PGA DFS: The Memorial: Strokes Gained Analysis

Every fantasy sport has its set of data that helps to try 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 understand players’ strengths and weaknesses to better understand where they might perform best. Let’s dig in.

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Strokes Gained Analysis

Strokes Gained Total

Criteria: Number of starts over 2.0 and/or percentage of starts over 1.5

Rory McIlroy‘s consistency over the last 18 starts is unquestionable, but his last three since returning to play … not so much. Before that, he had 12-of-13 starts finishing with at least two strokes gained total while only doing it once in the last three starts. Still, to have a 77% rate of starts finishing over 1.5 strokes gained is still the best in the game, just ahead of Patrick Cantlay, who comes in at 76%. Justin Thomas comes in at 65% of his starts ending with at least 1.5 strokes gained, while Webb Simpson is at 71%. Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Hideki Matsuyama and Viktor Hovland all have accomplished this in at least 60% of their starts.
Over the last five weeks, Hovland has gained at least 1.5 strokes in all five starts, while Bryson DeChambeau and Lucas Glover are 4-for-4. Thomas is 3-for-4, as are Schauffele and Doc Redman. Abraham Ancer is 3-for-3.

Strokes Gained Tee to Green – Combination of Off the Tee, Approach and Around the Green

Criteria: Number of starts over 1.75 and/or percentage of starts over 1.25

When putting isn’t factored into strokes gained, but the other three stats remain, Thomas ousts McIlory in the top spot with 71% of his starts ending in at least 1.25 strokes gained tee to green. McIlroy, Matsuyama and Hovland are the other three that average 1.25 in at least 60% of their starts.
Paul Casey joins Jason Kokrak, Sungjae Im, Matsuyama, Thomas and McIlroy as the only golfers that have gained at least 1.75 strokes tee to green in eight of their starts.
Sergio Garcia and Harold Varner III have looked good over the last five weeks, gaining over 1.25 in 3-of-3 and 3-of-5 starts, respectively. Ancer also joins Glover, Hovland and DeChambeau in accomplishing this feat in all of their starts over the last five weeks.

Strokes Gained Ball Striking – Combination of Off the Tee and Approach

Criteria: Number of starts over 1.25 and/or percentage of starts over 0.75

I don’t even really need to write the first line in this section when Hovland is teeing it up because he’ll always have the best record in terms of percentage of starts hitting criteria. He’s gained over 0.75 in 100% of his starts. Thomas is second at 76% while Casey is the third. McIlroyis bringing up the rear in this group as the fourth and final member with at least 70% of starts (72%).
It was no surprise to see Joel Dahmen so popular last week, as he had gained at least 0.75 strokes ball striking his previous three starts since the return of golf, but he couldn’t keep that up. A few golfers have done it in all of their starts since the break though. Hovland and Bubba Watson are 5-for-5, DeChambeau and Glover are 4-for-4, and Cameron Champ and Ancer are 3-for-3.

Strokes Gained Short Game: Combination of Around the Green and Putting

Criteria: Number of starts over 1.25 and/or percentage of starts over 0.75

Only two golfers in the field now have gained over 0.75 strokes with their short game in over 50% of their starts: Simpson and Denny McCarthy. A few others climb up into the 40% range, including Jordan Spieth, Brandt Snedeker, Kevin Na, Maverick McNealy and Cantlay.
Over the last five weeks, Thomas, Schauffele, Ian Poulter, Brian Stuard, Rory Sabbatini, J.T. Poston, Mark Hubbard and Mackenzie Hughes have all done it three times.

Strokes Gained Off the Tee

Criteria: Number of starts over 1.0 and/or percentage of starts over 0.5

DeChambeau’s transformation in this category won’t be fully seen for a little while, but I fully suspect that he’ll gain a half stroke off the tee every single time he tees it up at this point. Right now, he’s only at about 50% of his starts in this database. McIlroy is close to 90% while Hovland, Rahm and Champ are the only ones to gain at least a half a stroke off the tee in 70% of their starts.
Kokrak joins DeChambeau as the only golfers to have gained at least a half a stroke the tee in all of their starts since the break with at least four starts. Matthew Wolff and Hovland have each done it four times in five tries, and Scottie Scheffler and Jason Day have done it three times.

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Strokes Gained on Approach

Criteria: Number of starts over 1.0 and/or percentage of starts over 0.5

Five golfers, not including Christiaan Bezuidenhout who has limited starts, have gained at least half a stroke on their approaches. They are Hovland,Casey, Thomas, Emiliano Grillo and Collin Morikawa.
Hovland is 5-for-5 since the return of golf, while Grillo has done it four times, as have Corey Conners, Redman and Glover.

Strokes Gained Around the Green

Criteria: Number of starts over 1.0 and/or percentage of starts over 0.5

Eleven golfers have gained at least half a stroke around the green in 40% of their starts. Some of those names are Poulter, Spieth, Byeong Hun An, Patrick Reed, Tony Finau and Tiger Woods.
Brian Harman leads this category over the last five weeks with four of his starts winding up gaining at least half a stroke around the green. Reed, Garcia and Si Woo Kim have all done it three times in the same period.

Strokes Gained Putting

Criteria: Number of starts over 1.0 and/or percentage of time gained over 0.5

McCarthy and Spieth are still the only golfers to gain at least half a stroke with the putter in 40% of their starts. McCarthy is doing it in 57% of his starts, while Spieth only 44%. Some honorable mentions are Simpson, Cantlay, McNealy and Wyndham Clark.
Sixteen golfers have gained at least a half a stroke putting in three of the last five weeks. Some of them include Hubbard, Patrick Rodgers, Mark Hubbard, Andrew Putnam, Ian Poulter, Matt Wallace and Adam Long.

For more info on this, check out my “Fit & Form Podcast” coming out within the hour (Tuesday @9am) to help you with all of this information and so much more!

The Strokes Gained Sheet

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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].