PGA Tour Stats Review: Wells Fargo Championship

This week's PGA Tour event is the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, site of the 2017 PGA Championship. I mention this because there's a reason why this historic venue is getting a major next year. It's hard. You've got to drive it well, and you've got to hit greens. Here's our stats column:

How Do You Win on the PGA Tour?

Golf is a game of inches sometimes. Brian Stuard, the winner of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, was 46 of 46 from inside 10 feet (yes, you read that right), went bogey free over the rain-shortened 54 hole-event and had a perfect (20 for 20) scrambling statistic (the field's was 62.56 percent). Yet, on the final hole of regulation and on the first hole of the playoff Monday, Jamie Lovemark missed putts of 9-feet, 6-inches and 12-feet, 4-inches that would have won him the golf tournament. If one of those goes in, Stuard's feat is forgotten. Welcome to golf.

The Stat

Last year's winner, Rory McIlroy, utterly dominated en route to victory. There are times where Saturday wins you a golf tournament; his third-round 61, including four straight birdies from 7-10 right as CBS came on the air on Saturday accomplished exactly that. He hit 8 of 14 fairways, 15 of 18 greens, averaged 334 yards per drive and gained a whopping 10.160 strokes on the field, with a pretty even split between tee to green and putting.

There are a couple things to learn from this. First, while you may hear cliches thrown around about when a tournament really starts, the truth is one poor stretch can lose you a tournament more than one torrid stretch can win you one. Rare are the weeks like McIlroy had last year. More common is the need for consistency over all four rounds, which is the fantasy implication of me mentioning this.

Injury prevented McIlroy from playing a ton of PGA Tour rounds last year, but if we go back to the 2013-14 season, his round 1-4 scoring average was extremely consistent: 68.31, 69.94, 69.19, 69.63. Now compare that to Charley Hoffman, who before winning in San Antonio was 21-over on the weekend this year, routinely taking himself out of contentions after starting strong. The more consistent a player is over four rounds the more reliable of a selection they are for your fantasy team.

Now, as it pertains to this week, there are two important stats this week: hitting fairways and hitting greens. Last year, McIlroy ranked T19 in driving accuracy and T2 in greens in regulation.
We'll look at both for this week.

Driving Accuracy

Thomas Aiken 75.86%
Colt Knost - 72.83%
Emiliano Grillo - 70.92%
Jason Bohn - 70.55%
Zac Blair - 70.27%

Before we dive into this stat, let's note this from Padraig Harrington on Bohn:

BTW Jason Bohn is leading the tour in current streak without a 3putt. What's amazing is the streak runs pre and post his heart attack and op

— Padraig Harrington (@padraig_h) May 2, 2016

He's right. Bohn has gone 275 holes over 10 events without a 3-putt. It's a really impressive achievement considering the gap between starts and everything that happened in between.

Let's focus on Aiken, who keeps ending up on these stat sheets but not on leaderboards. Besides being first in driving accuracy he's seventh in greens in regulation and ranks 53rd in strokes gained-putting, which isn't awful. What's the issue? He has just one finish better than T42 this season, a T15 last week in New Orleans.

A deeper dive shows the problem appears to stem from his birdie average (184th) and scoring average (133rd). He's 74th in scrambling, 168th in sand saves, 158th in proximity to the hole from sand and 187th in scrambling from fringe. That explains why his strokes gained-tee to green rank, which includes the short game, is 117th, losing -.045 strokes per round to the field. That may not sound like a lot but over time it adds up.

Grillo is another fascinating name as the Olympics and major championships near. The winner at the Frys.com Open last fall has had an up-and-down campaign since, with that win being his only top-10 finish, but adding three top-25s along the way. He's made every cut since Torrey, and last played at Augusta where he tied for 17th. Putting has held him back, as he's 164th in strokes gained-putting.

If you're in a league where stats matter and results aren't king, these are two guys to watch.

Greens in Regulation

Lucas Glover - 72.79%
Rickie Fowler - 71.90%
Jhonattan Vegas - 71.60%
Aiken - 71.25
Henrik Stenson - 71.03%

Fowler is a former winner here, which obviously will make him a favorite in many people's eyes this week. So is Glover, though I don't like his recent results -- just one top-10 for the 2015-16 season and that was back in November -- or his stats -- he may be first in GIR but is not taking advantage of it as he's 182nd in strokes gained-putting.

I want to dive closer in on Vegas, though, who contended for much of the Zurich Classic before he just failed to make enough birdies on the back nine on Monday. (He opened birdie-birdie in the final round and then made 16 straight pars to close.) He tied for fifth, including an opening 64, ranking T21 in greens in regulation, 11th in strokes gained-tee to green and ninth in strokes gained-putting. Ranking 63rd in strokes gained-putting for the season, that was a marked improvement over his season average.

The Field

The field also includes Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Daniel Berger, Bohn, Luke Donald, Ernie Els, past champion Derek Ernst, Bill Haas, Martin Kaymer, Kevin Kisner, all three playoff participants from last week, Stuard, Lovemark and Byeong-Hun An, Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Webb Simpson, Justin Thomas, and Jim Furyk returning from wrist surgery. He hasn't played since last year. Dustin Johnson and Smylie Kaufman both withdrew Tuesday.

The Weather

Thankfully after last week's never-ending weather woes this week will be better, with temperatures rising from the mid-60s Thursday into the low 80s by weekend under sunny skies and a breeze that could be troublesome for the players early in the week before backing off by the weekend. There is rain in the forecast Tuesday, which could soften the course some for Thursday.