Brandel After Kim's Victory: Distance Constrictions Make TPC Sawgrass Superstar Proof

Following Si Woo Kim's Players win, Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee made a provocative charge: TPC Sawgrass' driver constrictions produced a scrambling contest.

“This is from a statistical standpoint perhaps the greatest upset you’ll ever see. In terms of upsets, this is Great Britain voting to leave the EU. This is Trump winning the presidency. In an era of big data, when you look for data to give you some idea of who might have a chance to do what, where and when… You’re talking about a guy in the ‘All-Around’ statistic that measures pretty much everything that was dead-last on the PGA TOUR. He was basically near the bottom of every single statistical category. Yet, because of the distance constrictions of this golf course, the very best players cannot play their best game. It’s not Tiger proof, it’s superstar proof, it really is. And so it turns into a scrambling contest. And who won the scrambling contest? Si Woo Kim… [This course] puts everybody on edge, pretty much turns it into a scrambling contest, and he won it.”

Kim's stats:

39 of 56 fairways

45/72 greens

Kim led the field in scrambling (22 of 27)

I'll have a few more words on this in a post tomorrow assessing the golf course, but the number of times driver is not used continues to be a debate worthy topic. Does it change the energy of an event the more players can hit driver?