Approaching The Green
To the extent the Internationals can dominate by superior play, it will probably happen here. It’s not that the International team is statistically superior to the Americans, but they are competitive.
Six of the teams’ members ranked among the top 15 in Strokes Gained Approaching The Green last season. Thomas (+0.985) was second, Scott (+0.846) was fourth, Matsuyama (+0.759) was fifth, Woods (+0.646) would have ranked 10th had he played enough rounds, Cantlay (also +0.640) did rank 10th, and Simpson (+0.613) stood 14th.
The Internationals’ problem, in this category and generally, is depth. While none of the Americans ranked lower than Patrick Reed’s 81st in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green, half the International team did…and three ranked outside the top 100.
At a barely measurable +0.004, Smith’s 110th place ranking is worst among Presidents Cup team members.
If U.S. team members play to their skill level, their superiority in productively hitting greens will make a difference. U.S. team members averaged 1.111 standard deviations better than the tour average at approaching greens. Thomas, with a zen-like 2.423 standard deviation advantage, leads them.
Scott also performed at a level more than 2 standard deviations better than the tour average while Matsuyama, at 1.884 standard deviations, didn’t miss that level by much.
Strokes Gained Approaching The Green
Team Average SG Avg. rank Avg. Std. Dev.
United States 0.475 32.750 1.111
Internationals 0.282 64.250 0.725