Can the PGA Tour Stats Help You with Fantasy Predictions?

Embed from Getty Images

Which player stats are really useful in predicting performance & what else should be considered?

Picking the winner of any golf tournament any week or any year is nearly impossible, unless it’s the old Tiger Woods playing. There are so many variables.

The kind of course, the strength of field, the putting surfaces, the weather, and on and on. If you are looking for an edge, you might think that looking at the stats of players’ performances from last year would give you a leg up, but if you take a really hard look, there’s a lot of fluff that could confuse you.

For instance, who was the most accurate driver of the golf ball last year on the PGA Tour?

For the 2015 season, and you really need to look at performance over time, Francesco Molinari was the best, hitting 76.88 percent of fairways. He was followed by David Toms.

More from Pro Golf Now

• Golf Rumors: LIV set to sign Masters Champion in stunning deal
• Fantasy Golf: Grant Thornton Invitational DFS Player Selections
• Brutal return leaves Will Zalatoris looking towards 2024
• Stars You Know at World Champions Cup Starts Thursday at Concession
• Fantasy Golf: An Early Look at the 2024 Masters Tournament

Now let’s look how this year’s champs in the biggest events fared in accuracy off the tee. We’re talking about Jordan Spieth, Zach Johnson, Jason Day and Rickie Fowler. Except for Zach Johnson, who was 8^th in driving accuracy for 2015, they were all much farther down the list. Spieth was 80^th, Fowler was 87^th and Jason Day was 162^nd. But they all had on weeks when it really mattered. So accurate driving may not be the best measure.

So far in 2016, Thomas Aiken leads driving accuracy, followed by Bill Haas and Fred Funk, who is actually more of a Champions Tour player. However Zach Johnson is currently tied for 4^th in accuracy on the 2016 list.   If the fairways are tight, as they are at Hilton Head, he’s good pick. But he has won on long, wide courses, including at this week’s course, Kapalua.

Greens in regulation, no matter where the drives go, is an important stat because you can’t have a birdie putt if you’re not someplace on or very close to the green.

Live Feed

FanSided

Last year’s leader in greens in regulation was, surprisingly, Henrik Stenson who is usually thought of as a long hitter. Of the biggest winners from last season, Day was 7^th, Johnson was 37^th, Spieth was 49^th and Fowler was 106^th in that category. If nothing else, that stat demonstrates the importance of a great short game.

Right now, leading the greens in regulation category for 2016, it’s Hao Ton Li followed by Ian Poulter.

If greens are missed, and we all know that happens. That means scrambling is also an important category. The current leader in that category for 2016 is Patrick Reed, followed by David Toms.

Of our four standouts from 2015, Spieth was 4^th in scrambling, which surprises no one who watched him play golf last year. Jason Day, however, was better. He was 2^nd. Fowler was 47^th and Johnson was 49^th.

And finally there’s putting. Jordan Spieth was the leader last year in several categories. He was No. 1 in putting average and No. 1 in one putt percentage. However, he was 32^nd in putting from three feet, 37^th in three-putt avoidance and 52^nd in putting from inside 10 feet.

Day was – no surprise—second in putting average. He was No. 1 in putting from three feet.   Day was 7^th in putting from inside ten feet, 37^th in three-putt avoidance and 16^th in one-putt percentage.

Johnson was 13^th in putting average, 63^rd in one-putt percentage, 8^th in three- putt avoidance and 101^st in putting from inside 10 feet.

Fowler was 12th in putting average. He was 35^th in one-putt percentage, 45^th in three-putt avoidance, and 3^rd in putting inside 10 feet.

Currently the overall putting average leader is Satoshi Kodaira, followed by Hao Tong Li, Patrick Reed, David Lingmerth and Jordan Spieth.

But the best measure of all is scoring average. The current scoring average leader for 2016 is Graeme McDowell, followed by Jason Bohn, Kevin Kisner and Dustin Johnson.

The PGA Tour now does scoring average two ways adjusted: scores and actual scores. The adjusted method, which no one really understands except tour officials, is a concept that will make your head hurt. The adjustments are made on the basis of conditions during the tournament and only tour officials understand this completely. The concept goes something like this: For example, if the wind is blowing 25 MPH then all the scores of the entire field are higher and so all scores are “adjusted” somehow to account for the bad conditions.

In 2015, while Jordan Spieth had the No.1 position in adjusted scoring average – which is just called scoring average, in actual raw scoring average he was No. 2 and Jason Day was No. 1. Day was No. 2 in adjusted average.

In 2015, Zach Johnson was 7^th in both adjusted scoring average and raw scoring average categories, and Rickie Fowler was 21^st in adjusted scoring average and 51^st in actual scoring average.

The current scoring average leader for 2016 is Graeme McDowell, followed by Jason Bohn, Kevin Kisner and Dustin Johnson.

The best advice on picking players in advance of tournaments is, if you want to dive deeper into the stats, beware of what stats you use. They may do more to confuse than help you. I don’t care how many miles of putts someone made. I want to know how many times a guy one-putted or avoided three putts. I want to know how many times was he on the green for a chance at birdie. I’d like to know how many times he hit it close enough to have a realistic birdie chance. I want to know how often was he in trouble off the tee.

But more than anything else, I want to know his skill at posting a score no matter where he was on the course.

Next: Kapalua: An In-Depth Look at the Course

If we learned one thing from the Tiger Woods era, we all should have learned that getting the ball in the hole in the fewest number of strokes is the key to winning. And that’s the only stat that really counts. If you want to pick a winner for each week, check the guy’s scoring averages for that tournament every time he’s played it, and see if it had unusual weather. That’s the best gauge. That or throwing a dart.