PGA TOUR stars tee it up for charity at THE NORTHERN TRUST Charity Challenge

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One of the resolute, perennial truths about THE PLAYERS Championship is its unpredictability. Since 2000, we've seen as many winners come from outside the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking as we have from the top five. Five of the last seven winners at TPC Sawgrass have ranked in the top 10 for the week in Strokes Gained: Approach, but Webb Simpson won in 2018 while ranked 62nd in that statistic. In 2019, Rory McIlroy won the championship while averaging 305 yards off the tee. Jim Furyk, the runner-up, was 34 yards behind him. All of which helps explain why nobody has ever won THE PLAYERS in consecutive years. Successfully defending any title on the PGA TOUR is fairly rare. In the 10 seasons from 2011 through 2020, there were 445 official events held on the TOUR. Only 13 times - or about one in every 34 tournaments - did a player go back-to-back at a particular event. THE PLAYERS was first held in 1974, and only two tournaments on the TOUR schedule have had longer droughts without a back-to-back winner. The Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club has not had a player win in consecutive years since Ben Hogan in 1952 and 1953. And the Wyndham Championship, which has been held at three different venues, has not had a player successfully defend since Sam Snead in 1956. So why has no player ever gone back-to-back at TPC Sawgrass? It's a difficult question to answer, but 15th Club combed through more than 16,000 rounds of historical data in an attempt to find out. Gaining Strokes in Different Ways Pete Dye's design gives players of all different skill sets scoring opportunities and distinct challenges all over the golf course. A look at the last two winners of THE PLAYERS explains that point perfectly. In 2018, Webb Simpson won his first PLAYERS title despite losing strokes to the field on approach shots. A staggering 95% of his strokes gained for the week came on shots around the green and on putts. Contrast that to the winning formula McIlroy utilized the following year, when 85% of his strokes gained came in the form of tee shots and approaches. He gained less than 5% of his strokes on the field with his putter, the lowest percentage of any PLAYERS champion the last 15 years. Those jumpy trends persist throughout recent history when analyzing PLAYERS champions. In 2018, Si Woo Kim gained more than 35% of his strokes over the field on tee shots. In 2007, though, Phil Mickelson actually lost strokes on his tee shots, but managed to win thanks to spectacular iron play. The last 15 champions here are also all over the map with performance on the greens; they have gained anywhere from 5% to 63% of their strokes with the putter. Let's compare that to THE PLAYERS' neighbor on both the map and the schedule, the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. While Bay Hill Club & Lodge provides a demanding test, the winning formula is more predictable. For example, eight of the last 10 winners, including Bryson DeChambeau last week, have ranked in the top 15 in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach. Eight of the last 10 have also gained at least one stroke per round on their approach shots. Gaining strokes off the tee is typically not where players gain an advantage at Bay Hill, as nine of the last 11 winners gained anywhere from just 2% to 17% of their strokes with driver. Trends like this are predictable at most TOUR venues, but not TPC Sawgrass. Not only has no player ever successfully defended his title at this event, it's been a while since one was even remotely close. The last defending champion to finish in the top 10 at THE PLAYERS was Adam Scott, 16 years ago. Since THE PLAYERS found its permanent home at TPC Sawgrass in 1982, more defending champs have missed the cut (seven) than finished in the top 10 (five). The statistics further explain the complicated genius behind the design of this golf course; TPC Sawgrass truly does not favor one specific type of player, but rather rewards the best overall performer in the field that particular week.

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Stewart Cink, the 48-year-old who this week is defending his title at the RBC Heritage, is ranked 50th in driving distance this season, averaging 304.1 yards per tee shot. That’s a significant increase from just two years ago, when he ranked 113th and averaged 295.7 yards off the tee. So how did Cink increase his driving distance even as he nears PGA TOUR Champions eligibility? “I set out to achieve (increased distance) two years ago,” Cink told GolfWRX this week. “That’s something we’ve been focusing on, gaining a little distance. I felt like I was leaving something in the tank. I just wasn’t properly using everything I had at my disposal. Me and my coaches went out and tried to solve that, and two years later, (it worked).” According to Cink, his secret to the distance increase was two-fold. First, he improved his technique as it relates to distance. Then, he optimized his equipment to better suit his improved mechanics. “It’s not like I found a hot driver and could hit it farther, it was definitely technique and form and biomechanics first, and then I got my equipment to be efficient to match that,” Cink told GolfWRX. “Fitting is one thing, but especially if you have optimized mechanics and form.” In a PGATOUR.COM article published earlier this year, Sean Martin went inside Cink’s new-and-improved, distance-focused golf swing. As highlighted, Cink learned that hitting drives with an upward angle of attack was more efficient than hitting drives with a downward angle. Cink moved the golf ball forward in his stance to help make this change. And it worked. “My attack angle went from, say, minus-2 to about plus-2, which is a kind of a big deal in driving these days,” Cink told PGATOUR.COM. “The best drivers and the guys who hit it the farthest … are the ones that attack up. … I wasn’t trying to change my attack angle, but the setup change and the way I was using the bigger muscles in my body on my back swing, I kind of accessed more of the power from stronger areas of my body, and those two changes just resulted in a lot more ball speed and a lot better attack angle.” Then came the equipment adjustments. Prior to his swing changes, Cink was using a Ping G425 Max 10-degree driver that was set to the highest-lofted hosel setting. It’s called “Big Plus,” which relates to the symbol used on the hosel; it equates to an added 1.5 degrees of loft compared to standard on the driver head. Back in 2019, before Cink changed his angle of attack, he was launching the ball only 8.6 degrees, which put him 169th on TOUR in launch angle. That meant Cink needed a bit of extra loft on his driver to keep him from flying the ball even lower. When he changed his swing to hit up on the ball, though, the higher-lofted driver was no longer optimal. He was spinning the ball too much and it was costing him distance. That’s when Ping Tour rep Kenton Oates worked with Cink to help him dial in the driver. Using the same Ping G425 Max 10-degree head model, Oates dialed the hosel into the “Small Minus” setting, which is 1 degree less than standard, and they eventually moved into the “Big Minus” setting (pictured above), which is 1.5 degrees less than standard. Despite the significantly lower lofted setting, Cink’s launch angle went up to 11.5 degrees in 2021 due to his swing changes, putting him T48 in launch angle. From 2020 to 2021, Cink also increased his ball speed from 171.7 mph to 175.1 mph (generally speaking, lower lofts can help increase ball speed; for a more extreme example, imagine the difference between hitting a ball with a 3-iron and a sand wedge). As a result, Cink went from averaging 295.7 yards in the 2020 season, to 306.6 yards last season. Although Harbour Town Golf Links isn’t known for its demanding length, it’s never a bad thing to have a little more distance in the tank when it’s needed. For the millions of aging golfers who are looking to increase their distance and hit the longest drives of their lives, follow the Cink model. First, figure out a technique and setup that can help you launch the ball higher. Then, find a driver to match those new delivery patterns. It worked for Cink, and it can work for you, too.

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