PGA Tour: Georgia On My Mind: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).The PGA Tour season sputters to its conclusion this week, at the Tour Championship, in Atlanta, Georgia, at Donald Ross's East Lake design.  (Don't worry, "16/17" gets things going again in three weeks's time.)

Every golf fan has an opinion of the FedEx Play-Offs, but one thing I'd change permanently is to take the week off between "Boston" and the Beemer, then run straight from whichever city hosts the old Western Open (Philadelphia in two years' time if that makes sense to anyone but Shotrock) to Atlanta; the week off just feels as if all momentum for the thirty finalists, or at least us fans, is lost.

2).But one good thing this year is that the Tour has switched nines at East Lake; the purists were apparently not happy that the 18th hole is no longer the difficult par-3, demanding but hardly exciting, but now a Par-5 that's reachable after a super drive. Hopefully some risk/reward is included with the change.
East Lake has few enough memorable holes after all, but one is the old 6th which is played over water with a mid to long iron. Now it's the 15th and may play a more prominent part in the tournament's outcome.

3).Atlanta will be Warmlanta this week, if not exactly Hotlanta; there's no sustained "weather" in the forecast, chance of occasional shower but no strong winds, so scoring should be good.

4).And Davis LoveIII has had us all on the edge of our seats for a couple of weeks now as we all wonder who'll get his Horschel pick. Apparently Bubba and Berger, Furyk and Thomas have been with some of the USA Team at Hazeltine, a wasted trip for at least two of them but it lends credence to the idea that LoveIII is looking for an excuse to choose a Young Gun, but will fall back with Watson if both misfire.

5).Meanwhile Andrew Johnston may be targetting next year's Tour Championship as he maps out his schedule for next season, Tour card in hand. Well done to him, and interesting that the Boise Tournament Director gave a shout out to Beef as an attraction that led to record crowds.
I'm not sure that the land of Donald Drumpf and brewski thruskis is a perfect fit for Mr.Beef. Strange that he should have snapped up an endorsement for Arby's when surely Montreal's iconic Joe Beef, described as "emboldening gluttony", would have been a better match. Oh well, can't have everything.
We discussed Beef's options in last week's thread, but he's committed to the Dunhill in Scotland the week following the Ryder Cup and that clashes with the web.com Tour Championship, the fourth and final wTF event. And that means this week's wTF Round 3 is crucial to him reaching the higher echelons of the "reshuffle" priority list in getting in to 16/17 tournaments.

6).Michael Thompson, Stallings and Carballo joined Beef in earning their cards last week, while Gonzo is only about $4K from joining them. What a sweet return to the big time that would be for Mr and Mrs G.

7).The Top 25 money winners in these "finals", who are not already exempt via the web.com season-long money-list, qualify for a 16/17 Tour card and Europeans in promising position after two tournaments include:
8th: Gonzo
17th: Norlander
18th: Owen

8).It was a terrific week for another Englishman, the rather more muted, but no less ecstatic Paul Broadhurst who birdied the 18th to win the Champions Tour event at Pebble Beach, and that win puts him in a strong position for the lucrative quasi-Play-Off season finale Charles Schwab series which begins in late October.  

9).Plenty of Europeans have fattened their pension plans courtesy of the ten-year-old FedEx bonus pool.Excluding this year's hand-outs, the big winners (unofficially) have been:
$13.3M: Stenson
$5.5M:  McIlroy
$5.3M:  Donald
$3.8M:  Rose
$3.7M:  Garcia
$1.4M:  Harrington
$1.4M:  Casey
$1.1M:  Pettersson
Whilst others can look forward to at least $750K: Poulter, Laird, Jacobson, Davis, Westwood.

10).No strong feelings here as to who will ride off with the Tour Championship and/or the FedEx Cup and its $10M swag. But very interested to see if the switching of the "nines" adds some spice to the finale and obviously hoping that McIlroy flies to Hazeltine with another win under his belt, and Ray Charles's old sweet song can keep Georgia on his mind..

Cheers kwini, great writeup as usual.

I never really 'warmed' to East Lake. Hope the switch in layout makes it more interesting as I usually only turn on the TV when the R3+R4 leaders reach the back 9...  

I also think it's a bit noteworthy that the last 6 winners at East Lake have also been crowned FEC champion. Don't know if that indicates too little 'importance' of the other 3 tourneys?

For sure I don't like that the grand finale is played on the same course year after year. That must inevitably favor certain types of players - not only for the TC itself but also for the entire FEC, as above could indicate.

Nevertheless I still think the FEC is a great addition to the Tour as it brings some exitement to the season ending - even if the exitement this year is outshined tenfold by the anticipation of the Ryder Cup and all the huh hah involved with the US team.

Kudos once again Kwini... as usual.

I love the switching of the nine's... IMO chances of some significant movement on the final holes much more likely now.

But I've still got to believe the par-70 layout negates any "bomber" advantage. Consider the winners since 2010. They're not exactly all short, but they're not "overpowering" players either. Here's a list of winners since 2010... along with #'s 2 & 3 and where the selected big sticks finished (in Red).

2010 - 1 Furyk, 2 Luke, 3 Goosen - 17 Day & Bubba, DJ 22

2011 - 1 Haas, 2 Mahan T3 Choi, Luke, Badds - 13 Woodland, T23 Bubba & DJ.

2012 - 1 Snedeker, 2 Rose, T3 Luke & Moore - 5 Bubba, 10 DJ, Garrigus & Rory.

2013 - 1 Stenson, T2 Spieth & Stricker - 5 DJ, 14 Day, 22 Woodland

2014 - 1 Horschel, T2 Furyk & Rory - T4 Day, T9 Woodland, 14 Bubba

2015 - 1 Spieth, T2 D. Lee, Rose & Stenson - T5 Casey, DJ & Bubba, T10 Day, T16 Rory

So with all that fine research on my part and making such a strong case on how the short knocks are favored... Expect bombers Day, Bubba and DJ to finish some order of 1, 2, 3....

Hole #14 (previously #5) and Hole #1 (previously #10) could easily be labeled as par 5's. They play as par 5's in the other 51 weeks of the year.

Robo: How would your short knockers do if they were labeled as par 5's?

GPB wrote:Hole #14 (previously #5) and Hole #1 (previously #10) could easily be labeled as par 5's.  They play as par 5's in the other 51 weeks of the year.

Robo:  How would your short knockers do if they were labeled as par 5's?

If they just changed the label but played them same yardage they do now... it wouldn't make a difference. But my guess is if they added the roughly 40-50 yards back to both of them and played them as par-5's it would bring the longer hitters more into it.

Don't you think that that was a big part of the genius of Tiger Woods, in that he would dominate on some Par-70 courses, especially Firestone, that conventional wisdom would suggest he'd struggle on? With few exceptions, he had a game for all courses.

kwinigolfer wrote:a big part of the genius of Tiger Woods

And that genius now endorsed by finchem, who apparently said in a presser yesterday that Tiger was clearly the GOAT.

McLaren wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:a big part of the genius of Tiger Woods

And that genius now endorsed by finchem, who apparently said in a presser yesterday that Tiger was clearly the GOAT.

Although with Tiger about to return it is in Finchem's commercial interest to big him up as much as possible, not that the Tiger bus really needs it.

Great write up Kwini

I didn't know they had switched nines this week, definitely interesting although the 17th has provided some excellent drama over recent years.

kwinigolfer wrote:Don't you think that that was a big part of the genius of Tiger Woods, in that he would dominate on some Par-70 courses, especially Firestone, that conventional wisdom would suggest he'd struggle on? With few exceptions, he had a game for all courses.

Wasn't a big part of his success in early years (to a large extent) due to his par-5 performance? At least that is how it was portrayed, with courses being Tiger proofed and all that.

That's right pedro, but he also had success at courses like Firestone where there are only two Par-5's, one of them almost unreachable.

So, the Tiger-profing went on but he was still able to win a fair few tournaments on courses that belied the grip-it-and-rip-it persona who dominated Par-5's.

Will never be the GOAT in my book, but certainly the GOASYS if domination over a seven-year stretch is the criteria.

McLaren wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:a big part of the genius of Tiger Woods

And that genius now endorsed by finchem, who apparently said in a presser yesterday that Tiger was clearly the GOAT.

"Clearly the GOAT"?

Actually that is not what he said

Tim Finchem wrote: I have to put him down -- I love Jack Nicklaus beyond belief, but I have to put Tiger down as probably the greatest player to ever play

key word was "probably", and not "clearly"

http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=123441

Presumably par 70 courses have a couple of long par 4's, like East Lake does. (and Firestone). I think long hitters have just as much of an advantage over these type of holes as short(ish) par 5's.

I doubt if the scoring average delta between long and short hitters on long Par 4's (greater than 475 yds) vs par 5's (less than 550 yds) is much more than trivial and probably not statistically different.

McLaren wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:a big part of the genius of Tiger Woods

And that genius now endorsed by finchem, who apparently said in a presser yesterday that Tiger was clearly the GOAT.

Finchem said it; must be true.

Great writeup again Kwini, as usual. Thanks for posting these.

Wasn't Tiger's success built around his proximity to the hole from 150+ yards. I remember a few years ago someone did an analysis on Tiger and showed that he gained a ton of shots on the field from this distance. That, and the best short game ever.

People can try to parse a transcript however suits them... But listening to it live with his inflection and in context, Finchem was quite clear in his opinion of TW GOAT-ish-ness.  And except for just a few years there,  other than driving accuracy, TW's domination was because he had ALL the rest of it over most everyone else. And I don't know what if any stat measures it, but that guy was just better at getting the ball in the hole WHEN IT MATTERED MOST of anybody I ever saw.

I also think Tiger was/is the GOAT, but he's certainly not the most accomplished.

And speaking of accomplishments, Tim Finchem's greatest accomplishment has to be the Fed Ex Cup. It wasn't long ago that the PGA Championship used the tagline "Glory's Last Chance".

Mac,
Can't find that stat as it seems to be the aggregate of so many, but just looking at the GIR stat for 125 - 150 yards, I can't find anything from 2002 (no complete record before that) of him registering better than 39th in that stat, although all his gir's could well have been kick-ins; can't tell.
Apart from one year, his next best was 68th. Which suggests that his excellence with wedges is not what sets him apart. For what it's worth, I've always believed his distance control with short irons was a relative weakness.
And certainly agree w/robo's assertion that nobody ever got the ball in the hole when it mattered most like Woods - although Spieth, for a 20-month period must have come close.

IMO Finchem's greatest accomplishment will go down as the incredible job he did dealing with the economic meltdown. Autos, real estate and financials were the title sponsorship lynchpins of the Tour when all that went down, and the Tour lost most of them. But Finchem somehow managed to hold it all together with maybe a pause, but without a major contraction as many expected.

Agree on that robo.

Regarding length: all being equal longer hitters of course have an advantage compared to shorter hitters, no matter how long/short the course is. In simply means you have a shorter approach iron. I know in reality it isn't as simple, but ..

pedro wrote:Regarding length: all being equal longer hitters of course have an advantage compared to shorter hitters, no matter how long/short the course is. In simply means you have a shorter approach iron. I know in reality it isn't as simple, but ..

Agree completely. And now that we're getting more of the big hitters with the other skill sets to go along their length, they're starting to dominate the top of the rankings. IMO there's will always be a place for the players who aren't long, but "long enough" (like Spieth maybe) but the short knocks are more and more at a disadvantage with every passing year.

The big hitters will only prosper if Tours continue to facilitate wide open course set-ups.
Otherwise a course's only defence, apart from the weather, will be water everywhere and lightning fast, wildly undulating greens.

Not sure that's a healthy trend.

Kwini... IMO there's a point of ever diminishing returns on trying to setup courses to negate the power player.  Now days when we get one of those rare setups that makes 'em keep driver in the bag more, the big knocks just use their FW woods or irons off the tee and have virtually the same approach distances out of the FW's as the shorter hitters hitting driver.  And if you grow deeper roughs... you're just penalizing the shorter hitters more than the longer hitters when they miss FW's.

I believe the difference with East Lake is the course design, not so much the setup.  It has enough shortish par-4's and the short par-5, everybody can have birdie chances on those. But most the longer par-4's are not easy birdie chances for the long hitters either, nor are they particularly difficult to make par for everyone else... so most the entire field is making pars on them.   It's just not a course that's been one anybody seems to be able to "overpower", so length there is not much of an advantage.

Kwini

Tigers strokes gained data can be found in here.

http://www.columbia.edu/~mnb2/broadie/Assets/strokes_gained_pga_broadie_20110408.pdf

Mac,
That supports conventional wisdom, it's his long game, putting and around the green. His stats for shots inside 150 yds don't especially set him apart, some years not much above average.
The get-it-in-the-hole factor isn't measured but would be the most revealing, as robo rightly says.

I also wonder whether his strokes-gained stats are skewed by the fact that more than half the events he plays are limited field affairs which invariably include a few uncompetitive passengers whose stats are nevertheless included?

This week's wTF tournament is at the home of the Greatest Golfer Of All Time(!!!!!), Columbus, Ohio's Ohio State University "Scarlet" golf course.

Some interesting participants in various categories, including:
International: Aphibarnrat, KT Kim, Villegas, Thomas Aiken, Carballo, Iwata, deJonge, CT Pan, Romero, Sabbatini, Carlos Ortiz,

Aussies/Kiwis: Alker, Appleby, Drewett, Gibson, Matt Jones, Pampling, Percy, Cameron Smith

Other PGA Tour Winners: Axley, Byrd, Ernst, Gay, Gore, Hadley, Herron, MacKenzie, McNeill, Points, Potter, Stallings, Michael Thompson, Trahan, Mark Wilson

Europeans: Bourdy, Cappelen, Eason, Fernandez-Castano, Gunn, Jaeger, Johnston, Norlander, Owen, Power,

Plus: Compton, Stroud, Guthrie, Langley and several other old lags and one-time boy wonders.

Kwini, that was my original claim. See "150+" in my first post about this.

Duh,
I read that as being inside 150 yds

So I think that means you pretty much agree with everything everyone else posted

Could be interesting to correlate Driving Distance (and/or Total Driving) with Proximity to Pin. That would indicate the relative advantage big hitters have, regardless of their putting abilities.

(Although I think Prox. to Pin is measured on all holes and Driving Distance not?)


Edit: Maybe that's somehow reflected in Strokes Gained Tee to Green?

pedro wrote:Could be interesting to correlate Driving Distance (and/or Total Driving) with Proximity to Pin.

Wouldn't proximity from various yardages be a simpler metric?

Hits it fewest times in a tournament?

Sod the rest?

I enjoy parsing stats as much as anybody... but IMO the Driving Distance statistical correlations that matter are Driving Distance VS TOURNAMENT OUTCOMES

FEDEX - Out of the PGA Tour's 30 players who made it to East Lake, 8 of them are in the top-10 percentile of the Driving Distance Stat, 13 in the top-20% and 23 in the top 40%

OWGR - Out of the OWGR top-20, 18 have enough drives to be ranked in the PGA Tour's driving distance stat... of those 18, 6 are top-10% in driving distance, 11 are top-20% and 16 are top-35%. Only 2 are in the bottom half of the driving distance stat. (Stenson would be about 40th percentile and Willett about 60th percentile if they had enough drives to be ranked)

WINS - Out of the 45 wins so far on the PGAT, 13 of them are by players in the top-10% of the Driving Distance stat, 21 in the top-25% and 32 in the top-50%.  The only multiple winner under 50th percentile is Russell Knox.

Bottom line: You still CAN have success being a "short knock"... but the odds are stacked WAY against you.

Thanks robo.

No doubt that Tiger-proofing courses was an advantage for, eehmm, Tiger. Lengthening courses doesn't 'protect' a course, it's just an additional advantage for longer hitters. So maybe more emphasis should in fact be put on shortening courses, narrowing fairways and making greens smaller, to diminish the distinct correlation between Driving Distance and Scoring? That would inevitably put more factors / skills into play.

pedro wrote:No doubt that Tiger-proofing courses was an advantage for, eehmm, Tiger. Lengthening courses doesn't 'protect' a course, it's just an additional advantage for longer hitters. So maybe more emphasis should in fact be put on shortening courses, narrowing fairways and making greens smaller, to diminish the distinct correlation between Driving Distance and Scoring? That would inevitably put more factors / skills into play.

Pedro... I'm not sure ANYTHING (short of choking off every fairway or growing US Open rough past 300 yds on every venue) can be done to negate the long hitters advantage to the point it comes close to leveling the playing field.  If you set up a course where all players end up in the same spot,  I believe you yourself pointed out the advantage the longer hitters have even playing in from there with shorter clubs in their hand.   Now "back in the day" it might have mattered more when few players had both the power and the rest of the game to go with it. But what we're seeing today is more and more players emerging who have BOTH the extreme power AND the rest of the necessary skills.

But on a personal bias... I wouldn't want to see a move to negate the power game.  IMO it's a beautiful and exciting part of today's game. I couldn't think of anything more boring than Tour set-ups yielding 30 "Merion's" a year....

I agree that long and straight is, and should be an advantage. So I'd rather like to see Total Driving being a clear advantage (as it of course is) rather than just Driving Distance.
Narrowing fairways, with a sensible 1st and 2nd cut, is probably just what I'm asking for then.

Edit: Is Driving Distance only measured on fairways hit? If yes, then it suddenly becomes more complicated.

In or out of FW doesn't matter... here's the language for Longest Drive criteria:

"The average number of yards per measured drive. These drives are measured on two holes per round. Care is taken to select two holes which face in opposite directions to counteract the effect of wind. Drives are measured to the point at which they come to rest regardless of whether they are in the fairway or not. "

The driving distance stat most everybody looks at is the one above that uses just the TWO measured drives. But another distance stat not a lot of people pay attention to is Driving Distance ALL drives.  This compiles data on every drive off every par-4 or 5 where a laser is used.  

And if you look at the ALL drives, it brings the top guys down to earth a little bit with only 5 guys 300+ compared to something like 30 in the other stat. Basically it illustrates despite how it might "seem", courses today aren't set up so the big knocks can just let it fly everywhere, every week.

Driving Distance ALL drives - http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.317.html

Maybe it will be Hotlanta after all this week, temps in the 90's, or close to it, today and Friday.

A good forecast in store for next weekend at Hazeltine, moderate temps (about 70F) and enough breeze to make things interesting. Fair skies, not much chance of rain, though course going currently may be good to soft.

Beef looks like roast beef right now as he's TLast in Columbus at tournament 3 of the four tournament wTF series. Just making the turn so very early going, but he'd do himself a big favour by bagging some birds/eagles and making the cut, earning some more money towards his Tour status.

As of 12:27 pm Atlanta Time, (50 minutes after first tee time) there is a six way tie for the lead at +1.

Much better finish from Beef, birdieing his final three holes to finish at +1 - a good effort after sleep-walking to +3 in his first two holes.
Afternoon tee-time on Friday may catch him wider awake, though hopefully before he gets into the lunchtime buffet.


Early starters struggling at East Lake - +1 leads with the first group having completed 4 holes. No idea why scores are so high.

GPB: Snap.

Hideous sight on the cover of October's Golf Digest: Andrew Johnston's ugly mug.

In other news: And on the topic elsewhere of other-worldly putting: Spieth has canned 29 and 32 footers for birdie, plus a 28ft par putt, all in his first five holes. 95 feet of putts in 5 holes.

He's certainly not a looker Kwini,like a cross between an inbred Amish (maybe they all are) and a golf playing muslim, more of a face for radio than a front cover.

Yes, I'm surprised he doesn't play up his Jamaican heritage a bit more than he does. Red Stripe would be a no-brainer to endorse, for instance.

Shambles by Rory . . . . . . not the only one, but disappointing nonetheless.

Mickelson only hit one fairway today - I can imagine playing a brawny Tour set-up (say Bethpage a la US Open) and not reaching a fairway, but not being so wildly off-line.

So Beef confirming he'll play Dunhill, British Masters, HSBC, Turkey, Nedbank, Dubai. No Fall Series then.

Interesting scoreboard.... Nobody breaks away with a big lead which keeps all but maybe 6 of the 30 still in it.

As for the Horschel pick, Kevin Chappell surely got peoples' attention, good from Doubting Thomas, poor from Bubba and worse from Berger.

And Gonzo lies third in the wTF event.

I don't blame Beef for that schedule, but he's giving himself a mighty steep hill to climb, and that could well compromise his European schedule next year. All rendered irrelevant if he scores a good result at the HSBC.

FTR, HSBC is part of the Fall Series, so Beef will get some guaranteed FEX points there.

==========

I don't think anyone here gives a RATS @$$ about this but I think it worth noting.

St Louis Missouri Native Ellen Port won her 7th USGA Championship today, the US Senior Womens Amateur. She has previously won 4 US Women's Mid Amateur and 2 Sr Women's Amateur.

I have met her a couple times through golf Missouri golf functions and even played one hole with her. We had a foursome and she was playing by herself, and we let her play through.

Bobby Jones and Tiger Woods have won 9 USGA championships
Jack Nicklaus and JoAnne Gunderson Carner have won 8 USGA Championships.

Ellen is now T5th on the all time list with Anne Sander.

That's exactly what I meant about the HSBC comment.

Pretty cool by Ellen Port; wonder how many Carol Semple has? Seven is a lot!

robopz wrote:In or out of FW doesn't matter... here's the language for Longest Drive criteria:

"The average number of yards per measured drive. These drives are measured on two holes per round. Care is taken to select two holes which face in opposite directions to counteract the effect of wind. Drives are measured to the point at which they come to rest regardless of whether they are in the fairway or not. "

The driving distance stat most everybody looks at is the one above that uses just the TWO measured drives. But another distance stat not a lot of people pay attention to is Driving Distance ALL drives.  This compiles data on every drive off every par-4 or 5 where a laser is used.  

And if you look at the ALL drives, it brings the top guys down to earth a little bit with only 5 guys 300+ compared to something like 30 in the other stat.  Basically it illustrates despite how it might "seem", courses today aren't set up so the big knocks can just let it fly everywhere, every week.

Driving Distance ALL drives - http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.317.html

Thanks for that Robo, that's very interesting
The tv coverage would have you believe that they're all hitting it over 300 yards all the time these days but clearly not the case

I wonder what the point is of the stat that measures just 2 drives when there's one that measures all drives?!

"I wonder what the point is of the stat that measures just 2 drives when there's one that measures all drives?!"

I think it is because these are holes where virtually the whole field will use a driver. The difficult bit about using all drives is, unless the data is stratified to exclude non driver tee shots, the stat becomes useless.

Ah yeah ok fair enough Eyetoldyouso, thanks