Kapalua: These 10 have the hybrid game to win there
By Bill Felber
8. Patrick Cantlay
The list of players who had a better 2020-21 season than Cantlay is pretty short. He won the Memorial, the BMW and the Tour Championship, finished second on the season-ending money list and fifth in stroke average.
Cantlay’s secret was balance. At +0.569, he ranked 12th in Strokes Gained Off The Tee. At +0.486, he was 24th in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green. Only two players on the entire Tour – Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland — ranked higher than Cantlay in both categories last season.
Since he has not yet teed it up this current season, those are also his most recent figures.
7. Daniel Berger
Berger relies on his approach game, and excels when it excels. During his victory last February at the ATT, he averaged better than 1.5 Strokes Gained Approaching the Green per round.
That’s routinely Berger’s strength. For the season, he averaged +0.834 in that area, the fifth best such showing on Tour.
Like Schauffele, his driving game is closer to mediocre, generating only about a quarter-stroke benefit per round. Still the combination adds up to nearly a 1.1 stroke advantage on the field.
Berger played only one event since the end of the 2020-21 season, that being the Hero World Challenge in December. He tied for seventh. But since stroke data is not kept at that event, the 2020-21 season stats are the most current we have for Berger.