Searching for a Specialist: US Open

by Josh Culp (futureoffantasy) Last Updated 2016-06-16 13:40:08

Welcome to a MAJOR edition of the specialist search.

Doing a quick recap of last week, I lost track of water balls hit by the core specialist, Ryan Palmer. He was at four water balls entering the weekend and I’m sure he racked up a few more. Overall, we got 6-of-6 specialists through the cut, Hoge and Harris were contending for much of the event but fizzled out. Goosen and Boo both grabbed top 15s. Not the best week we’ve ever had, but it’s hard to complain with 100 percent cuts made.

In this edition we look at the top three angles: Par 70 tracks, Hard Courses, and Fast Greens. It’s a little less precise this week since I don’t have years and years of course history to determine the top angles. For that reason, I’ve avoided some borderline angles like Hard Fairways, Hard GIR, Poa Greens, Links Courses, and Less-than-Driver Courses. While these COULD be proper angles this week, I feel more confident in the three I’ve chosen.

Here we go…

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Par 70 Courses

Although par is just some unattainable number this week at Oakmont, the scorecard still reads par 70. That means just two par 5s, and 12 par 4s. The par 4s are pretty separated this week (plenty of short ones; plenty of long ones). Scoring on these par 4s will be key.

Because of this design, we want to look at what golfers have excelled on par 70 layouts in the past, since it’s often a telling sign of whether or not a golfer relies on par 5 birdies to bounce back and pad their rounds.

The Top 10 Par 70 Specialists are:

Brandt Snedeker (1.429 sg:par70 vs. 0.769 sg:total)
Steven Bowditch (0.047 sg:par70 vs. -0.499 sg:total)
Billy Horschel (1.182 sg:par70 vs. 0.64 sg:total)
Chris Kirk (1.063 sg:par70 vs. 0.576 sg:total)
Kevin Chappell (1.162 sg:par70 vs. 0.68 sg:total)
David Lingmerth (0.514 sg:par70 vs. 0.06 sg:total)
Billy Hurley III (0.468 sg:par70 vs. 0.051 sg:total)
Tom Hoge (0.538 sg:par70 vs. 0.14 sg:total)
Tim Wilkinson (0.281 sg:par70 vs. -0.112 sg:total)
Webb Simpson (1.116 sg:par70 vs. 0.724 sg:total)

Sneds, Bowdog, and Horschel improve half a stroke or more when they play on par 70 tracks. Well, they might not improve, but they improve over the field, by that much.

On the flip side we have Kevin Streelman. He’s lost strokes to the field in seven of his last 11 starts on par 70s. He’s lost two or more strokes to the field in 10-of-36 rounds in that time.

Sadly, Hideki Matsuyama is also on the par 70 crapper list. He’s not fade-worthy, but his top 10s seem to become top 25s when he plays at par 70 layouts. I still like Matsuyama a lot based on his affinity for quick greens, but his par-70 performance will drop my exposure a bit.

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GOLFERS REMAINING: 39

Hard Courses

This angle is often on the fringe because year-over-year, a lot of events are on the edge of being “tough.” I classify that as a field average of at least 0.75 strokes-over-par.

Oakmont has no such troubles. Last time it was held here (2007), every hole averaged over par for the week. I really want golfers that can excel on these grind-em-out conditions.

The Top 10 Hard Course Specialists remaining:

Tom Hoge (0.722 sg:hard vs. 0.14 sg:total)
Angel Cabrera (0.15 sg:hard vs. -0.358 sg:total)
James Hahn (0.466 sg:hard vs. -0.007 sg:total)
Russell Knox (1.237 sg:hard vs. 0.826 sg:total)
Bubba Watson (1.915 sg:hard vs. 1.533 sg:total)
Luke Donald (0.789 sg:hard vs. 0.441 sg:total)
Brendan Steele (1.086 sg:hard vs. 0.744 sg:total)
Paul Casey (1.247 sg:hard vs. 1.01 sg:total)
David Lingmerth (0.29 sg:hard vs. 0.06 sg:total)
Tim Wilkinson (0.09 sg:hard vs. -0.112 sg:total)

Wilkinson, Hoge, and Lingmerth all make the 2-for-2 club, showing up on both top-10 lists, so far.

Webb Simpson is one to avoid based on this data. He’s lost strokes to the field in nine of his last 17 starts on tough tracks. He’s only gained 2+ strokes over the field in 11 of 54 rounds. We really want a percentage of 33 for that stat, and his is around 20. He’s generally field average or bad when it comes to tough courses. His likelihood of a top 20 is very low.

Kevin Chappell is another interesting case. He posted top 10s in his first two U.S. Opens (2011 and 2012). This gave him a reputation of playing well on tough courses but his stats since the start of the 2013-14 season don’t back that up. They are very similar to Webb’s numbers. Less-than-Driver Courses was the first angle I had had to axe this week, and Chappell actually excels there. This might be a tough course he can manage, but I wouldn’t get carried away.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 18

Fast Greens

Oakmont is known for having the fastest greens in the country. It’s hard to get a truly accurate comp, but we can get close by looking at all events played on greens with a stimpmeter over 12 feet.

Fast greens affect more than just putting. It makes a difference in approach play as it’s hard to hold a fast green if you’re not coming in high. It also affects pitching/chipping around the green. Having great touch around the green can be really beneficial but terrible scramblers will make a mess and end up with two-putts if they’re lucky.

The Top 5 Fast Green Specialists remaining are:

Retief Goosen (0.507 sg:fast greens vs. 0.152 sg:total)
Angel Cabrera (-0.106 sg:fast greens vs. -0.358 sg:total)
Billy Horschel (0.884 sg:fast greens vs. 0.64 sg:total)
Justin Rose (1.871 sg:fast greens vs. 1.635 sg:total)
Paul Casey (1.234 sg:fast greens vs. 1.01 sg:total)

We lost Tom Hoge due to sample size here. He’s posted 22 rounds on fast greens, but I require 25 to be a specialist. Let the record show that he’d actually be another specialist this week, if that sample size wasn’t a restriction (0.53 SG on Fast vs. 0.14 SG:Total).

The two we want to avoid here are Luke Donald and Tim Wilkinson. They’re both great putters but both have extreme splits against fast greens.

Wilkinson has lost strokes to the field in eight of his 10 starts on fast greens. Gaining more than two strokes over the field in just two of 27 rounds (TERRIBLE RATIO).

Donald is a similar case. He’s lost strokes to the field in nine of his last 12 starts on fast greens. He’s gained two or more strokes over the field in seven of 34 rounds. A better ratio than Wilkinson, but both easy fades.

GOLFERS REMAINING: 8

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):

Angel Cabrera

Just one exclusion this week and it’s happens to be the defending champion at Oakmont (2007). He’s clearly still a good fit, just too far out of his prime (and form) to be trusted.

The Specialists

Billy Horschel
David Lingmerth
Paul Casey
Billy Hurley III
Retief Goosen
Brendan Steele
Justin Rose

Our specialist this week is Billy Horschel.

Horschel has never been a specialist before, which speaks to the uniqueness of Oakmont. Either has Paul Casey, but they both made the list this week.

Horschel made the news last year by ripping into the greens at Chambers Bay. He’s already tweeted out that Oakmont was love at first sight. A much better mindset entering the week!

Hurley III is really hard to recommend with confidence since he’s never finished better than a T48 in three major appearances and doesn’t have anything better than a T41 this year. That being said, all the stats suggest he could eclipse both of those finishes, and his salary makes it so can you afford the heavy hitters. A good punt option.

Rose also has a question mark next to his name. He’s been out since THE PLAYERS due to a back injury. It sounded precautionary, but it’s still something to be slightly scared of. Otherwise, I think this is a phenomenal fit for the Englishman.

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.

You’ll notice a lot more zeros this week. That’s due to the quantity of golfers that qualified through sectionals. These golfers don’t have very much (if any) data, so there is no way they can be specialists this week. It doesn’t mean you should ignore all those with smaller samples; they just aren’t specialists.

Best of luck everyone!