The First Look: Barbasol Championship

As he turns 80 years old, decades removed from the last of his 18 major titles, he remains relevant. And he has no intention of stopping.

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Pete Dye, the legendary course architect and World Golf Hall of Fame Member, died on Thursday, Jan. 9. There’s zero question that he lived a full life, but it’s one that will continue to give. In that vein, it’s fitting that the first PGA TOUR event after his passing is hosted by a Dye design. PGA WEST’s Stadium Course anchors the three-course rotation for The American Express. It’s a new name for the event celebrating its 61st edition, it has a new official host in Phil Mickelson, and Dye most certainly will continue to give … fits to all golfers who attempt to tackle his tests. OK, maybe not so much this week, but his work will resurface throughout the season. For more on all that’s new in the Coachella Valley, the format of the pro-am and other nuggets, scroll past the ranking of projected contenders. In addition to reviews of Brendan Steele, Brendon Todd, Matthew Wolff and defending champion Adam Long among the notables, Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will include breakdowns of each course in the rotation. Early last September, it was announced that American Express would become the title sponsor of the annual stop in La Quinta, California. Later, it was confirmed that there is a minimum five-year agreement in place. In November, Phil Mickelson upgraded his role from ambassador for the tournament to that as host in conjunction with The Mickelson Foundation. He joins Tiger Woods (The Genesis Invitational) and Davis Love III (The RSM Classic) as active golfers who also host a PGA TOUR event. Mickelson is a two-time winner of The American Express (2002, 2004) and sits second in all-time earnings (behind Bill Haas), but there’s poised to be more volatility on that money list what with the rise of $800K in the prize fund. This year’s purse is a record $6.7 million of which the winner will receive $1.206 million. The Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA WEST and La Quinta Country Club share host duties. Each of the 156 golfers in the field and his amateur will play every course once. At the conclusion of 54 holes, all of the low 65 and ties on the tournament’s leaderboard will complete the event on the Stadium Course. (The old secondary, playing cut of low 60 and ties in the event that more than 78 golfers survived the 54 hole cut has been eliminated.) Each course is a stock par 72 and among the easiest on the schedule. Since 2016 when the current triumvirate first hosted, the Stadium Course’s scoring average of 70.238 last year was its lowest. The Nicklaus Tournament Course averaged a historically typical 69.058, while La Quinta’s 68.718 established its record low (since data was first maintained in earnest in 1983). The only significant changes made to any of the venues occurred on the Stadium Course where the greens on the par-4 second and third holes are larger and nearer their original size. In any tournament for which par breakers are required to compete – last year’s cut landed at 9-under 207 – hitting greens in regulation lines up as priority one. At least in theory. In his tournament debut last year, then-rookie Adam Long ranked but T41 in GIR with an average of 12.75 per round, but he still prevailed by one stroke (over Mickelson and Adam Hadwin, who isn’t in this year’s field due to the birth of his first child on Jan. 8). Instead, Long paced the field in numerous putting categories, including putts per GIR and fewest putts. He didn’t three-putt, either. ShotLink is set up only on the Stadium Course, so all measured data applies to at most two rounds (for all golfers who survive the cut). This is the norm for all tournaments contested over multiple courses. Believe it or not, there’s a slight chance for rain late on Thursday, but the energy will clear out by Friday and make for a fair weekend. Daytime highs may not reach 70 degrees until it jumps into the mid-70s on Sunday. Wind will not be a factor in the proverbial dome. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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We are less than three weeks away from the PGA TOUR’s official return at the Charles Schwab Challenge. More than 90 days will have passed between the cancellation of THE PLAYERS and the TOUR’s resumption of play. When THE PLAYERS was canceled back in March, a cloud of uncertainty was hanging over golf and the world around it. Nobody knew when we would see the world’s best tee it up again, but both players and fans were certainly hoping it would be safe to do so sooner than later. We now have a clear schedule for the remainder of the year, with competition resuming 13 weeks after the THE PLAYERS was canceled. Let’s explore what impact this break might have on player performance. Needless to say, 13-week breaks are not common among PGA TOUR players. Overall, only around 2.7% of starts are made by players coming off a 13-week break. A lot can happen in that time. Back in 2000, Tiger went on a run of five wins, including three majors, in a 13-week stretch. Below is a chart showing the percentage of players in a given event, by weeks off entering the tournament. Fifty-two percent of a field played the week prior. As we might expect, there’s a clear relationship between performance and the number of weeks a player has been off. We can analyze how well players perform by comparing our estimate of their ability (how we would expect them to perform) to how they actually performed. Generally, players taking small breaks of two weeks or less are marginally better than expected, while longer breaks result in an average drop in performance of between 0.1 and 0.2 strokes per round. For context, a drop of 0.2 strokes per round is about the gap between 100th- and 135th-ranked players in the world. It’s a significant change, but not enormous. Additionally, the drop in performance after a 10-20 week gap is quite consistent across different levels of players. Top-50 players in the world are affected by a similar amount to those outside the top 50. The below bar chart shows how players performed against their expected performance after layoffs of varying lengths. Given how uncommon breaks of this length are, we can’t draw too many conclusions on who we might expect to perform well in the early weeks back. However, there are a few players who over the past five years have had multiple 10+ week gaps and performed better than expected on their return. Ryan Moore (+0.9 strokes per round) and Phil Mickelson (+0.6) top that list. The below table shows the players who have performed the best after long layoffs. Intuitively we might think that after an extended period without playing on tour that touch on the greens might be a little off, and putting would be the area to suffer. In reality, it appears to be the opposite. Taking a player’s performance in their ‘return’ event compared with their season average that year, putting is actually the only area that remains quite consistent, with the other areas all dropping by a similar amount.

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