The PGA Course Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the Fantasy Labs Trends Tool and metrics to highlight stats for the upcoming tournament.
Ah, it’s golf season again! The first event of the 2020 season will consist of a 33-player field of 2019 champions. This is a no-cut event at Plantation Course at Kapalua.
Let’s dive in.
The Course
As always, I back-tested various metrics in our PGA Models to find out those that have been the most valuable at Plantation. Per our Trends tool, here’s how the top 20% of golfers in various metrics have done at this course (in Plus/Minus valuation).
Historically, this course has yielded averages of 87.58 DraftKings points and a +16.41 Plus/Minus with an 80.4% Consistency Rating to the field.
Metrics that tested with at least a +1.00 Plus/Minus:
- Long-Term Tournament Count: +7.92
- Long-Term Scrambling: +4.51
- Long-Term Putts Per Round: +3.74
- Long-Term Bogeys: +3.38
- Long-Term Birdies: +2.15
- Long-Term Par-3 Scoring: +1.97
- Long-Term Par-4 Scoring: +1.82
- Long-Term Greens In Regulation: 1.26
- Long-Term Missed Cuts: +1.26
Since most of these golfers are playing for the first time since early fall, I didn’t include any recent form since our models go back to the last six weeks. It’s probably not a bad idea to rely on long-term form headed into this tournament.
Looking at the backtesting, it’s clear this course is one of the easiest on Tour. Since it’s a no-cut event, and there are plenty of birdies to be had, it’s not difficult for golfers to exceed salary-based expectations. Kapalua tends to be a birdie fest as Xander Schauffele won last season at -23, Dustin Johnson won in 2018 at -24 and Justin Thomas won at -22 in 2017, you get the picture.
Even though par-3 scoring backtested as the highest among the scoring holes, I think most of the focus should be on par 4s and 5s since there are only three par 3s at this venue. Distance can come in handy here since all four of the par 5s have eagle rates at 1.4% or higher, per Fantasy National.
But even some of the shorter drivers can still have plenty of success here. At least making birdies on the par 5s will be important since all four of them boast birdies rates above 45%.
It’s also worth noting that scrambling and bogey avoidance rated inside the top four. If players are making bogeys or worse here, they could quickly fall behind in this birdie fest. The fairways at Kapalua are forgiving since they’re wide, and incredibly easy to find. Driving accuracy was the least correlated stat with scoring when I did my backtesting in our Trends tool.
Per Fantasy National, golfers are hitting fairways 71% of the time here, compared to 60% at your average tour event. It’s a similar story with greens in regulation (GIR) as golfers are hitting GIR at a whopping 78% clip, compared to 65% at an average event.
Because fairways and greens are both easy to hit here, you can likely get away with targeting golfers who aren’t the best ball strikers but normally excel at putting. Lanto Griffin and Patrick Reed are two golfers who come to mind that fit that mold. While putting is less predictable in the short term, Griffin and Reed are historically solid putters and scramblers in the long term.
Key metrics: Par-4 and par-5 scoring, birdie or better scoring, Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Putting, Strokes Gained: Approach.
And as usual, I like Long-Term (LT) Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score) as a catch-all metric.
