From Tiger to Todd, why the fall season in golf mattered so much

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After 11 months, 49 events, and nearly 1.4 million shots hit, the PGA TOUR season concludes this week at the lucrative TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club. Merely making it to this point is a massive accomplishment on its own. This season, 641 players competed in at least one PGA TOUR event. That means that less than 4.7% of players to tee it up on TOUR in 2020-21 are in the field this week in Georgia, competing for the $15 million first-place prize. Twenty First Group’s pre-tournament win probability modeling considers player form, historic factors, course fit and more to deduce the chances each player in the 30-man field has at taking home the trophy this week. Of course, the Starting Strokes are factored in, too, providing another element of intrigue to the season-ending Championship. Here is a look at the six players with the highest pre-tournament win probabilities in Atlanta: 6. Jordan Spieth, -4 Win probability entering tournament: 1.9% Regardless of where he winds up finishing this week at East Lake, the resurgent season of Jordan Spieth has been of the game’s top storylines in 2021. While his return to the winner’s circle in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open was the biggest highlight, the rediscovery of consistently good iron play should be what has Spieth fans bullish about the years to come. A common misconception about Spieth is that his putting has been the difference when he is at his best. While his short game has been exemplary in his young career, his approach play deserves more recognition. In 2015, when Spieth won PGA TOUR Player of the Year, he averaged more Strokes Gained: Approach per round (+0.62) than Strokes Gained: Putting (+0.57). Two years later, when Spieth won three times on TOUR, he ranked a solid 48th on TOUR in putting, but was 2nd in Strokes Gained: Approach. The 2020-21 season has seen the return of some really good iron play from Spieth. Jordan has ranked in the top-30 on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach every week since April, at one point getting as high as 16th. That’s an enormous leap for a player that ranked 148th in that statistic just two seasons ago. Since firing a second-round 62 at Liberty National, Spieth has struggled in the six Playoffs rounds since, losing more than 11.4 strokes to the field tee-to-green. He’s hit less than 60% of his greens in regulation in that stretch, as well. Even so, Spieth has a long history of lighting it up in Georgia, whether in April or September, and cannot be totally ignored at East Lake. He begins the week six shots off the pace, with the sixth-best pre-tournament win probability, according to Twenty First Group predictive modeling. 5. Cameron Smith, -5 Win probability entering tournament: 3.6% With a blonde mullet, wispy mustache and propensity for lighting it up from long distance, Cameron Smith has done a bang-up impression of mid-1980s Larry Bird this season. Kidding aside, Smith’s ascent into golf’s elite, earmarked with a sparkling T-2 finish at the 2020 Masters Tournament, has been exciting to watch unfold. How else would you describe a player who has catapulted from 72nd in birdie average a season ago to 2nd this season? Smith has taken advantage of his opportunities to shine this season, both from an anecdotal and analytical standpoint. From a surface level, half of his top-ten finishes this season have come in major championships, WGCs and a FedExCup Playoffs event. Analytically, Smith has the third-highest birdie-or-better rate when he chooses to go for the green under regulation this season (70.0%). He also ranks second on TOUR in birdie conversion rate (37.7%). Talk about seizing the moment. 4. Tony Finau, -8 Win probability entering tournament: 11.3% In a year of bounce-back and breakthrough victories, perhaps no win was more cathartic for golf fans than Tony Finau’s playoff victory at THE NORTHERN TRUST. In his 40th top-10 finish since his first win, Finau finally picked up a second PGA TOUR title, something he had come achingly close to so many times along the way. Now, Finau has an opportunity to pick up the biggest victory of his career to date this week in Atlanta. Twenty First Group gives Finau a better than 11% chance at victory, pre-tournament. After being a-just-about-average putter all season long (+0.01 Strokes Gained: Putting in the regular season), Tony is lighting it up in the Playoffs, averaging +1.25 per round. Finau shot 63 Sunday at the BMW Championship, the lowest final round score of his PGA TOUR career. 3. Bryson DeChambeau, -7 Win probability entering tournament: 12.6% East Lake has shown to statistically favor elite drivers of the golf ball more than players with great approach play. Three of the last five winners of the TOUR Championship led the field that week in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. Meanwhile, none of the last five to win were ranked in the top-five that week in Strokes Gained: Approach. Since 2010, winners at East Lake have averaged more Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee per round (+0.69) than Strokes Gained: Approach (+0.41). It’s because of these factors that – despite a grueling finish in last week’s six-hole playoff classic at Caves Valley – Bryson backers should be enthusiastic about his chances to win the big prize. DeChambeau gained more than two full strokes on the field per round off-the-tee at the BMW Championship, the most for any player in a single 72-hole PGA TOUR event since Dustin Johnson at the 2018 Sentry Tournament of Champions. DeChambeau has racked up 57 birdies-or-better through two playoff events, six more than any other player. 2. Jon Rahm, -6 Win probability entering tournament: 20.2% Not just number one in the Official World Golf Ranking, Jon Rahm is number one this PGA TOUR season in scoring, birdie average, Strokes Gained: Total, Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, total driving, par 3 scoring and par 5 scoring. In his last 24 worldwide rounds, Rahm has a scoring average of just under 67.4. He has made birdie (or eagle) on 30.1% of his holes played during that span. Rahm’s only finish outside the top-ten since May was at the Memorial Tournament, when he held a six-shot 54-hole lead before having to withdraw due to a positive COVID-19 test. Rahm can bury the Player of the Year debate – and bring a flood of momentum to the coming Ryder Cup – with a win this week in Atlanta. He finished in fourth place at the TOUR Championship in 2020. 1. Patrick Cantlay, -10 Win probability entering tournament: 37.9% Patrick Cantlay’s putting superlatives from last week are seemingly endless. He accumulated the most Strokes Gained: Putting in a single PGA TOUR event since tracking began in 2004 – despite losing strokes to the field putting in Round 3! The PGA TOUR make percentage for putts from 10 to 20 feet is 25.6%. Last week, Cantlay made 61% of his putts from that range (14-for-23). Now the question is, does that incredible flatstick form travel south to Atlanta? Consider this: over the last ten PGA TOUR seasons, there are only three instances of a player leading a PGA TOUR event in back-to-back weeks in Strokes Gained: Putting. The last time it happened was in 2019, when Jordan Spieth led the field at the PGA Championship, then did it the following week at Colonial. Cantlay enters the tournament with a two-shot lead. For some context, over the last 15 years, players who hold a two-stroke lead after round one of a PGA TOUR event go on to win about 15% of the time. That number is about 34% for a 36-hole, two-shot lead, and 40% for players with a two-shot advantage entering the final round. Twenty First Group gives Cantlay a 37.9% chance at winning the $15 million prize this week.

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