With another year in the books on the PGA TOUR, it’s important (or maybe just fun) to stop and reflect upon some of the great rounds we witnessed last season.
With the PGA TOUR providing ShotLink data for roughly 14,000 individual player rounds during the 2015-16 campaign, we can really dive in and begin to categorize some of those great rounds.
Read this excellent primer on the new sub-categories of strokes gained metrics if you are unfamiliar with them.
Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s see how our favorite golfers stacked up this year...
Best Driving Performances
Tony Finau (3.68 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R1, RBC Heritage
Rory McIlroy (3.32 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R4, Wells Fargo Championship
Andrew Loupe (3.07 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R1, Wells Fargo Championship
Rafa Cabrera Bello (3.00 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R4, Shell Houston Open
Tony Finau (3.00 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R2, AT&T Byron Nelson
Dustin Johnson (2.86 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R1, AT&T Byron Nelson
Dustin Johnson (2.75 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R1, FedEx St. Jude Classic
J.B. Holmes (2.74 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R2, PGA Championship
Michael Bradley (2.69 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R3, FedEx St. Jude Classic
Cameron Percy (2.68 strokes gained off-the-tee) -- R4, FedEx St. Jude Classic
What’s most impressive about Tony Finau‘s performance is the venue in which it was accomplished. Harbour Town Golf Links is not a course where you can typically grip-it and rip-it. During round one, the field averaged just 268 yards off the tee. Finau eclipsed that by 15 yards while also tying for the most fairways hit (12 of 14).
It’s always a good sign for the reliability of stat when you see repeat offenders. On the top 10 list above we see Tony Finau twice and Dustin Johnson twice. If we expanded our list to the top 25 driving performances last season, DJ owns five of those slots.
While Johnson may have been the most consistently good driver of the golf ball last year, there is no denying the power of Rory McIlroy. During the fourth round of the Wells Fargo Championship he averaged 324 yards on his drives. He only found the fairway on eight of those, but 12 of the 14 drives were over 300 yards.
There were only 15 instances (ShotLink tournaments only) of golfers hitting it 300+ on 13 drives in any given round. Four of those belonged to J.B. Holmes, who is also the only golfer to blast it 300+ on all 14 drives in a single round last year. That happened in round three of the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
Best Iron Play
As the old saying goes, “Drive for Show and Putt for Dough.” What about what’s in between? Well, modern statistics actually show that’s where the cookie dough is produced in high volumes.
Jim Furyk (6.32 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R4, Travelers Championship
Shane Lowry (6.00 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R1, The Honda Classic
Hideki Matsuyama (5.83 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R3, WGC-Cadillac Championship
Roberto Castro (5.35 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R2, Wells Fargo Championship
Robert Garrigus (5.22 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R4, Barbasol Championship
Wesley Bryan (5.21 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R2, John Deere Classic
Martin Piller (5.11 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R1, Wells Fargo Championship
Henrik Stenson (5.10 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R2, PGA Championship
Steve Stricker (5.08 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R3, FedEx St. Jude Classic
Will MacKenzie (5.07 strokes gained approaching-the-green) -- R1, John Deere Classic
The top measured round belongs to Jim Furyk during his magical round of 58. Was it the overall best round of the year? More on that later. For now, we can talk about how Furyk landed all 18 greens in regulation, setting himself up with an average par-breaking look from 20.3 feet.
Unlike strokes gained off-the-tee, we don’t see any overlap in the top 10 here. Hideki Matsuyama earns the honor of first repeat. He appears again as the 15th-best approach-the-green round. Expanding even further, Matsuyama shows up four times in the top 90! No wonder his stock continues to rise.
Adam Scott was the man who led the TOUR in this regard last season, and it wasn’t even close. For the season he averaged 1.491 strokes gained approaching-the-green, while Kevin Na checked in at second place, gaining 0.788 strokes per round. How consistent was Scott? He beat the field average approaching-the-green in 51-of-56 measured rounds, 35 of those rounds beat the field average by more than a stroke!
Best Display of Short Game Wizardry
While approach play is the staple of great rounds, solid play around the greens can save a round that’s falling apart or turn an okay round into a great round.
Ken Duke (4.485 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R1, Valspar Championship
Geoff Ogilvy (4.019 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R2, RBC Canadian Open
Patrick Reed (3.904 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R1, Valero Texas Open
Patton Kizzire (3.874 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R4, Northern Trust Open
Spencer Levin (3.869 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R2, RBC Canadian Open
Brendon Todd (3.78 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R2, John Deere Classic
Danny Lee (3.76 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R2, THE PLAYERS Championship
Jamie Lovemark (3.726 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R4, Northern Trust Open
William McGirt (3.72 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R1, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational
Rod Pampling (3.682 strokes gained around-the-green) -- R4, Quicken Loans National
Not as much firepower as the first two lists. That is for obvious reasons when you consider the category we are looking at.
For one, this stat punishes great iron play. If you’re posting a lot of rounds with 14-to-18 greens in regulation, it’s going to be really hard to accumulate strokes around-the-green. The average number of greens hit by the top 25 SG:Around-the-Green performances was just 9.4 in 2016. You have to go all the way to #76 to find a performance that was accomplished with 15 GIR.
Not to diminish the skill of these pros, but standout short-game performances are often about luck. Nine of the top 12 performances featured two hole outs on the round. If you miss a lot of greens, you’ll have more chances to hole one out from just off the green, so that’s checks out with what we were just talking about.
Interestingly, William McGirt and Danny Lee were the only two golfers that found their way into the Top 100 Around-the-Green performances three times last year. They also finished outside the top 90 in the season-long rankings on this stat. I would guess they are very aggressive around the greens, which leads to more hole outs but also leaves them with plenty of tricky knee-knockers when the chips miss the cup and go five or six feet past.
Best Putting Performances
George McNeill (6.895 strokes gained putting) -- R1, The Honda Classic
Justin Hicks (6.652 strokes gained putting) -- R1, The Honda Classic
Brian Stuard (6.402 strokes gained putting) -- R1, Zurich Classic of New Orleans
Rafa Cabrera Bello (6.178 strokes gained putting) -- R1, Wyndham Championship
Jamie Lovemark (5.831 strokes gained putting) -- R1, Travelers Championship
Hunter Mahan (5.665 strokes gained putting) -- R3, Frys.com Open
Hudson Swafford (5.571 strokes gained putting) -- R2, Barbasol Championship
Rickie Fowler (5.462 strokes gained putting) -- R2, Shriners Hospitals for Children Open
Ben Martin (5.447 strokes gained putting) -- R3, John Deere Classic
Charles Howell III (5.4 strokes gained putting) -- R2, Farmers Insurance Open
Just like the category above (around-the-green), there is a caveat that comes with great putting rounds. Looking at the top-10 putting rounds above, we also see their average proximity to the hole rank of that same round being 61st. Basically, you need to be perfectly average, or even below average, with your irons if you want to gain massive strokes with the putter.
The honey hole for average proximity seems to be 35 feet, which allows you lots of opportunities to sink some long putts without being so far that 3-putts force themselves into the equation. Sinking long putts is exactly what Charles Howell III did during the second round of the Farmers. He’s the only golfer on the list above that needed more than 25 putts on the round (he took 27), but he also sank three putts from outside 25 feet. In total, he rolled in 168 feet worth of putts in that single round.
Who made the most feet of putts in a single round last season? That would be Rickie Fowler in his second round navigation at the Shriners. He splashed home 215 feet worth of putts, good for the ninth-best strokes gained putting performance of the season.
Jason Day had one of the best putting seasons ever on TOUR last year, but he did it through conistency. Nine of his 54 measured rounds last season were inside the top 1000, but none were inside the top 300. Looking at the actual SGP of those rounds, he gained at least one stroke putting in 31 of those 54 rounds and lost strokes to the field in just 10 rounds (18.5%). For this stat that traditionally comes with a lot of variability, that is tremendous consistency.
Best Overall Rounds
Jim Furyk (10.658 strokes gained total) -- R4, Travelers Championship
Ken Duke (10.592 strokes gained total) -- R3, THE PLAYERS Championship
Jimmy Walker (9.904 strokes gained total) -- R3, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Jhonattan Vegas (9.412 strokes gained total) -- R2, Barbasol Championship
Si Woo Kim (8.955 strokes gained total) -- R2, Wyndham Championship
Hideki Matsuyama (8.592 strokes gained total) -- R3, THE PLAYERS Championship
Brendan Steele (8.581 strokes gained total) -- R1, Valero Texas Open
Camilo Villegas (8.417 strokes gained total) -- R1, Northern Trust Open
Smylie Kaufman (8.282 strokes gained total) -- R4, Shriners Hospitals for Children Open
Colt Knost (8.113 strokes gained total) -- R2, THE PLAYERS Championship
There are a few obvious omissions here. ShotLink is not utilized at every event or every course. In one case (Brandt Snedeker) the weather forced ShotLink to be out of service for a round. However, we are able to quickly analyze overall round performances just by looking at the leaderboards, so here are some of the notable rounds that took place when ShotLink wasn’t in service:
Sung Kang (10.788 strokes gained total) -- R2, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Henrik Stenson (9.383 strokes gained total) -- R2, Open Championship
Phil Mickelson (9.026 strokes gained total) -- R1, Open Championship
Brandt Snedeker (8.901 strokes gained total) -- R4, Farmers Insurance Open
Daniel Summerhays (8.613 strokes gained total) -- R2, U.S. Open
Louis Oosthuizen (8.613 strokes gained total) -- R2, U.S. Open
Charl Schwartzel (8.383 strokes gained total) -- R2, Open Championship
Andrew Landry (8.244 strokes gained total) -- R1, U.S. Open
Jordan Spieth (8.090 strokes gained total) -- R1, Masters
One thing to note is these are raw strokes gained figures, not adjusting for strength of competition. This second list certainly rises when you account for strength of field, since most of these occured in major championships against the strongest of fields.
You can’t forget about situational factors, either. Brandt Snedeker, for example, torched the South Course at Torrey Pines in near-impossible conditions. He was the only golfer under par for the round, during a round when 23 golfers posted scores in the 80s, and he did it when it mattered most, coming from behind to snag the victory.
People will talk about Furyk’s ’58' forever, and rightfully so, but Sung Kang deserves a little attention, as well. Kang fired an 11-under 60 during round two of the AT&T Pro-Am while the field averaged 70.788 at Monterey Peninsula that day. The real takeaway here is that Fluff Cowan may be the greatest caddie to ever live, since he was on the bag for Furyk’s 58 and was also temp-caddying for Kang during his remarkable round at Pebble Beach.
