This article is part of our PGA Tour Stats Review series.
Firestone Country Club is the venue for the final World Golf Championship event of the 2014-15 season on the PGA Tour, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Also this week, for those players not qualified for Firestone, is the Barracuda Championship in Reno, Nevada. Here's our stats look at both events.
History Lesson - Firestone
The defending champion is Rory McIlroy. He will not be there due to his ankle injury. He beat Sergio Garcia by two shots. In 2013, in his last win, Tiger Woods beat Keegan Bradley and Henrik Stenson by seven. Woods won't be there either after he failed to win the Quicken Loans Invitational last Sunday. And in 2012 Bradley beat Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker by one. So needless to say, the recent history doesn't lead to many recommendations.
Who to Pick from the Big Names
Four players immediately jump out of all the big names in the field as recommendations: the last four full FedEx Cup points-allotted PGA Tour winners -- Jordan Spieth, Zach Johnson, Jason Day and Troy Merritt. Spieth and Johnson's credentials, stats and non-stats wise, are widely known but we can't overlook Day and Merritt.
Day got a very deserved win at the RBC Canadian Open, ensuring he wouldn't leave the winning putt on the 72nd hole short after doing exactly that a week prior at The Open Championship. For the week he ranked 16th in strokes gained-tee to green, second in driving distance and fourth in strokes gained-putting. Firestone demands preciseness and that's
Firestone Country Club is the venue for the final World Golf Championship event of the 2014-15 season on the PGA Tour, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Also this week, for those players not qualified for Firestone, is the Barracuda Championship in Reno, Nevada. Here's our stats look at both events.
History Lesson - Firestone
The defending champion is Rory McIlroy. He will not be there due to his ankle injury. He beat Sergio Garcia by two shots. In 2013, in his last win, Tiger Woods beat Keegan Bradley and Henrik Stenson by seven. Woods won't be there either after he failed to win the Quicken Loans Invitational last Sunday. And in 2012 Bradley beat Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker by one. So needless to say, the recent history doesn't lead to many recommendations.
Who to Pick from the Big Names
Four players immediately jump out of all the big names in the field as recommendations: the last four full FedEx Cup points-allotted PGA Tour winners -- Jordan Spieth, Zach Johnson, Jason Day and Troy Merritt. Spieth and Johnson's credentials, stats and non-stats wise, are widely known but we can't overlook Day and Merritt.
Day got a very deserved win at the RBC Canadian Open, ensuring he wouldn't leave the winning putt on the 72nd hole short after doing exactly that a week prior at The Open Championship. For the week he ranked 16th in strokes gained-tee to green, second in driving distance and fourth in strokes gained-putting. Firestone demands preciseness and that's exactly what Day did two weeks ago at Glen Abbey.
Now for Merritt, following your first PGA Tour win with another solid performance is a tough task. But you also don't shoot 61 (which Merritt did in the third round of the Quicken Loans National) by accident. Merritt was first in strokes gained-tee to green, gaining 10.5 shots on the field in that department on the week, including four during the Saturday 61 alone. He also tied for second in birdies with 22.
Barracuda Championship Recommendations
The opposite-field event always features intriguing names -- young guys looking to breakthrough and veterans looked to get back on track. We saw that several weeks ago when Scott Piercy got back in the winner's circle and Wilcox punched a return voyage to the PGA Tour at the Barbasol Championship.
This week's field -- the tournament uses the Modified Stableford scoring system -- is headlined by the defending champion Geoff Ogilvy. That's never a good thing when you get to defend one of your titles in these events, and the reasons are obvious. Ogilvy is 144th in FedEx Cup points, has just one top-10 and three top-25 finishes in 13 starts and played zero events last fall, partly putting himself behind the 8-ball points wise. He doesn't ranked higher than 61st (driving distance) in any main statistical categories. He does have experience at this venue, however, which does count for something.
Other players we recommend include Patrick Rodgers, and Wilcox.
Rodgers, who earned special temporary membership a couple weeks back, likely already has a PGA Tour card via the Web.com Tour's money list but would prefer to earn it via the Non-Member FedEx Cup Points List on the PGA Tour for the higher priority ranking. He's earned more than $804K on the PGA Tour, has a second-place finish and has 419 FedEx Cup points, probably 15-30 points shy of the mark needed to clinch a card. Translation: one solid finish and he'll get a PGA Tour ticket via the preferable method. Statistically he's ninth in driving distance and 16th in round one scoring average.
Wilcox, meanwhile, in that second-place finish at Barbasol ranked second in strokes gained-tee to green, gaining a whopping 12 strokes on the field for the week in that department. He backed up that performance with a T21 finish last week at the Quicken Loans National.
