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The 2023 PGA Tour season: Approach, as always, is key to success

By Bill Felber

Aug 27, 2023; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Viktor Hovland looks over the fifth green during the final round of the TOUR Championship golf tournament at East Lake Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
Aug 27, 2023; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Viktor Hovland looks over the fifth green during the final round of the TOUR Championship golf tournament at East Lake Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports /
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PGA Tour, Viktor Hovland, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, 2023 PGA Tour Season
Rory McIlroy, 2023 Tour Championship, East Lake, John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports /

Off The Tee

The ability to drive the ball mammoth distances has been the talk of the PGA Tour in recent seasons. Average driving distance has increased by 12 yards – from 288 to 300 – just in the past decade. The leader, Rory McIlroy, averaged 326.3 yards, which is five yards longer than the leader just last season.

Despite that, the strength of the correlation between play off the tee and stroke average declined nearly seven points in 2023, the biggest drop since 2013. It was the third straight season on the PGA Tour that the correlation weakened.

More eye-catching is the fact that in 2023, for the first time since the 2010/11 PGA Tour season, play off the tee was less important than play around the green, where the correlation this season was -.503.

The two names at the top of the list for play off the tee are consummately familiar ones, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. Scheffler picked up 1.029 strokes against the average field for his play off the tee, while McIlroy, the game’s longest hitter, was at 1.016.

It is ironic that as players drive the ball farther, play off the tee becomes statistically less important.

Here’s the top 10

  1. Scottie Scheffler                 (1.029)
  2. Rory McIlroy                         (1.016)
  3. Kevin Yu                                 (0.909)
  4. Keith Mitchell                       (0.842)
  5. Patrick Cantlay                    (0.796)
  6. Brent Grant                          (0.779)
  7. Viktor Hovland                    (0.717)
  8. Hayden Buckley                  (0.706)
  9. Cameron Young                  (0.615)
  10. Trevor Cone                          (0.565)

The striking thing about this top 10 is that beyond the top two lines it looks relatively undistinguished.

Hovland (5) and Cantlay (6) are the only other members who were also top 10 in stroke average. Grant ranked 170th among 181 qualifiers in stroke average, and Cone was 152nd.

The average rank in stroke average of a player who was top 10 in strokes gained off the tee was a fairly ordinary 55th.

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