Sentry Tournament of Champions: Schauffele, Woodland put on a show

The Sentry Tournament of Champions came down to a two-man race between Xander Schauffele and Gary Woodland. While Schauffele came out on top, both staged a superb joint demonstration of skills.

Sunday’s final round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions turned into an extended riff on one of the PGA Tour’s old favorite themes: These guys are good. Gary Woodland carried a three-stroke lead to the first tee Sunday and shot 68, a score that should have been good enough to win going away on the Par 73 Kapalua Plantation Course.

Yet Woodland did not win. Xander Schauffele laid down a course record-tying 62 that included a pair of eagles to claim the championship by one stroke.

It was not a case of Woodland doing anything to lose the tournament. It was a case of Schauffele barging through and winning it.

It would be interesting to pour back through the record books to uncover the last time a player took a three-stroke lead into the final round of a tournament, shot five under par, yet still got beat. But hey, who has that kind of time? This much is clear: the week’s two best players finished first and second.

To the extent documentation of that assertion is required, it is manifest in the Strokes Gained numbers. For the week, Schauffele and Woodland were the only two players to emerge on the plus side in all four of the major categories: Strokes Gained Off The Tee, Approach the Green, On the Green and Putting.

They both also vastly exceeded their Strokes Gained norms. Here are tables showing how each fared in Strokes Gained for the Tournament Of Champions compared with their averages. In the case of Schauffele, who had not played a measured round during the 2019 season prior to this week, the averages reflect his 2018 season performance.

Schauffele 2018 TOC

Off The Tee +0.24 +0.73

Approaching The Green +0.24 +1.17

Around The Green -0.03 +0.44

Putting +0.20 +1.34

Woodland 2019 TOC

Off The Tee +0.41 +0.97

Approaching the Green +0.97 +1.37

Around The Green +0.06 +0.26

Putting +0.29 +0.82

With the exception of a lackluster opening round, the extraordinary thing about Schauffele’s 72-67-68-62 was the breadth of his game measured against the norms he set during 2018. In all four of the major Strokes Gained skills, he performed between 3.5 and 5.5 standard deviations better than his 2018 average.

A 3.5 standard deviation improvement translates to about 99 percent, rising to about 99.99 percent for five standard deviations. Let me translate: At Kapalua, every phase of Schauffele’s game was virtually off-the-charts better than usual.

It showed on his scorecard, which featured more birdies (eight) than pars (seven) along with those two eagles and a first hole bogey, just to keep him humble.

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That cast Woodland in the unfortunate role of the guy who got in Schauffele’s way at the wrong time. In shooting 67-67-68-68-270, Woodland didn’t step up his game quite as much, but he wasn’t far from it. Both around and on the green, he measured at least 2.5 standard deviations better than usual. That’s a tough way to lose.

Schauffele’s winning score of 269 was 2.15 standard deviations better than the field average of 283.7. Compared with recent winners, that’s only so-so. Dustin Johnson won in 2018 with a score that was 2.37 standard deviations better than the field average.

But that needs to be understood in the context of two facts. One is that Kapalua played more than full stroke tougher last year. The second is that Johnson, who won by eight, beat a less competitive field. He certainly didn’t have Gary Woodland escorting him to the finish.

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So, in the end, the record books (and bank accounts) will show Xander Schauffele as the winner of the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions. But what we really got was two masterful performances nearly equally deserving of a victory. What a way to start the new year.

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