PGA DFS Picks: Strokes Gained Analysis for the Corales Championship

Every fantasy sport has its set of data that helps to project what’s going to happen. In professional golf, that’s done by a metric called Strokes Gained. Created by Mark Broadie, a professor at Columbia, it measures a golfer against others on a shot-by-shot basis. That’s compiled then for daily, weekly and yearly stats, or however long your database goes for. The database we will be working with for PGA DFS covers about 18 months’ worth of tournaments. While making PGA DFS picks is typically about recent form, we like to learn players’ strengths and weaknesses to better understand where they might perform best. Let’s dig in.

Strokes Gained Analysis for the Puntacana Championship

With 144 players in the field, we have plenty of data to analyze and over 30 rounds of strokes gained data. Twenty-nine golfers haven’t had any starts in the database or only have one.

Strokes Gained Total

Data Set: Six golfers in the field have gained two strokes or more four times over the past 33 or so starts: Matt Jones, Sepp Straka, Mackenzie Hughes, Xinjun Zhang, Pat Perez and Kristoffer Ventura.
Eight Weeks: In the last eight weeks, no golfers have gained at least 1.25 strokes total more than once, while two of done it twice — Sam Burns and Denny McCarthy. Talk about a variable week incoming. Ventura, Zhang, Perez, Cameron Percy and Doug Ghim have done it once.
Graphic: The strength of this field is apparent, as Will Zalatoris, with just one start, finds himself in the top 10 of total strokes gained over the last 10 weeks. Hughes, Zhang and Adam Long all find themselves in the upper echelon of his field in terms of strokes gained. Ghim and Michael Gligic are a few of the surprising names in this section.

Strokes Gained Tee to Green

Dataset: When we take putting out of the equation, Emiliano Grillo jumps to the top of the list, with five starts where he’s gained at least 1.75 strokes tee to green. Henrik Norlander, Wes Roach, Corey Conners, Ryan Armour and Zhang all have four.
Eight Weeks: Sadly, not even Grillo has gained more than 1.25 strokes tee to green twice in the last eight weeks, with the highest number still sitting at one. Burns, Conners, Kyle Stanley, Brian Stuard and Luke List have done it once.
Graphic: It’s fair to just remove the top left of the graph at this point. A few names that are popping up quite a bit are Burns, Ghim, Stanley and Gliglic.

Strokes Gained Off the Tee

Dataset: Finally we have a category that there are some noticeable outperformers. Conners has gained more than one stroke off the tee in eight of the last 30 starts, while Jhonattan Vegas has done it in 7-of-20, Keith Mitchell 7-of-27, Will Gordon 4-of-8 and Burns 5-of-25.
Ten Weeks: Conners has gained at least a quarter of a stroke six times in the last 10 weeks. Seven other golfers have gained strokes off the tee in every one of their starts over the previous 10 weeks: Beau Hossler, Chris Baker, Anirban Lahiri, Brandon Hagy, Bronson Burgoon, Chris Kirk and Bill Haas.
Graphic: Burns and Gordon have both been very impressive over the last 10 weeks off the tee, as have Ryan Brehm, List and Stanley.

Strokes Gained on Approach

strokes gained

Dataset: It’s quite clear, and without surprise, that Grillo is by far the best iron player in this field. He’s gained over a stroke 12 times in 25 starts, the only one to do that double-digit times. Conners has done it in seven of 30 starts. Henrik Stenson and Stanley have also done it seven times.
Eight Weeks: Conners is the only one to have gained at least a half a stroke with his irons three times in the past eight weeks, with Grillo, Armour, Hoffman, Baker, List, McCarthy, Ghim and Grayson Murray have all done it twice.
Graphic: Taking out Zalatrois, again, Baker has looked the most impressive with his irons as of late. Hank Lebioda, Martin Laird and Ryan Blaum have all also looked good in very limited starts.

Strokes Gained Around the Green

Dataset: Armour and Fabian Gomez have been the best around the green, gaining at least a stroke five different times. Three others have four: Hughes, Rob Oppenheim and Aaron Baddeley.
Eight Weeks: Three golfers have gained a quarter of a stroke three times: Hughes, Long and Adam Schenk.

Strokes Gained Putting

strokes gained

Dataset: Hughes has been incredible with his putter over the last 10 weeks but isn’t even close to as good as McCarthy, who gained over 1.25 nine times. Hossler has done it seven times, as has Patton Kizzire. Patrick Rodgers is the only other golfer with five.
Eight Weeks: A note on Hughes: All four four times he’s gained over 1.25 strokes putting have come in the last 10 weeks. Others like Straka, Long and Zhang have also been putting well.
Graphic: David Hearn has looked good in his limited starts over the last 10 weeks, as have Ventura, Vincent Whaley and Zack Sucher.

Strokes Gained Sheet

Click here for google sheet link.

Follow us on all of our social channels! Check out our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more great Awesemo content.

Looking for more PGA DFS picks content? We’ve got loads of articles, data, cheatsheets, and more on the Awesemo PGA home page. Just click HERE.

Author

Jason Rouslin

Jason established his roots in the littlest state that could...Rhode Island. But after 29 years of bitter cold, and only being able to play golf 4 months a year, upended those roots and moved to Florida. Now four years later, Jason is a husband to Sarah and father of two boys, James & Myles. A dog and more specifically Lab lover (Bella), he dedicates his time to serve as the lead of PGA content at Awesemo.com. In the time he is not diving into the PGA stats and covering this week's current tournament, you can find him researching and trading stocks, on the golf course, at Disney World, on a hike, or somewhere in between. Want to chat? Have a question about Golf/Stocks or anything else? Hop on twitter and give him a message @dfsgolfer23. You can also contact Jason by emailing [email protected].