The big bombers have taken over on the PGA Tour

If you think adherents of the tee game are taking over the PGA Tour, you’ve never been so right.

The big losers in 2021? They were the guys who rely on fairways and greens.

During the 2021 season, for the first time since the Tour developed the Strokes Gained system in 2004, the ability to gain an advantage by a precision iron game was not the most important skill on Tour. That distinction now falls to the bombers, the players who gain their advantage with the long ball.

Based on season-ending PGA Tour data, the relationship between how well a player hit his approach irons and that player’s score fell to an all-time low of just .448 this season. That was a precipitous drop from the .684 relationship just last season and the historical .682 average since the implementation of the Strokes Gained system.

That decline in the importance of the iron game means the big drivers now rule the Tour. The relationship between Strokes Gained Off The Tee and score measured .566.

That’s nearly 12 points higher than Strokes Gained Approaching the Green and significantly higher than the other two major Strokes Gained calculating, around the green and putting.

The relationship between any two sets of numbers – a player’s Strokes Gained performance and his average score – can be measured using an equation known as Regression Analysis.

There’s no need to bore you here with the details; sufficient to say that in this case, the equation is designed to estimate the relationship between how well a golfer performs in any individual skill area and how well they ultimately score.

The closer the relationship is to 1.00, the stronger the relationship. A score approaching 0.00 indicates an insignificant relationship.

Historically, the Strokes Gained data has illustrated the overwhelming importance to a player’s score of the iron game. Until this year, the relationship hadn’t fallen below .600 since 2010, and then only to its all-time low of .599.

The steep decline in the importance of a player’s proficiency with his irons elevated the driving game to primary importance even though the importance of driving has been a relative constant for several seasons. In fact, the relationship between good driving and good scoring actually declined modestly during the 2021 season, from .581 in 2020 to .566 this season.

The all-time high relationship for driving to scoring was reached in 2012, at .624.

For the 2021 season, the relationship between recovery play around the green and scoring was .429. That was up significantly from .331 in 2020 and also above the historical average of .390. But it was still weaker than the relationship of either driving or iron play to scoring.

There is an impression that putting is the most important determinant of tournament outcomes. On a week-to-week basis, as players enjoy especially ‘hot weeks,’ that’s often the case.

But for the season as a whole, putting skill is actually the least important determinant of performance. In 2021 the relationship between a player’s Strokes Gained Putting, and his score measured just .417, the least significant of any of the four principal Strokes Gained skills.

For putting enthusiasts, the two bits of good news were first that the relationship hit its strongest level since .419 in 2015, and second that it rose above the historical .374 average.

The simplest way to appreciate the rise of the driving game relative to the approach game is to look at the five top performers in each category during 2021.

Here’s a table showing the five best during 2021 in both Strokes Gained Off The Tee and Strokes Gained Approaching the Green. The table also indicates the season-long scoring average of each player.

Player                                SG Tee      SG App.    Scoring Avg.       Rank

Bryson DeChambeau     1.162                            69.728                   4

Jon Rahm                           0.834                           69.300                   1

Sergio Garcia                    0.796                           70.423                 38

Rory McIlroy                     0.660                           70.043                 16

Viktor Hovland                 0.656                           69.888                    9

Collin Morikawa                                1.170          70.109                 20

Paul Casey                                          0.895         70.176                 26

Justin Thomas                                   0.887          69.773                   6

Keegan Bradley                                 0.856         70.489                 43

Daniel Berger                                     0.834         69.862                   8

The top five in Strokes Gained Off The tee averaged 69.876 strokes per round, about a two-tenths of a stroke advantage over the top five in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green.

They also had an average standing of 13.6 in scoring, with Rahm and  DeChambeau ranking among the top five. Among the top five in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green, none of the players ranked better than Collin Morikawa’s sixth-place finish.

The other notable stat involves the season-long overall scoring average. It was 71.08 strokes. That’s the highest Tour-long average in 15 seasons since 71.09 in 2006. That was also the last time the scoring average topped 71.00  strokes.

At 69.30, Jon Rahm led the Tour in scoring average.