PGA Tour: How to win with the season’s most important skills
By Bill Felber
SG Off The Tee: 58.9
The 58.9 percent correlation between Strokes Gained Off The Tee and scoring average was the fourth-strongest since the statistic was first calculated in 2004 and significantly stronger than the 50.2 average. for that period.
That’s more evidence in support of those who like to view distance as increasingly vital among the typical Tour pro’s skills.
As recently as 2014, the correlation between Strokes Gained Off The tee and scoring average was a more moderate 41.6 percent.
It should come as no surprise that the trendsetter off the tee in 2020 was Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 leader in Strokes Gained Off The Tee at +1.039. That was four-tenths of a stroke better than the category runner-up (Cameron Champ +0.999) and an impressive 2.92 standard deviations better than the Tour average.
This is a category illustrating the vast player-to-player distinctions in performance. Dechambeau was just one of four players in 2020 who exceeded Tour norms in this category by more than two standard deviations. The others were Cameron Champ (2.814), Sergio Garcia (2.369) and Jon Rahm (2.097).
At the other end of the scale, a fairly extraordinary nine Tour players fell more than two standard deviations below the Tour average in Strokes Gained Off The Tee. Those deficient nine were Patton Kizzire (2.083), Nelson Ledesma (2.209), Peter Uihlein (2.268), Aaron Baddeley (2.304), Martin Trainor (2.375), Dominic Bozzelli 2.608), Rhein Gibson(2.752), Jimmy Walker (2.814) and Andrew Putnam (3.440).