How Rory McIlroy beat his three toughest challengers at East Lake

Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele all had their opportunities to catch Rory McIlroy.

This weekend’s Tour Championship was designed to be a 30-entrant stroke play event. As it developed, however, the handicapping system eventually turned the contest into a trio of match play fights: Rory McIlroy vs. Justin Thomas, McIlroy vs. Brooks Koepka and McIlroy vs. Xander Schauffele.

That Rory McIlroy won each of those showdowns thanks to his superior play is Captain Obvious level analysis. The numbers, however, reveal Mcilroy’s varying advantages over each of those three challengers.

McIlroy vs. Thomas: Thomas, of course, began with a five-stroke advantage over Rory McIlroy due to his better performance in the season-long FedEx Cup competition. But a breakdown of their season-long Strokes Gained performances suggests that five-stroke advantage inflated the true differences between them.

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Across the 2019 season, Mcilroy averaged 3.15 Strokes Gained per round in the four major categories – off the tee, approaching the green, around the green and putting. At an average of just 1.63 net Strokes Gained for the season, Thomas had nowhere near a comparable level of predictable performance.

That meant that as long as both men performed at something approaching their seasonal norms, McIlroy was destined to overtake Thomas.

Players don’t always perform up to their averages, which is why golf is an impossible game to predict. In this matchup, however, Rory McIlroy out-performed his season-long profile, averaging 3.284 strokes gained per round. He achieved the preponderance of that improvement thanks to his work around the greens. McIlroy gained a six-tenths of a stroke advantage on the field thanks to his short game, about twice his normal advantage.

That makes it pretty easy to grasp what happened to Thomas’s five-stroke head start: For four days he faced a better player performing above his norm, and the pressure imposed by that combination eventually brought Thomas down. It showed up most clearly in his iron game. For the season Thomas gained nearly a full stroke against the field due to his approaches. But at East Lake, he lost more than a half stroke to the field in that aspect of his game.

Never a strong putter, the failures in his approach game left Thomas with nowhere to make up the advantages McIlroy was steadily accumulating. The result was, by Thomas’ standards, a moderately sub-par performance equating to just .783 strokes gained per round.

Across four rounds, the difference between Rory McIlroy’s 3.284 Strokes Gained performance and Thomas’s .783 amounts to almost precisely 10 strokes. Factoring in Thomas’s five-stroke head start, their official scores –McIlroy 262, Thomas 267 – works out to exactly a 10-stroke difference.

McIlroy vs. Koepka: A head-to-head matchup of multi-major winners, both of whom can kill a teed-up golf ball, made for appointment viewing at times this weekend. Eventually, however, McIlroy put Koepka away in the same relentless fashion he wore down Thomas.

Koepka began with a two-stroke head start over McIlroy. His problem was that he also began with the same season-long performance disadvantage that ultimately did in Thomas. In Koepka’s case, the Strokes Gained numbers added up to 1.366, less than half McIlroy’s 3.15.

At his best, such as at May’s PGA Championship, Koepka has shown the ability to rise substantially above his season-long average. That’s the line, and also the knock, on Koepka: He plays well when he wants to. So there was a tendency to view that 1.366 average as merely a number, and a fairly meaningless one at that, not indicative of what Koepka would do when he was staring directly at McIlroy.

And that might have happened…had Koepka been able to control his ultimate weapon, his driver. At several crucial moments, however, it failed him. For the week, Koepka averaged -0.326 Strokes Gained Off The Tee, well off his season-long .468. In other words, Koepka spotted the field more than three-quarters of a stroke per round at the strongest aspect of his game.

There was no recovering from that handicap, not the way Rory McIlroy was playing and not even spotted two shots. His normally so-so short game and competent putter also deteriorated, wasting what was a superior performance with his approaches. Koepka averaged 1.187 Strokes Gained per round with his irons.

Overall, however, he was a one-note player. For the tournament, Koepka’s numbers added up to 1.321 Strokes Gained per round…basically what Koepka’s seasonal numbers predicted he would do, although hardly in the fashion those numbers predicted he would do it.

Across four rounds, that translated to 5.284 better than the field…but nearly eight strokes worse than McIlroy. Factoring out Koepka’s initial two-stroke advantage, McIlroy’s eventual five-stroke margin is close to right on. Koepka’s sub-standard driving game eliminated any hope he might have had of off-setting McIlroy’s excellence.

McIlroy vs. Schauffele: Since McIlroy began the tournament with a one-stroke advantage on Schauffele, the champion’s solid play fore-ordained the outcome of their duel. Credit Schauffele, though, for giving it a better shot than the other putative competitors.

Of the entire field, Schauffele came closest to stepping up to the challenge McIlroy’s game laid down. Against a season average of 1.392 Strokes Gained, Schauffele scored 2.533 at East Lake.

Like Koepka, most of Schauffele’s step-up came via his iron game. For the 2019 season, Schauffele averaged less than a half stroke pickup per round approaching the greens, but at East Lake, he averaged better than 2.00 strokes per round in that area. With irons in their hands, Schauffele had a 1.20 stroke per round advantage over McIlroy.

It was an advantage he was never destined to hold on to. At a season average of .456 Strokes Gained Off The Tee, Schauffele is not in McIlroy’s class driving the ball, and he didn’t measure up to even that standard at the Tour Championship. There he gained just better than a tenth of a stroke per round, wiping out the advantage his superior iron play had conferred.

Next. FedEx Cup: Rory McIlroy takes down Brooks Koepka to win 2019 TOUR Championship. dark

Since Rory McIlroy was statistically superior to Schauffele both around and on the putting greens, and since Schauffele was unable to offset either of those advantages, Mcilroy eventually pulled away from him too. Across four rounds, McIlroy’s advantage over Schauffele amounted to about three strokes. Given his one-stroke head start, it’s no surprise that McIlroy won by four.

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