"Strokes gained guru Mark Broadie’s pioneering analytics have radically altered the game"

Nice work by Golf Magazine’s Josh Sens to profile strokes gained creator and professor Mark Broadie as the stat has become more mainstream than ever.

Here’s a fun one I found in preparing for today’s Alternate Shot topic of best comeback win in 2018: Keegan Bradley is 174th in strokes gained putting heading to the Tour Championship following his win at the BMW Championship. Where, amazingly, he lead the field in strokes gained putting according to the numbers gurus at ShotLink:

While that number may be foreign still to a lot of fans, more and more people are understanding that the numbers say Bradley did something both impressive for the week and astounding given his season-long performance on the green.

For that kind of wisdom and satisfaction as fans in knowing something just a little bit deeper about the performance, we have Broadie’s work to thank. So for those who don’t know his story, check out the piece. And for those who do, I’m clipping this nugget as a tantalizing possibility on the stats front:

As for future projections for golf analytics, Broadie sees nearly boundless opportunity for exploration, limited only by the availability of good data. One area he has in mind is strokes-gained categories that account for factors such as wind, turf conditions and the contours of a shot. Another is quantifying performance under pressure, a topic Broadie has been working on of late. He believes he’s onto something.

“For mental toughness, the only stat that attempts to measure it is bounce-back,” he says. “And I think there are better ways.”

Hmmmmm!