In normal times, the tee shot Collin Morikawa hit on the 16th hole Sunday at the PGA Championship would have resulted in deafening cheers. Instead, it was met with a few claps. At age 23, he hit a shot for the ages to win the year’s first major.
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Welcome to this week’s Stats Insider, where we’ll take a closer look at Marc Leishman’s win at the Farmers Insurance Open. Leishman moved to seventh in the FedExCup with his fifth career victory. 1. PRIME TIME: Golfers traditionally hit their prime in their 30s, and that’s definitely the case for the 36-year-old Leishman. The 2009 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year had one win in his first 206 starts. He has four in his last 70, a span that started with his win in the 2017 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Only five players have more wins on TOUR since 2017: Justin Thomas (11), Dustin Johnson (8), Brooks Koepka (6), Rory McIlroy (5) and Bryson DeChambeau (5). RELATED: Leishman finally tames Torrey Pines | Winner’s Bag 2. STRONG FINISH: Leishman started the final round in seventh place, four shots behind 54-hole leader Jon Rahm. Leishman got off to a hot start, making seven birdies in the first 13 holes. He birdied the first two and made the turn in 31 before adding birdies on 11 and 13. He made his only bogey on 17 but came back with a final-hole birdie that proved to be the difference. Leishman’s Sunday 65 matched the lowest final-round score by a winner at Torrey Pines since the course was renovated in 2001 to make it tougher for the 2008 U.S. Open. Rahm (2017) and Jose Maria Olazabal (2002) also shot that score in the final round of their wins. Rahm finished second to Leishman on Sunday. Leishman’s round also was three strokes lower than anyone else who started the final round in the top 10. 3. PUTTING PROWESS: Leishman led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting by more than two strokes. He gained +8.0 strokes on the greens in the three measured rounds (there is no ShotLink on Torrey Pines’ North Course). Rahm was second in Strokes Gained: Putting at +5.9. Leishman holed 10 putts from outside 10 feet in the three ShotLink-measured rounds. He was 7 for 10 (70%) from 10-20 feet. This was just the second time in his career that he led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. He also did it in his runner-up finish at the 2018 AT&T Byron Nelson. Leishman gained more than half those strokes in the final round. He gained +4.8 strokes on the greens in the final round after making every putt he faced from 10-20 feet. He was 3 for 3 from 10-15 feet in the final round and also made his lone attempt from 15-20 feet. 4. NARROW ROAD: Leishman hit just three fairways in the final round. That ties the fewest recorded in the final round by a winner in the last 30 years. It’s been done five times in that span. Three of the five players on the list – Leishman, Geoff Ogilvy and Steve Elkington – are Australian. Leishman hit less than half his fairways for the week (27 of 56) to rank T58 in driving accuracy. Torrey Pines traditionally has some of the hardest fairways to hit, though. The field hit 54% of the fairways in this year’s Farmers Insurance Open, making Torrey Pines’ fairways the fourth-hardest to hit this season. They were the hardest to hit in each of the previous two seasons. 5. ROUGH STUFF: Because everyone is missing fairways at Torrey Pines, the ability to hit quality approach shots from the rough is a key skill. That’s why players like Jason Day and Tiger Woods have excelled at Torrey Pines. Having a good short game can help, as well. That’s another strength of Woods, Day and another multiple-time winner at Torrey Pines, Brandt Snedeker. Leishman finished fifth in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green at Torrey Pines (+4.7 strokes), 14th in greens hit (52 of 72) and fourth in scrambling (75%, 15 for 20). He missed the fairway 23 times on a par-4 last week but was 2 under par on those holes. He missed 18 fairways on par-4s on the South Course, but played those 18 holes in even par. There were 34 players who missed at least 20 fairways on par-4s at Torrey Pines. Only two of those players were under par on the par-4s where they missed the fairway: Leishman and Zack Sucher. Both were 2 under par.
World No.1 Dustin Johnson defends his crown as the PGA TOUR returns to Austin for its annual bracketology week, as FedExCup titleholder Justin Thomas and two-time Match Play king Jason Day head the challenge from a wealth of marquee names. Day is among five former champions in the field, joined by Rory McIlroy (2015), Matt Kuchar (2013) and Ian Poulter (2010). Jon Rahm, who took Johnson to the 18th hole as a Match Play rookie, is also back for a second bite of the apple. FIELD NOTES: Masters titleholder Sergio Garcia is set for his first start since becoming a father. His opening match comes exactly one week after welcoming daughter Azalea Adele Garcia into the world. … In all, Austin CC greets 59 of the world’s top 64 who qualified in the first pass. … Brooks Koepka continues to rest a wrist injury, while three others among the world’s top 15 opted to join him on the sideline: Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson. Adam Scott is the other absentee. … Moving into the lineup are Kevin Na, Charles Howell III, Joost Luiten, Keegan Bradley and Luke List. … Adam Hadwin, who skipped last year’s event because it conflicted with his wedding, is one of 14 players set for their WGC Match Play debuts. For James Hahn and Australia’s Cameron Smith, it’s their first WGC start of any kind. … World rankings will determine the 16 top seeds, with blind draws to fill each group from pools of players seeded Nos. 17-32, Nos. 33-48 and the remainder. The draws will be televised Monday night. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 550 points. STORYLINES: Three entrants return to action seeking to win in back-to-back starts: Thomas (Honda Classic), Phil Mickelson (WGC-Mexico) and Paul Casey (Valspar Championship). … Day seeks his third WGC Match Play title in five editions, to go with 2016 in Austin and 2014 in Arizona. He owns a 21-7 record in matches played, but went only six holes last year before exiting to be alongside his mother as she underwent cancer treatment. … Johnson, who made the Match Play his third straight win last year, owns four top-10s since the calendar turned but just one victory. … Garcia and Poulter – both Ryder Cup virtuosos – can surpass Tiger Woods for most career matches if either makes the semifinals. Both have 37 matches on their ledger; Woods has played 43. … In a statistical anomaly, no matches went to extra holes last year. COURSE: Austin Country Club, 7,108 yards, par 71. Nestled next to Lake Austin, Pete Dye’s 1984 design has proven a worthy Match Play host in its two editions. The layout features two distinctly different nines – a front nine on higher ground and typical of the surrounding Texas hill country, followed by a “lowlandsâ€� nine alongside Lake Austin that offers a scenic backdrop as matches complete. Austin CC dates back to 1899, believed to be the oldest golf club in Texas, relocating twice before occupying its current site. Austin was the original venue for the Legends of Golf from 1978-94; the city later hosted another PGA TOUR Champions stop from 2003-09. LARGEST MARGIN OF VICTORY: 9 & 8, Tiger Woods def. Stephen Ames (1st round, 2006 at La Costa Resort & Spa). LONGEST MATCH: 26 holes, Mike Weir def. Loren Roberts (1st round, 2003 at La Costa), Scott Verplank def. Lee Westwood (1st round, 2006 at La Costa). LAST YEAR: Johnson became the first man to capture all four World Golf Championships, defeating Rahm 1-up in the final to cap off back-to-back-to-back wins in a six-week stretch. Johnson never fell behind in any match, playing 112 holes on the week, though Rahm pushed him the distance in the final. Facing a 4-down deficit, the Spaniard drove the green at No.13 to start a run of three birdies in a four-hole burst. They matched pars at No.17, and Rahm watched his drive 356-yard 18th run through the green. His delicate chip down the slope checked up short of its target, resulting in par, while Johnson’s chip from just short of the green stopped 30 inches away to seal the victory. HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Wednesday-Friday, 2-8 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (GC), 2-6 p.m. (NBC). Sunday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (GC), 3-7 p.m. (NBC). (Golf Channel / NBC Sports LiveExtra simulcast stream) PGA TOUR LIVE: Wednesday-Friday, 10:15 a.m.-4 p.m. ET (featured groups), 4-8 p.m. (featured holes). RADIO: Wednesday-Friday, 2-8 p.m. ET. Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com). Â
Tiger Woods will be a playing captain when he leads the United States against an International team in the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne next month. Woods, who claimed his 15th major title at the Masters in April and won his 82nd US PGA Tour title at the Zozo Championship in Japan in October, named
