RBC Heritage, Round 1: Leaderboard, tee times, TV times

As with any advancement, there are skeptics. Especially if this new technology creates added work for an unproven benefit. It can be even harder when college kids, some of whom struggle just to make their bed, are the ones being asked to put in the extra effort. That was what Northwestern golf coach Pat Goss realized during his first foray into advanced statistics for his college team. Teams had been collecting simple stats like fairways hit and greens in regulation for years. Those are of little value, however. Goss was an early adopter of Strokes Gained and knew these new analytics could help his players. But without ShotLink, players needed to record detailed data for every stroke. They needed to pace off their putts, record exact distances and then enter all that data after the round. Guessing wasn’t good enough. And this was when many people didn’t have a good grasp of Strokes Gained or how it could help them perform better. “We were having issues with players keeping stats that were accurate enough,” said Goss, who earned an economics degree from Northwestern. “I had kids who were like, ‘Oh ya, coach wants me to do these stats. That seems like a hassle.’” Then along came Matt Fitzpatrick. He was the No. 1 amateur in the world before setting foot on campus, winning the U.S. Amateur and making the cut in The Open Championship (T44) in the summer preceding his freshman season. “I’ll never forget his first event,” Goss said. “There’s Matt on the first hole of the practice round, putting his alignment stick down in the fairway to calculate the angle from the tee. The very first day of his first tournament, he’s pacing off his putts. He was ahead of the curve.” Fitzpatrick had been keeping his own stats since he was 14. He’s still listed at just 155 pounds in his PGA TOUR profile and he knew numbers could give him an edge to compensate for his distance disadvantage. “He was playing the game like a mature adult,” Goss said. “Just the way he methodically got his ball around the golf course, he was an old golfing soul.” He was following in the footsteps of another undersized Englishman who played at Northwestern, Luke Donald. Donald, who was coached by Goss both in college and after turning pro, was one of the first PGA TOUR players to dive into Strokes Gained. He credits it with helping him reach No. 1 in the world. Fitzpatrick arrives at this week’s RBC Heritage ranked 17th in the world, one spot off his career high, which he reached for the first time after winning the European Tour’s final event of 2020, the DP World Tour Championship. He’s 59th in the FedExCup thanks to six top-25s in 11 starts. He recently had a four-event stretch in February and March where he didn’t finish worse than 11th. Those four weeks featured some of the biggest events of the year: The Genesis Invitational (T5), World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession (T11), Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard (T10) and THE PLAYERS Championship (T9). He’s succeeded with a more balanced approach, ranking in the top 30 of both Strokes Gained: Putting and Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. Last season, he was second in the former but 81st in the latter. The biggest improvement has come in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green, where he’s jumped 101 spots to 37th. “The weaknesses are kind of the same. They don’t really vary much,” he said recently. “It’s more about just chipping away at them and making small gains.” Statistics are still key to Fitzpatrick’s success. And now he’s using another former U.S. Am champ and European Tour winner to help him dig even deeper into the data. Since golf’s pandemic-induced cessation, Fitzpatrick has been using a spreadsheet devised by Edoardo Molinari, the older brother of former Open champion Francesco. Molinari won the U.S. Amateur in 2005, has won three times on the European Tour and played alongside his brother in the 2010 Ryder Cup. He also has an engineering degree from the University of Torino. Molinari began keeping his statistics in an Excel spreadsheet in 2003. It keeps detailed information and can produce reports that tell him how to structure his practice and even where to aim when he’s on the course. His program, which he calls StatisticGolf, captures data that ShotLink does not, such as a player’s intended target. Fitzpatrick can still be seen pacing off shots, yardage book in hand, during tournaments to gather data for the spreadsheet. “(StatisticGolf) has helped me massively because the stuff that we’re recording is very specific to me, it’s very specific to all sorts of things,” he said. “You name it and we’re probably recording it and we’re probably keeping track of it. Wind direction, wind strength, grass type, the greens, speed of greens.” The samples are still too small, but one day it will be able to tell Fitzpatrick things like how he performs – and where he misses — on shots from 150-175 yards where he was trying to hit a fade into a right-to-left wind. He is one of several players on tours across the world relying on Molinari’s spreadsheet. The response was overwhelming when Molinari, who is still playing professional golf, started offering the system to other players. He’d hoped for 10 clients but eventually had to hire someone to help with the workload. Molinari doesn’t like to give specifics about his players’ games but gave two examples to illustrate how his program has helped his clients. One player was struggling to on approach shots to hole locations on the left side of the green. “He had a tendency to be too aggressive to pins and also had a left-miss pattern in his approach play, which is the perfect recipe for disaster,” Molinari said. After the error was revealed, that player finished third in his next event and strung together several top-10s. Another player told Molinari that he likes to curve his tee shots according to the shape of the hole. StatisticGolf showed the player that he was losing strokes when he tried to curve his tee shots in either direction but gaining shots when he tried to hit it straight. His Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee improved from -0.40 to +0.30 after he made the change. Those incremental improvements can be the difference between a player cracking the top 50 in the world ranking or qualifying for the TOUR Championship. With Fitzpatrick, Molinari has found a kindred spirit. “We think very much alike,” Molinari said. “He is very professional, very methodical and he leaves no stone unturned.”

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A packed leaderboard down the stretch at Augusta National? That’s how it goes, no matter what event it is here. But the course played hard, which could be what is in store when the Masters gets going, too.

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Despite the fireworks of the first three events of the FedExCup Playoffs, the TOUR Championship still validates a full season’s worth of consistently strong form. As it should. For the second consecutive season, exactly 25 golfers who opened the Playoffs inside the top 30 in points qualified for the season finale at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. All 30 in the field are slotted below. Beneath them are trends at the TOUR Championship, a profile of the host course and more. Of the qualifiers for the TOUR Championship who began the BMW Championship outside the top 30 in FedExCup points, only Keegan Bradley (win) and Xander Schauffele (T3) advanced. Speaking of whom, that’s the rub for winning the Playoffs finale – the champ isn’t guaranteed the opportunity to defend. Schauffele started this Playoffs seeded 28th, but Bradley began 49th. With Gary Woodland (33rd), Billy Horschel (41st), Cameron Smith (53rd) and Hideki Matsuyama (76th), the quintet comprises this year’s grouping that opened outside the top 30. Previous champions also must earn their way back to East Lake, although unlike last year when only Jordan Spieth represented prior winners of the TOUR Championship at East Lake, five are committed this week, including two-time winner Phil Mickelson. (Ironically, Spieth failed to qualify at 31st in points.) Seventeen from last year’s TOUR Championship are back this week. Six are debutants, including points leader Bryson DeChambeau. If he or any of the other four inside the top five in points – Justin Rose (2nd), Tony Finau (3rd), Dustin Johnson (4th), Justin Thomas (5th) – prevails, he will win the FedExCup and the $10-million bonus. DeChambeau already has proven that inexperience can be overrated, but he’s further inspired by the achievements of Bill Haas (2011), Henrik Stenson (2013) and Schauffele (2017), all of whom captured victory in their first appearance at East Lake. However, as Schauffele now aims to become the first in tournament history to successfully defend a title, DeChambeau wages his own battle with a drought. None of the last nine No. 1 seeds entering the TOUR Championship won the FedExCup. East Lake presents as fair a test as any of the entrants would want. It’s a stock par 70 tipping at 7,362 yards again this year. Hitting fairways is toughest and important, just not the priority. Hitting greens and pouring in putts is the ticket. Distance off the tee already is synonymous with most in the field, but scoring on the vulnerable pair of par 5s is key. The 525-yard sixth hole is the par 5 going out. Its counterpart on the back side measures 590 yards and serves the finish line as No. 18. Since 2016 when the nines were flipped to shift the old par-3 closer into position as the new ninth hole, both eventual winners birdied the 18th hole in the final round. In fact, of the 59 golfers who completed the final round in the last two years, they converted one eagle and 31 birdies combined. A would-be clubhouse leader won’t feel safe unless he’s sitting on a three-stroke margin with that hole still in front of his nearest in pursuit. Last year’s field average of 69.383 matched the lowest (2013) since Rees Jones’ renovation after the 2007 edition. Another sub-par split can’t be ruled out this week. Primarily favorable weather conditions should keep the stage dry and allow the bermudagrass greens to reach 13 feet of the Stimpmeter. It’ll be warm and muggy throughout as autumn is ushered in on the weekend. Wind won’t be a factor. No matter the experience in the tournament, the TOUR Championship serves as a celebration. In addition to the bonus prize money on top of official earnings, all 30 in the field are treated to carte-blanche scheduling next season that includes exemptions into the Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship. But winning is, of course, special. The tournament champion receives a three-year PGA TOUR exemption. The FedExCup champ is further rewarded with a spot in the Sentry Tournament of Champions (if not already exempt) and a five-year TOUR exemption. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton reviews and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Fantasy Insider, Facebook Live WEDNESDAY: One & Done THURSDAY: Champions One & Done * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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