Welcome to the Numbers to Know, where we’ll take a closer look at Webb Simpson’s victory at the RBC Heritage. It was Simpson’s second win of the season and moved him to No. 1 in the FedExCup. Let’s dive right in. 1. RUN TO REMEMBER: This win, the seventh of Simpson’s career, was the latest in an impressive run over the past year. Since last June, Simpson has two wins, four runners-up and one third-place finish. That’s the most top-three finishes TOUR in that span. He has finished in the top-3 in half of his six starts this season alone. 2. GOIN’ LOW: Good iron play and strong putting are a recipe for low scores, so it should be no surprise that no one has been going lower more often than Simpson recently. He ranks seventh in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and 13th in Strokes Gained: Putting this season. He was eighth and second in those two categories at the RBC Heritage, respectively. Simpson shot 65-65-68-64 to win Sunday by a shot. Simpson has the most rounds on TOUR of 65 or lower since June 1 of last year (15), and he shoots those numbers much more often than anyone else on TOUR. 3. FINISHING KICK: Simpson’s second round was one of the best putting performances of his career (more on that later). He may have experienced a little regression to the mean after gaining more than six strokes on the greens Friday, though. He lost 2.6 strokes on the greens over his next 27 holes before finding his stroke again in the nick of time. He holed four putts from outside 10 feet on the final nine holes, gaining 2.7 strokes on the greens in that span. He holed birdie putts of 10, 22, 15 and 18 as part of his back-nine 30 on Sunday (he also two-putted for birdie on the par-5 15th). It was the low score by a winner on Sunday’s back nine in more than a year. Corey Conners also shot 30 to win last year’s Valero Texas Open. Simpson was the first player since Rod Pampling at the 2016 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open to hole four putts of 10 or more feet on the final nine hole of a tournament. It also matched the most over the last five seasons. Jordan Spieth and Smylie Kaufman also did it. 4. SECOND TO NONE: Simpson’s second round at the RBC Heritage may have been the best putting round of his career. He gained +6.01 strokes on the greens, which was just a hair behind the personal record he set at last year’s U.S. Open (6.03). He also set or tied several career-highs in Friday’s round. Almost all of Simpson’s Strokes Gained: Putting for the week came in the second round. He gained just +0.6 strokes on the greens for the remainder of the week. 5. PICKING HIS SPOTS: Simpson admits that scheduling is key since he isn’t one of the TOUR’s longest hitters. And, as a father of five, he tries to limit his time away from his family and play only at the courses where he has the highest chance of success. Entering this season, there were three events where Simpson had six top-25s but no wins. Those were his most top-25s without a victory at full-field events. He finally got the victory at two of those events this year – the Waste Management Phoenix Open and RBC Heritage – and finished one shot out of a playoff at the other (Sony Open in Hawaii). The Sony and TOUR Championship are now tied for events where he’s had most top-25s without a win (7).
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