This article is part of our PGA Tour Stats Review series.
The PGA Tour's run up to the Masters continues this week with the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Fla. But before we get to this week, a word about last week to start off this week's stats thread.
Dustin's Irons
Mark Broadie is the Columbia Business School professor who came up with the "strokes gained" statistic. Sometime this year, the next evolution in strokes gained stats, which will include things like "strokes gained-driving" and "strokes gained-approach shots" will become official stats. But in the meantime, he's been keeping it on his own and posting it onto PGATOUR.com. This week's post shed interesting light on Dustin Johnson's victory last week at Doral.
Everyone knows Johnson as a great driver of the golf ball, but check out what he did last week with his irons: he gained 2.7 shots per round on approach shot versus the field last week, which made up the majority of his 3.5 strokes gained-total. That's a HUGE advantage -- nearly 11 shots over the course of the week. Conclusion: for one week it was the irons, not the driver, that gave Johnson his ninth PGA Tour victory.
History Lesson
Johnson is not in the field this week (in fact there's only one player with the last name of "J" in the field), so the players won't have to worry about his strong iron game. The defending champion is John Senden, who beat Kevin Na by one shot. In 2013, Kevin Streelman defeated Boo Weekley by two,
The PGA Tour's run up to the Masters continues this week with the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Fla. But before we get to this week, a word about last week to start off this week's stats thread.
Dustin's Irons
Mark Broadie is the Columbia Business School professor who came up with the "strokes gained" statistic. Sometime this year, the next evolution in strokes gained stats, which will include things like "strokes gained-driving" and "strokes gained-approach shots" will become official stats. But in the meantime, he's been keeping it on his own and posting it onto PGATOUR.com. This week's post shed interesting light on Dustin Johnson's victory last week at Doral.
Everyone knows Johnson as a great driver of the golf ball, but check out what he did last week with his irons: he gained 2.7 shots per round on approach shot versus the field last week, which made up the majority of his 3.5 strokes gained-total. That's a HUGE advantage -- nearly 11 shots over the course of the week. Conclusion: for one week it was the irons, not the driver, that gave Johnson his ninth PGA Tour victory.
History Lesson
Johnson is not in the field this week (in fact there's only one player with the last name of "J" in the field), so the players won't have to worry about his strong iron game. The defending champion is John Senden, who beat Kevin Na by one shot. In 2013, Kevin Streelman defeated Boo Weekley by two, and in 2012 Luke Donald won that wild playoff over Sang-Moon Bae, Jim Furyk and Robert Garrigus.
Our recommendation is Donald this week. With a new teacher in tow and slowly working on recapturing his strong all-around form that got him to No. 1 in the world, Donald finished T7 at the Honda Classic, including a solid final-round 67 in tough conditions. For the week he was T10 in driving accuracy, a crucial stat this week at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook.
If you're looking for consistency you can also go with Furyk, who should do well on a course built for accurate players. For the 2014-15 season, Furyk ranks 10th in that category.
Who is Playing
The field also includes Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Daniel Berger, Alex Cejka (who won last week in Puerto Rico in a playoff), Ernie Els, Harris English, Padraig Harrington, Emiliano Grillo (who lost in the playoff), Matt Kuchar, Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Sam Saunders (who also lost in the playoff), Brandt Snedeker and Nick Watney.
Besides the obvious picks, we like Scott and Berger this week. Scott returned from a 10-week hiatus with the short putter and putted fantastically, tying for fourth in strokes gained-putting, gaining an average of just over three shots per round with the short stick. That put him 12th in the field. If he carries that over to this week, he could very well win the title.
Berger, meanwhile, nearly won the Honda Classic before losing in a playoff to Harrington, showing impressive form along the way. He's racked up three top-10s in 11 starts and ranks 24th in greens in regulation, 24th in strokes gained-tee to green and 26th in strokes gained-total.
