The fall Tour’s breakout stars
By Bill Felber
6. Talor Gooch
Gooch’s victory at this past weekend’s RSM drew attention to him. The reality is that he’s been building toward that breakthrough win this entire fall season.
Gooch’s RSM win came in his sixth fall Tour start. Only one of them, a 60th a week ago at Houston, did not glisten. The other four were all top 15s: a tie for fourth at Fortinet, for 11th at the Shriners, for fifth at the CJ Cup and for 11th again at Mayakoba.
The average Talor Gooch start this season is one full standard deviation better than the field of his peers. Subtract that Houston hiccup and it drops to nearly 1.5 standard deviations better.
How is Gooch, a 30-year-old whose already won more cash this season than in any of his previous five seasons on Tour, doing it? In Gooch’s case, it comes down to a measurably more precise iron game.
Here are Gooch’s season-by-season stats in the category of Strokes Gained Approaching the Green.
Season SG Approach
2017-18 +0.075
2018-19 +0.604
2019-20 +0.113
2020-21 +0.435
2021-22 +1.053
As the table shows, the ability to score with his approach shots has from the start been a relative advantage for Gooch. But in 2021-22 he’s turned it into a nuclear weapon. At the RSM, he gained more than six strokes on the field with his approach play, the overwhelming reason why he won by three.