Can anyone catch Justin Thomas at the Tour Championship?
By Bill Felber
Patrick Cantlay
The No. 2 player in the FedEx Cup list will begin at 8-under.
Cantlay has a modest advantage over Thomas off the tee, an advantage he’ll need to maximize if he hopes to make up that two-stroke handicap. Among the 30 players in the field, Cantlay stands 10th for the season at .556 Strokes Gained Off The Tee per round. Across four rounds, that translates to a pickup of about six-tenths of a stroke for Cantley, leaving him about 1.4 strokes behind Thomas.
He is a competent, if not dominant iron player. Measured by Strokes Gained Approaching the Green for the entire 2019 season, Cantlay is the ninth-best player in the field at .672. While that’s good, measured against Thomas’ average across four rounds Cantlay loses about 1.6 strokes, leaving him about three strokes in arrears to Thomas.
With a season-long Strokes Gained average of .39 around the greens, Cantlay ranks third among the Tour Championship competitors. Across four rounds, however, this only gives him a theoretical one-third of a stroke advantage on Thomas.
If Cantlay is to overhaul Thomas, he will do it on the greens. With a .545 Strokes Gained Putting average, he holds a significant statistical advantage over Thomas that works out to nearly three strokes across four rounds. For the field as a whole, Cantlay ranks fourth putting during the 2019 season.
In contrast to Thomas, Cantlay’s 2019 resume suggests a more predictable performance at East Lake. His average score is -8.50 strokes – the best in the field, by the way – with a two standard deviation range of 14.14 strokes. Not counting his eight-stroke handicap, that puts Cantlay’s predictable score between -23 and +6.