PGA Tour players are hitting new lows…in scoring

PGA Tour players are getting themselves into a scoring habit that hasn’t been seen in close to a decade.

And given the profligate way players usually treat par at this week’s Humana Open in Palm Springs, the scoring numbers are likely to only go lower this week.

Tour players have begun the 2022 portion of the current season with an all-out assault on par. One week after Cameron Smith won the Sentry Tournament of Champions with a record total of 34-under 258, Hideki Matsuyama survived a playoff against Russell Henley to win the Sony Open at 23-under 257.

Matsuyama’s winning score at the Sony is the lowest for that event since 2013 when Henley won by scoring 256.

That puts the year’s first two champions at a combined 57-under.

And it isn’t just the winners who are running wild. At the Sentry, the field average was a fraction from 20-under. At The Sony Open, the four-round field scoring average was 12-under.

For the entire 2021-22 season to date, the average performance of a PGA Tour player is 71.055 strokes. That’s nearly a quarter-stroke drop from this point in 2021, and a third of a stroke lower than the same point in 2019.

In fact, it’s been since 2014 that Tour players have run up better scores through this point in the season.

And given the fact that they’re playing in the California desert this week – a locale the pros always abuse – don’t expect anything to change soon. Since the Humana was reduced from five rounds to four in 2014, the average winning score there has been 24-under.

If this week’s winner merely posts a 24-under, it will run the three-week record of tournament champions to 80-under par. Since that 2014 format change at the Humana, that would be the lowest cumulative winning total by a full nine strokes.

The previous cumulative low for the three-tournament stretch occurred in 2019. That year Xander Schauffele won the Sentry at 23-under, Matt Kuchar won the Sony at 22-under, and Adam Long won the Humana at 26-under.