FedEx Cup: Iron will key to big moves at THE NORTHERN TRUST

The race for the FedEx Cup can often come down to just a handful of well-timed shots. Iron play proved to be the key to making a big move at the Northern Trust.

If you wanted to make a move at Liberty National this week, you honed your irons. Among players who made big moves up the FedEx Cup leaderboard at this week’s Northern Trust, making up strokes with the approach game was the predominant attribute.

That’s unusual on the PGA Tour, where week in and week out success usually falls to the guy with the hot putter.

Liberty National, however, played as a second shot course, and it generously rewarded the most precise players.

A dozen players in this week’s field completed four rounds while fulfilling one of two conditions vital to their ultimate success in the FedEx Cup format. They either improved their FedEx Cup standing by a minimum of 8 positions or they climbed enough spots to move inside the top 70, ensuring a spot in next week’s BMW Championship at Medinah.

Of that group of 12, five could attribute their advance primarily to their skill at knocking down flags with their approaches.

Four others gained their principal advantage off the tee, but the gains were not nearly as large. Only one succeeded primarily due to chipping, and just two found their principal edge with their putters.

As quantified by the Strokes Gained system, the average advantage gained via iron play by the week’s dozen biggest movers was more than nine-tenths of a stroke, more than twice as large an advantage as that same group accumulated in any other skill area.

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That pickup was unusual and unexpected. During the regular PGA Tour season, those same dozen players had averaged a gain of just +0.130 in their approaches.

With 1.356 Strokes Gained Off The Tee, the tournament champion, Patrick Reed, gained the largest portion of his advantage in that aspect of his game. Yet Reed’s iron play also went a long way toward his victory and his simultaneous climb from 50th to 2nd on the FedEx Cup points list. Reed’s score of .658 strokes gained per round approaching greens this week was a half stroke better than his .142 season-long average.

Third place Harold Varner III was the week’s poster child for precision iron play. In climbing all the way from 102nd on the FedEx Cup points list at the tournament’s start to 29th at its finish, Varner used a per round score of 2.374 Strokes Gained Approaching the green. That dwarfed his .019 season average at that skill.

Runner-up Abraham Ancer merged a big week with the driver plus facility with irons. Ancer, who entered the week in a precarious 67th position on the FedEx Cup board, advanced 59 spots by picking up 1.49 strokes per round off the tee as well as an additional 1.074 strokes with his irons. That combination allowed him to overcome a sub-par putting week.

Next. 2019 BMW Championship Power Rankings. dark

Here’s a breakdown of the dozen players who made at least 10-position moves – or, in the cases of Troy Merritt and Joaquin Niemann who made the critical ones inside the FedEx Cup top 70 – and how they did it. Each player’s largest advantage is shown in bold.

Player Gain SG/Tee SG App. SG Ard. SG Putt

Harold Varner 73 0.097 2.374 0.341 0.029

Abraham Ancer 59 1.490 1.074 0.866 -0.338

Patrick Reed 48 1.356 0.658 0.536 0.792

Jordan Spieth 25 -0.403 0.793 -0.135 2.087

Louis Oosthuizen 23 -0.195 2.323 0.619 -0.406

Wyndham Clark 22 0.452 -1.020 1.084 1.076

Ian Poulter 17 0.046 1.812 0.381 -0.147

Troy Merritt 13 -0.356 -0.183 0.390 1.623

Ryan Moore 12 0.467 0.997 0.748 -0.620

Brandt Snedeker 11 0.147 1.221 0.081 0.893

Jason Kokrak 10 0.952 0.404 0.715 -0.230

Joaquin Niemann 4 0.655 0.565 -0.749 0.371

Group average 0.392 0.918 0.406 0.428

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