More Scatter Chart Silliness: Riviera's 1st and 3rd Holes

I saw a lot of players at last week’s Genesis Invitational but somehow managed to miss a few of the crazier tee shots. Notably, one by Charl Schwartzel driving over the first hole barranca and Matthew Wolff almost driving the third green.

Let’s look at these two holes and the data collected by Shotlink (thank you team and volunteers). Starting with the 1st hole (Shotlink scatter chart embedded above).

The “par-5” played into the wind at times, including some huge gusts before play was stopped Saturday, and still saw players drive well through the fairway in the barranca or past it. If you know Riviera, this thought has been joked about and tried by a long hitter here and there. The day has now arrived where players are forcing the issue and don’t care if they end up in the barranca. In Schwartzel’s case he cleared it 368 yards away on a carry of 320 according to Shotlink.

Also, a 4.279 average for a par-5 is especially low given that the wind was into the players faces a couple of days.

The second image is of the 3rd hole playing under par for the week with all drives finishing well past the fairway bunker. I’m sure the data analysts of the world will run the numbers and tell players: drive past the bunker, it’s to your benefit. Smart!

Seriously, it’s incredible to see no drive within forty yards of a fairway bunker that once had meaning not that long ago.