 -0.105 0.014 0.152 -0.03 123
Dustin Johnson $11,300 $11,500 $16,900 3.079 1.628 87.137 -0.027 0.039 -0.033 -0.191 -0.053 28
Tony Finau $8,600 $10,300 $15,000 2.012 1.855 95.697 -0.451 0.013 0.19 0.021 -0.057 72
Marc Leishman $6,300 $8,400 $13,400 1.928 0.057 45.231 0.15 -0.166 -0.059 -0.154 -0.057 128
Billy Horschel $7,300 $7,900 $14,600 1.428 1.608 75.549 0.343 -0.411 -0.236 -0.08 -0.096 123
Phil Mickelson $6,600 $9,000 $13,500 2.141 1.428 46.552 -0.062 0.129 -0.006 -0.458 -0.099 108
Hideki Matsuyama $8,800 $10,400 $15,200 2.39 0.997 70.788 -0.321 0.189 -0.086 -0.185 -0.101 77
Brooks Koepka $10,000 $11,300 $16,100 2.291 1.815 83.144 -0.545 -0.113 0.103 0.127 -0.107 70
Cameron Smith $6,400 $7,900 $13,400 1.169 0 45.231 -0.231 0.112 -0.131 -0.37 -0.155 161
Tommy Fleetwood $7,900 $10,700 $14,700 2.418 0 86.697 -0.166 -0.468 -0.116 -0.17 -0.23 58
Patton Kizzire $6,000 $7,000 $10,600 0.742 0 7.491 -0.084 -0.33 -0.42 -0.646 -0.37 180

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.