Mickelson is defying odds in his own way

Innovators often must endure criticism, and Sam Snead was no exception. Snead’s strategy off the tee would fit right in on today’s PGA TOUR, but it was anathema when he was a star in the middle of the 20th century. His contemporaries, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, were lionized for their accuracy. Snead was sometimes portrayed as a simple country bumpkin who swung for the fences. But he was on to something when he wrote, “I’d rather play a wedge second shot out of rough than a 5-iron from the fairway. … To me, playing terrain had to come second to reducing distance from tee to pin with the opening shot.” Snead reasoned that if the aim of the game is to get the ball in the hole as quickly as possible, then it’s advantageous to advance it as far as possible. Not everyone agreed. Grantland Rice, the renowned sportswriter, was among those who criticized Snead’s seemingly careless approach. “You’re going against the book,” Rice said, according to Snead. “Golf is a position game.” Some may argue that Snead’s propensity to pound drivers is the reason he never won a U.S. Open, but it also helped him set the PGA TOUR’s wins record (82), a mark he now shares with Tiger Woods. “I powdered them hard and into possible trouble because the percentage was with me,” Snead wrote. He’s been vindicated by the hard data, specifically ShotLink powered by CDW. ShotLink’s ability to track every shot allows players to replace intuition with objective measurement. Just as analytics assaulted many of baseball’s long-held beliefs, ShotLink has led to changes in golf’s orthodoxy. “You’re just trying to gain that little bit of an advantage,” said Joel Dahmen. “Out here we’re looking for microscopic advantages, we’re talking tenths of a shot.” ShotLink powered by CDW allows players to achieve those small, but incremental, gains by helping them make better decisions. By showing the scoring averages from different portions of the course, ShotLink allows an optimal course-management strategy to be devised. And players can receive answers to questions like, “Is it better to be 150 yards from the hole, but in the rough, or 180 yards away and in the fairway?” ShotLink can prove whether it’s better to aim at the flag with a wedge or 15 feet to the left. Some players like Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods intuitively knew the best way to navigate a golf course. Now the data allows more players to master the mysteries of proper course management. The data can be especially helpful to new pros, giving them knowledge that it used to take multiple seasons to accrue. It could be one contributing factor to the five wins we’ve seen since July from players under the age of 23. “With ShotLink, with all the data the club companies can give you to help you map out the course, that tells you where you’re making birdies and which is worse, the left rough or the right rough. All that stuff helps,” said Collin Morikawa, who won the Barracuda Championship in his sixth start as a pro. An array of analysts are now employed by TOUR players. Their spreadsheets determine the veracity of the game’s conventional wisdom and help players effectively balance risk and reward. They’ve become valuable members of players’ teams, alongside their caddie, coach, psychologist and trainer. Driving and approach play are two of the areas where data has had the biggest impact on decision-making. While no analyst worth his salt would advocate a one-size-fits-all approach, some themes have emerged. ShotLink has largely confirmed Snead’s theory, that the penalty one receives from finding the rough slightly more often is offset by the gain of being closer to the hole. And an even bigger advantage is accrued when the longer tee shot finds the fairway. But when hitting approach shots, players often take on too much risk, especially with short irons. Traditionalists may hate the “bomb and gouge” style of play, even if Snead was advocating for it in the middle of the 20th century, but it’s backed up by data. Scott Fawcett, a course-management consultant to several pros and collegiate programs, says players should hit driver as long as the landing area fits a couple criteria, most importantly that there’s 65 yards between penalty areas. The criticism of “aggressive” play from the tee is often based on a false dichotomy that says the safe play was guaranteed to find the fairway while the longer club was destined for the rough. That, of course, isn’t the case. Even when a longer shot may leave the tricky half-wedge shot that TOUR players purportedly hate, it’s still advantageous in most situations to hit the ball closer to the green. The data shows that it takes TOUR players almost an identical number of strokes to hole out from 90 yards in the fairway (2.76) as it does from 40 yards in the rough (2.77). From 40 yards out and in the fairway, a TOUR player takes 2.59 strokes to hole out. “Unless there’s water guarding the pin, I try to get it as close to the green as possible on my second shot (on par-5s),” FedExCup leader Webb Simpson wrote in Golf Digest. “I used to lay up to 90 or 100 yards, but I studied my stats and I’m just as good or better from 60 yards. So now I go for it.” Charles Howell III points to the 13th hole at Bay Hill as an example of how the stats have changed his strategy. He often laid back on the 370-yard hole because he didn’t want to be left with a touchy wedge shot to a green fronted by water. Laying back meant hitting between two fairway bunkers, though. Now Howell hits driver off the tee, even though the tee shot often runs through the downhill fairway and into the rough. For Dahmen, the data led to a different conclusion. It showed that he should be less aggressive on reachable par-5s. He likes his long clubs, but he was making too many bogeys in an attempt to make eagle. Now he’s trying to leave himself an easy up-and-down or two-putt instead of aiming at the flag and risking being short-sided. “I’m try to get it in the right position, which isn’t necessarily on the green,” Dahmen said. “That’s probably the biggest one for me. My par-5 scoring has improved a ton and it’s because I’m not even trying to hit it on the green sometimes.” While the math favors more aggressive play off the tee, it often asks players to temper their expectations into the greens. Nelson once said he was trying to hole any approach with a 7-iron or shorter, but the data has shown that TOUR players, though they’re the best in the world, may not possess such pinpoint accuracy. In reality, TOUR pros average three strokes to get the ball in the hole from 170 yards and in the fairway. If a player feels invincible with a short-iron in his hand, he may be taking on more trouble than he should. “I think about 50-60% of your swings are effectively the same, but there are so many small, random variables – a couple millimeters difference in contact, a couple miles per hour of wind – that impact where your ball ends up,” Fawcett says. If a player averages 30 feet from the hole from 150 yards, then he or she should imagine the target as the center of a circle with a 30-foot radius. Fawcett likes to say that even though players like to imagine they’re firing a sniper rifle, they actually should imagine it’s more like a shotgun pattern. In simple terms, Fawcett uses Strokes Gained numbers to find the circle that covers an area with the lowest expected scoring average. This often means hitting closer to the center of the green than pros are accustomed to. Using quantitative methods to select targets also allows players to have more confidence in their target selection. “When you hit a shot, you observe only one outcome, but you need to plan for the range of outcomes that could happen, taking into account the likelihood of each,” Broadie wrote. “Football coaches develop game plans to take advantage of the opposing team’s weaknesses. Baseball managers have a strategy toolkit that includes lineups, pitching changes and defensive alignment. “Coaches, managers and players in many sports engage in constant strategy sessions to try to maximize their chances of winning. Although we don’t always think of it, in golf a good game plan also increases our chances of (shooting) a better score.”

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THE OVERVIEW The projected lowest number is 352. According to the PGA TOUR’s ShotLink team, that’s the minimum number of points needed after this week’s Wyndham Championship to make the 125-man field advancing to the FedExCup Playoffs. A year ago, the No. 125th player after Wyndham had 454 points. In 2015, it was 458 points. In 2014, it was 438 points. If the projections (the high-end projection is 363 points) hold after this week, 352 points is significantly lower than in recent years. In fact, it would be the lowest minimum points since 2011, when it took 334 points to make the Playoffs. Why the decrease? With FedExCup points now determining which players get their PGA TOUR cards, the FedExCup tie tables were adjusted this season in order to more closely align with the money list (which previously had been a determining card factor). The changes placed greater emphasis this season on high finishes, particularly top 10s – much like the standard purse breakdown. Theoretically, more points are now weighted at the top – and with four players winning three or more tournaments this season, that point distribution was weighted even more. Consider this: the top four in points going into Wyndham are Hideki Matsuyama (three wins), Justin Thomas (four wins), Jordan Spieth (three wins) and Dustin Johnson (three wins). They’ve combined for 10,694 points. A year ago, the top four in points going into Wyndham had a combined 9,500 points. By collecting nearly 1,200 more points, the top four have made the points list more top-heavy this season. Based on the 352 projection, that means 122 of the 125 players in points have already accumulated enough points to make the Playoffs – meaning that three spots are still up for grabs. The three players currently inside the top 125 who are not yet at 352 points are Seamus Power, Daniel Summerhays and Geoff Ogilvy. They are wearing the targets at Sedgefield that all others outside the top 125 now have their sights on. (Click here to see the live projected points standings). It’s the story within a story that makes the Wyndham Championship so intriguing each season. Sunday didn’t go the way he wanted at the PGA Championship. Hopefully he’ll focus on the positives from last week. His results on TOUR this season seem eerily similar to his results going into the 2015 Wyndham … which he won at age 51. His first win. His best major finish. It’s been quite a two weeks for Stroud, who’s reaping the benefits for his perseverance. THREE PLAYERS TO PONDER THE FLYOVER The 507-yard par-4 18th is the longest par-4 at Sedgefield; it was also the toughest hole on the course last year, playing to a stroke average of 0.301 strokes above par. That made it the sixth toughest closing hole on the PGA TOUR last season. Here’s an overview of the hole. THE LANDING ZONE The par-4 eighth is the easiest and shortest par-4 at Sedgefield, with a scorecard length of 374 yards. In two of the four rounds last year, the hole played at 351 yards. No player drove the green; the longest recorded drive was 318 yards. With a bunker guarding the left front of the green, and other bunkers along the fairway to the right of the landing zone, the play for most is to land short of the left bunker, leaving a short wedge shot. Players still have to guard against the creek running up the left side; 10 players took penalty strokes last year. Here’s a look at where all drives landed in 2016. WEATHER CHECK PGA TOUR meteorologist Stewart Williams says potential scattered afternoon showers and thunderstorms are in the forecast for Thursday. Added Williams: “Looks like an approaching cold front will keep the chance for showers and thunderstorms in the forecast Friday into Friday night. The front should slowly push to the south of the Triad on Saturday, decreasing our chances for thunderstorms as we go through the day. Partly cloudy skies can be expected on Sunday with highs in the upper 80s.â€� For the latest weather news in Greensboro, North Carolina, check out PGATOUR.COM’s Weather Hub. SOUND CHECK It’s a great course, a lot of character. You’ve got to hit a lot of different shots off the tees, into the greens, a lot of different clubs. I enjoy golf courses like that. ODDS AND ENDS 1. EASY GREENS. Last season, the greens at Sedgefield played as the second-easiest greens to hit from inside 125 yards of any course on TOUR. Players hit the green in 1,829 of 2,055 attempts (89 percent) from inside this distance. 2. 54-HOLE JINX. In the last 17 PGA TOUR events, the 54-hole leader has failed to convert that lead into victory a total of 15 times. The only player in that span to win after carrying the third-round lead is Jordan Spieth, who did it at both the Travelers Championship and The Open Championship. 3. TOP 5 OPPORTUNITY. Kevin Kisner, who at No. 9 is the highest-ranked FedExCup player in the field, is the only player who can move inside the top 5 should he win this week. 4. THREE OF 16. Of the 16 players who have qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs every year, three are in the Wyndham field – Bill Haas (34), Ryan Moore (67) and Luke Donald (105). All three are guaranteed a Playoffs spot for the 11th consecutive year.

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