Trying To Figure Out The TPC Sawgrass Bias Against A Bias

I love Justin Ray not because he’ll crunch the numbers so we don’t have to, but he genuinely uses the new trove of statistics in such creative ways.

In his latest installment for PGATour.com, Ray tackles the utterly bizarre lack of back-to-back winners at TPC Sawgrass. And also attempts to detect any rhyme or reason as to who might succeed there.

Besides learning there are two events with longer droughts without having a back-to-back winner, I also learned there may be no explaining the lack of any discernible TPC Sawgrass bias.

In 2018, Webb Simpson won his first PLAYERS title despite losing strokes to the field on approach shots. A staggering 95% of his strokes gained for the week came on shots around the green and on putts.

Contrast that to the winning formula McIlroy utilized the following year, when 85% of his strokes gained came in the form of tee shots and approaches. He gained less than 5% of his strokes on the field with his putter, the lowest percentage of any PLAYERS champion the last 15 years.

Those jumpy trends persist throughout recent history when analyzing PLAYERS champions. In 2018, Si Woo Kim gained more than 35% of his strokes over the field on tee shots. In 2007, though, Phil Mickelson actually lost strokes on his tee shots, but managed to win thanks to spectacular iron play.