The Fall swing: Some Mid-Term Awards for the 2020 PGA Tour Season

The 2020 PGA Tour season is a few months in, so we take some time to present some awards partway through the fall swing. 

With this week’s playing of the WGC-HSBC, the fall portion of the 2020 PGA Tour is well underway. That makes this a good time for an assessment of the most noteworthy performances so far.

Best performance in a starring role

That, obviously, would be Tiger Woods. His three-shot victory at last week’s ZoZo Championship in Chiba, Japan, netted Woods his 82nd career win, tying Sam Snead’s all-time Tour record for victories.

More significantly, it sent notice to the host of PGA Tour Young Bucks that even approaching age 44, he remains a prodigious force on the tour. Woods led the field in birdies made with 27, and perhaps most importantly showed strong in both driving accuracy and greens-in-regulation stats.

Outstanding Single Week

At the season-opening Military Tribute at the Greenbrier, Joaquin Niemann shot 65-62-68-64 to rout the field by six strokes. Niemann’s dominance measured 3.32 standard deviations better than the field average of 272.46 for all players completing four rounds. That made it the single most dominant performance of the fall season to date.

At 2.62 standard deviations better than the ZoZo field, Woods is the runner-up.

Most Freakish Win

Niemann at the Greenbrier. As much as one might want to view Niemann’s victory as a harbinger of future stardom, it hasn’t worked out that way. In his four subsequent starts, Niemann has posted a T-12 at the  CJ Cup, but he’s also missed a cut (at the Shriners) and twice failed to break into the top 30.

Best Cameo

Woods, obviously. Until his debut victory at the Zozo, the leading candidate was Webb Simpson for his season-debut tie for seventh at the Shriners. It’s the only event Simpson has competed in so far.

Worst Cameo

Brooks Koepka is supposed to be the Tour’s dominant force. Perhaps the lights weren’t bright enough at the Shriners, the only event Koepka has played to date, but he shot an uninspired 70-71 and missed the cut.

Rookie of the (first part of) the year

Lanto Griffin debuted with a 13th place finish at the greenbrier. In his five subsequent events, he has not finished outside the top 20, capping that string with a victory at the Houston Open. He held off Scott Harrington and Mark Hubbard to win by a stroke.

Player of (the first part of) the year (minimum four starts).

Harris English (pictured above). This category comes down to two players whose records – while different – essentially balance out. Griffin’s five starts included his Houston victory, plus four top 20 finishes: Sanderson (T11), Greenbrier (13), Safeway (T17) and Shriners (T18). That’s striking consistency offset by the absence of a companion top 10 to go with his Houston win.

English may be a controversial selection because he hasn’t won this fall. But his four starts include three top 10s: T3 at Greenbrier, T4 at Houston, T6 at Sanderson, plus a T33 at Safeway.

In the end the numbers give English a slight advantage over Griffin. The average standard deviation of his performances relative to the field averages is -1.10, nudging out Griffin’s -1.02. The only two players even approximating those performances to date are Denny McCarthy (two top 10s in four starts, -0.67 std dev.), and Sungjae Im (two top 10s in five starts, -0.66 std, dev.)