Sometimes a course just suits your game or suits your eye, as I prefer to say. For me, a hole that suits my eye sets up with trouble to the right and dog legs slightly left. This is because I am a lefty and like to play my ball flight from right to left. My friends might tell you that I am prone to hitting the occasional slice, but I like to refer to it as the super-charged power fade – no big deal. This year is going to be #YearOfTheDraw for me, so I am excited about that. Enough about my game though – we need to find who the Honda Classic sets up for…who’s eye it suits and what kind of player that is.
To do that, we need to first look at the course. This week, the Honda Classic takes the PGA Tour to Palm Beach Gardens to play the The Championship Course at PGA National. This will be a fun tournament as there will be plenty of hype around the difficulty of the course. The course is known for what some consider the toughest three-hole stretch in all of Golf, The Bear Trap, which spans the 15th, 16th and 17th holes. The rest of the course is also considered fairly unforgiving as almost every hole is set alongside of water, and if it isn’t, there are sure to be some well-placed bunkers in play. Long story short: this course does not suit my eye. If you are looking for some more information on the course, check out this article from yesterday.
Like last week, the first thing that I wanted to check out was who had some success at this event in the past. Here are the top-25 finishers from the past five years (click to enlarge).
I know that some people only look at last year’s results, and I think that it is fine to weigh the more recent results more heavily than the past, but I am always interested in seeing who has had a repeatedly solid performance. Of the players who finished in the top 25 last year, only 14 of them have finished that high more than once in the past five years, and only three of them have done it more than twice. Two of those players are not in the player pool this weekend, the rest are listed here.
Eight of these players are coming off of back-to-back top-25 finishes at The Honda Classic. It isn’t enough to see which players have played well here, though; I want to see what type of player plays well here. Let’s look back at what we know about the course. First, it plays tough, which lead me to believe that scrambling could be an interesting place to look. I decided I would make that the first stat filter when looking into past results.
Scrambling Percentage: the percentage of holes that a golfer makes par or better when failing to hit the green in regulation. To give an example from a Par 4, the golfer would hit his tee shot and follow that up with a second shot that does not land on the green. To have that hole play positively into his scrambling percentage, he would either have to hole out the next shot for birdie, or get up and down (one chip followed by one putt) and make par. I have never tracked my personal scrambling percentage, but let’s just say that I would put my money on it not being great.
Scrambling is always a good statistic to look into. I decided if I was going to look into it, that I also wanted to include G.I.R. (greens hit in regulation). The reason for this is because if you are hitting your greens in regulation, than you are eliminating some of your need to scramble.
Greens Hit in Regulation (G.I.R.): Par on a course always includes two putts. A G.I.R is achieved when a golfer has reached the green and left themselves two putts to make par. On a Par 4 you would need to one the green in two shots, leaving yourself two putts to make par. I have never tracked my personal G.I.R percentage, but let’s just say that I should probably get better at scrambling.
You can see why one of these statistics can, in some ways, negate the other. Obviously, you want your player to have a high percentage in both, because even if a player hits 67% of their greens in regulation (better than half of the tour), they would still be scrambling 33% of the time. Still, you can make up for a low percentage of greens hit in regulation by having a high scrambling percentage and vice-versa. I would typically focus a bit more on G.I.R. when selecting a player for DFS purposes because it leads to more birdie opportunities, but I do bring both statistics into play on most weeks.
What I decided to do then, was to take a look at the past five year’s top 25 finished at The Honda Classic and see which ones finished that year in the top half of the field in either of those statistics. Here are the results. I have highlighted the information in green if it landed that player in the top half of rankings for that statistic, in that year. It is also showed on the right side as well.
2015
In relation to the yearly rankings for 2015, any percentage above 66.41% would have placed a player in the top half of the G.I.R. rankings. Additionally, having a percentage above 59.16% would have placed that player in the top half of the rankings for Scrambling.
To give you some of the numbers, in 2015 we can see:
– 5/30 players ranked in the top half of G.I.R on the year but not Scrambling.
– 10/30 players ranked in the top half of Scrambling on the year but not G.I.R.
– 10/30 players ranked in the top half of both Scrambling and G.I.R on the year.
– 4/30 players did not rank in the top half of either Scrambling or G.I.R on the year.
– One player was not ranked in either category.
2014
In relation to the yearly rankings for 2014, any percentage above 65.09% would have placed a player in the top half of the G.I.R. rankings. Additionally, having a percentage above 58.51% would have placed that player in the top half of the rankings for Scrambling.
Those same numbers for 2014:
– 6/33 players ranked in the top half of G.I.R on the year but not Scrambling.
– 10/33 players ranked in the top half of Scrambling on the year but not G.I.R.
– 10/30 players ranked in the top half of both Scrambling and G.I.R on the year.
– 5/30 players did not rank in the top half of either Scrambling or G.I.R on the year.
– One player was not ranked in either category.
2013
In relation to the yearly rankings for 2013, any percentage above 65.26% would have placed a player in the top half of the G.I.R. rankings. Additionally, having a percentage above 57.78% would have placed that player in the top half of the rankings for Scrambling.
Those same numbers for 2013:
– 6/28 players ranked in the top half of G.I.R on the year but not Scrambling.
– 12/28 players ranked in the top half of Scrambling on the year but not G.I.R.
– 4/28 players ranked in the top half of both Scrambling and G.I.R on the year.
– 6/28 players did not rank in the top half of either Scrambling or G.I.R on the year.
2012
In relation to the yearly rankings for 2015, any percentage above 65.05% would have placed a player in the top half of the G.I.R. rankings. Additionally, having a percentage above 57.33% would have placed that player in the top half of the rankings for Scrambling.
Those same numbers for 2012:
– 5/25 players ranked in the top half of G.I.R on the year but not Scrambling.
– 9/25 players ranked in the top half of Scrambling on the year but not G.I.R.
– 18/25 players ranked in the top half of both Scrambling and G.I.R on the year.
– 3/25 players did not rank in the top half of either Scrambling or G.I.R on the year.
– One player was not ranked in either category.
2011
In relation to the yearly rankings for 2015, any percentage above 65.64% would have placed a player in the top half of the G.I.R. rankings. Additionally, having a percentage above 58% would have placed that player in the top half of the rankings for Scrambling.
One more time now, for 2011:
– 6/28 players ranked in the top half of G.I.R on the year but not Scrambling.
– 4/28 players ranked in the top half of Scrambling on the year but not G.I.R.
– 11/28 players ranked in the top half of both Scrambling and G.I.R on the year.
– 6/28 players did not rank in the top half of either Scrambling or G.I.R on the year.
– One player was not ranked in either category.
There were a few things that stand out. I was a bit surprised at how consistent the numbers were. I expected it to be fairly close when dealing with the top half of two different statistical categories, but I did not expect it to run that close. Also, it seems notable that players who ranked highly in Scrambling but not in G.I.R. have landed in the top 25 at a higher percentage than those who ranked highly in G.I.R. but not in Scrambling.
The most notable thing was how poorly players who are ranked low in both of those stats have performed at The Honda Classic. I think that gives me reason to seriously consider fading any player that falls into that position.
Those statistics are on a much larger sample size, drawing from seasons beginning through The Presidents Cup, while this year’s statistics are only approaching three months in, but I like that because it also speaks more to their recent performance than it will later in the year.
Now, let’s take a look at which players we can eliminate based on the data we gathered above. We will break it down by salary, only showing players who are currently ranked in the top half of either Greens in Regulation or Scrambling. These lists also exclude any player who is not currently ranked. Which stat qualified them will be shown on the right, as shown in the above examples.
$12,500 to $10,000
We were able to eliminate one player from this price range.
$9,900 to $8,000
We were able to eliminate one player from this price range.
$7,900 to $7,000
We were able to eliminate seven players from this price range.
$6,900 to $6,000
We were able to eliminate 20 players from this price range.
$5,900-$5,000
Lastly, we were able to eliminate 11 players from this price range.
If we decided that we did not want to roster anyone who didn’t currently rank in the top half of either of our chosen statistics, we would already have eliminated 40 players from the pool. I will probably take it a step further and focus in on players who have been scrambling and hitting greens well of late.
Again, I hope this helps ease the waiting pains for the PGA Beta to launch. If you haven’t already, sign up here.
If you were wondering, I don’t think that I would break 100 if I were playing in The Honda Classic this weekend. I went to the range for the first time this year on Sunday and I am still sore. The weather is warming up and the FantasyLabs PGA Beta is coming… soon. It is going to be a good golf season.
Good luck this weekend!
