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Launch monitors have changed the way tour players hit their drives

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I keep track of the radar metrics on the PGA Tour each week, and so far this season I’ve started to see some noticeable differences in the radar data being produced by the field than I have in years past. So I decided to look at the Tour averages for each season since the Tour started to record the radar data back in 2007.

Here’s a chart showing those averages each season.

Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 10.18.06 AM

Click the chart to enlarge it.

To draw an even clearer picture, here’s a comparison between this season’s radar metrics and the inaugural season in 2007. 

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Click the chart to enlarge it.

While the club speed and ball speed have picked up, the larger differences are in the Max Height and Spin Rate metrics. The other two factors that have seen a marked change are Smash Factor and Carry Efficiency, which are calculated using the formulas below.

  • Smash Factor = Ball Speed / Club Head Speed
  • Carry Efficiency = Carry Distance / Club Speed

While the percentage difference between these two metrics is smaller than the other metrics, we have to remember that USGA rules have a certain allowable Smash Factor that is roughly 1.50. So there is a ceiling with regards to Smash Factor and the same goes for Carry Efficiency.

What this shows is the effect that launch monitors have had on PGA Tour swings, as well as the golf equipment industry, which has been producing metal woods that launch the ball slightly higher and with less spin in recent years. I can also conclude from the metrics that fewer players are hitting their driver with a severely downward attack angle (-4 degrees or steeper), because:

  • Their launch angles are up.
  • Their carry efficiency is up.
  • Their max height is significantly up.
  • Their spin rate is down.

According to Trackman, with all things being equal, the lower a golfer’s Spin Loft the higher the Smash Factor. Spin Loft is a measurement of a golfer’s dynamic loft, which is the amount of loft they deliver to the ball at the moment of maximum ball compression, minus a golfer’s angle of attack, as shown below.

  • Spin Loft = Dynamic Loft – Attack Angle

So if Tour players are less steep with their attack angle and their dynamic loft is roughly the same, the Spin Loft has now decreased and that allows for a higher Smash Factor.

What is probably most interesting is that higher club-head speed players have resorted to more of an upward hit on the ball. In the past, the high club-speed players almost exclusively kept their launch low so they could keep the max height low and better control their drives. They would generally have a launch angle between 9 to 10 degrees with about 2,800 rpm of spin. Now, we see some of the higher club-head speed players on Tour with very high launch angles and low spin rates.

Two prime examples of this are rookies Justin Thomas and Patrick Rodgers, both of whom are 22 years old. It should be noted that Rodgers and Thomas are ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in Max Height, respectively.

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Currently, Thomas ranks 73rd (out of 203 golfers) in my Driving Effectiveness ranking, while Rodgers ranks 59th. There is not a lot of data with regards to higher-speed players who produce very high launch numbers over a significant period of time, but the long hitters who are generally more effective off the tee average lower launch numbers like Bubba Watson, who currently first in Driving Effectiveness.

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I suspect that eventually players like Thomas and Rodgers will bring down their attack angles a bit in order to create a lower launch, a lower max height and a higher spin rate so they can drive ball more accurately and precisely like Bubba does. But young guns like Thomas and Rodgers, as well as the Tour radar statistics as a whole, show the great influence that launch monitors are having on the best golfers in the world.

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Richie Hunt is a statistician whose clients include PGA Tour players, their caddies and instructors in order to more accurately assess their games. He is also the author of the recently published e-book, 2018 Pro Golf Synopsis; the Moneyball Approach to the Game of Golf. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Richie3Jack. GolfWRX Writer of the Month: March 2014 Purchase 2017 Pro Golf Synopsis E-book for $10

32 Comments

32 Comments

  1. spanishflypro.net

    Jun 9, 2015 at 2:12 pm

    I read this article fully regarding the comparison of latest and previous technologies, it’s amazing article.

  2. Stat Man

    Jun 6, 2015 at 7:48 pm

    AoA -1

  3. Oldplayer

    Jun 6, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Is the ball at all responsible for the higher launch and lower spin that pros are getting in recent times?

  4. Jeez Utz

    Jun 6, 2015 at 5:39 pm

    Stats are so padded and no one should really be interested in them

  5. Jeez Utz

    Jun 6, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    I don’t know why ppl put stock in stats
    Stats tell part of the story….
    3rd and 23, defense in full prevent..handoff up the middle rb gets 16 yds. That happens 3 or 4 times a game and he finishes with 103 yds total
    Outside that the rb will have 23 carries for 48 yds but if you look at the stats he’s shredding the defense
    Baseball would have you believe a save is a something that should be recorded as a stat
    One team is up 8-5 in the bottom of the 9th and a guy comes out and throw 8 pitches against another team that knows they’ve already lost and don’t care
    Basketball has the assist…I throw the ball to a wide open or covered guy and he shoots and makes it. Nothing to do with me but I get a + in a stat category…
    idk but I’m pretty sure the winner on tour week in and week out is 1 or 2 in prox. to the hole. He may be middle of the pack or closer to last in a few or most categories, but never that one. That’s the only “stat” that matters, but at the end of the day score matters and not much else and especially not scoring average because of course setup.

  6. Tom Stickney

    Jun 6, 2015 at 12:57 am

    Its amazing how high and flat the tour guys hit the ball when the spin rate is under control.

  7. Paul

    Jun 6, 2015 at 12:10 am

    Good stuff Richie.

    Great information – gives us food for thought. Whether it’s a deliberate change that the players have implemented or if the club design is the reason behind it, it is still an interesting subject.

  8. golfiend

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:43 pm

    i guess these stats could be interesting, but the more important stat is how often these guys drive it accurately (even if they are 5-10y shorter) to the right location in the fairway to get an easier second shot into the green

  9. Steve

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:12 pm

    Wow this is news. Tech has change the way we look at a golf swing? is this 2005?

  10. ML

    Jun 5, 2015 at 6:13 pm

    If they limited the size of the driver head it would have no effect

    Many guys are playing smaller heads than retail to begin with

    They new mini drivers (essentially a 90’s driver ) are extremely accurate for most players and when flushed go nearly as far as the drivers do

    I’ve got to a point where I wonder why I even have a driver other than to make double on a couple par 5’s

    275 in the middle with those mini drivers is all you need

  11. Johnny

    Jun 5, 2015 at 4:01 pm

    Interesting that launch angles are virtually unchanged from 2007 to 2015 while max height shows a pretty good change. So when we talk about high launch/low spin, I’m not sure about the high launch part. Yet spin has a pretty good drop as well.

    If tour players are hitting their drives different, I would have to say it’s due to the driver and not the launch monitor.

    • Jeez Utz

      Jun 6, 2015 at 5:12 pm

      my point exactly
      I would be slightly more to believe in launch monitors bringing down scoring average cuz players find “square” more easily

    • Rich Hunt

      Jun 8, 2015 at 2:45 pm

      The launch angles have gone up and much like smash factor and carry efficiency, there’s a ceiling as to how much you can go up with the launch of a driver and swing at a certain speed. So I think that like smash and carry efficiency, the launch angle going up by a small number is actually a bigger change than most people think.

      As I mentioned towards the end, the big difference I see is the numbers for the longer hitters. Guys like Rodgers and Thomas just used to never have those numbers. Used to be lower launch, higher spin. Now we are starting to see more long hitters change that.

  12. ca1879

    Jun 5, 2015 at 2:24 pm

    Rich – hard to show significant change with just averages since all influences are aggregated. Since you clearly know this subject, can we assume that there isn’t enough information to tease out the performance deltas with respect to actual swing metric changes?

  13. Chris

    Jun 5, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    Rich, while there are definitely some trends in regards to players increasing their launch and lowering their spin, I think this may have more to do with the improvement of equipment design over the last 8 years more-so than players changing their swings. Back in 2007 clubs were being marketed as having the deepest CG’s providing the most forgiveness. Nowadays the clubs are the complete opposite with low and forward CG’s.

  14. Jeez Utz

    Jun 5, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    Launch monitors have changed how tour players hit their drivers????
    Where’s the proof

  15. ShutSteepStuck

    Jun 5, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    Great article, Rich. Would love to know the AoA. Pretty sure Tomas is in the +4 range, but not sure about Rogers.

  16. Dennis Clark

    Jun 5, 2015 at 12:01 pm

    Rich any attack angle data?

    • Rich Hunt

      Jun 5, 2015 at 3:37 pm

      Unfortunately, there is no AoA data on Tour.

      • Dennis Clark

        Jun 5, 2015 at 8:06 pm

        Yea it seems that all Tman gives is ball flight never individual impact/club readings. Wondering if they might be proprietary.

        • Rich Hunt

          Jun 8, 2015 at 2:47 pm

          I was told that there are too many mis-reads when they track them during an event, so they throw them out.

          It’s pretty easy to tell what guys are hitting up versus hitting down though with all of the other numbers.

  17. Greg V

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:47 am

    Good article. Not taking anything away from the phenomenal ability of Tour players to generate club head speed in combination with precise ball striking – which is a gift.

    But we see that an average increase in club head speed of 0.8 mph over the past 8 years has yielded an additional carry distance of over 9 yards. Part of reason is that players are generating better launch angles – an improvement in technique. But a big part is also that manufacturers are making drivers with higher launch/lower spin characteristics.

    Long drivers will always be long drivers, no matter what equipment they are using. But, it is difficult to stretch golf courses. With the trampoline effect inherent in modern titanium driver heads, longer drivers get a proportionately higher rebound effect than more moderate drivers. This doesn’t bother me as I compare my performance versus a Tour pro; but it does bother me as I compare their performance against the course relative to players from as little as 25 years ago.

    The USGA/R&A has been in denial relative to the advance in driver club head technology. It is time to roll back the ball, and roll back the COR of driver faces. In fact, it would be a better test of skill if driver head sizes were rolled back to around 1/2 the size of today’s driver heads – 230 cc. Let’s put more skill into playing off the tee for our highly skilled players. Even though I can’t come close to their skill, I would also adopt the new driver head size – even for my puny ss of 92.

    • MHendon

      Jun 5, 2015 at 12:02 pm

      Greg I’ve seen this argument made over and over again about rolling back the ball and the driver because players are just getting to long. I’ll point out that average driving distance has actually been coming down the last few years and it’s only 285 right now on tour. Also the longest driving avg for a season goes all the way back to 2004, thanks Hank Kuene for that one. So while it may be true that there is more focus on distance than ever the distance numbers for an entire season have not chance significantly since the early 2000’s.

      • Ball

        Jun 5, 2015 at 1:02 pm

        I’d also like to add that in general, the courses on the PGA Tour are not as difficult as it looks because the fairways are wide and there isn’t much rough, coupled with clean sight lines without many trees or obstacles that they would have to curve the ball – because of TV viewing angle requirements, and because nobody wants to see poor scoring at courses that have thick rough. The modern ball travels fast and straight, with not much curving, and cuts through the wind really well too. It’s a mythical perception that Bubba curves the ball a lot – he does curve it fairly well, but you see him struggle on courses with tight fairways being guarded by tall trees on both sides of the fairway. That’s why you never see him do well or even show up at places like Harbour Town – way too tight for him to be curving his bombers – he doesn’t like to plod through the course like a Jim Furyk.
        If the courses forced the long and wild hitters to be more accurate, these guys wouldn’t always be swinging away with their big sticks all over the map, you would see thoughtful, conservative swinging to put the ball in play – but then the public don’t want to see 9 or 10 drives with hybrids and fairway woods, do they?

        • Jeff Borders

          Jun 9, 2015 at 2:32 am

          You’ve never been to the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio. There’s nothing easy about Muirfield Village. The short 14 is an easy layup, but a difficult wedge into a “fade” narrow green. The drive on 15, which many birdie, is a narrow shoot with a hog back fairway. You miss any of those greens and you get punished. on 18, I noticed many of those guys teeing off with fairway woods and long irons and leaving themselves 185-200 yards to an uphill green. Those shots are not in my bag. I also watched those guys hit pure shot after pure shot at the range with every club in the bag.

    • KK

      Jun 6, 2015 at 1:27 am

      Should we really focus on how golfers scored 25 years ago? Just about every sport has evolved to address inherent issues and to better provide participants and viewers with more enjoyment and entertainment. We’re losing tens of thousands of golfers every year in the US. Making golf more difficult is not the answer. If you can’t see that, you really don’t care about golf, only your ego.

      • gvogel

        Jun 6, 2015 at 10:00 am

        1. I am not calling for a roll back for the average golfer.

        2. Even with a roll back, the Tour professional will still amaze the viewer with length and accuracy that are hard to comprehend.

        Long is long; a Tour pro can hit a hickory driver longer than I can comprehend. A smaller club head would make driving a bit harder, which would be good for the game.

        One of the reasons that many players are leaving the game is that the game is hard. Modern courses are long, and difficult. IF the equipment is rolled back for elite players, courses can play shorter. Shorter courses take less time to play. The average player needs shorter courses, and shorter rounds.

        The game is hard, and it should remain that way. It requires patience, dedication, practice, and experience. But instead of making new courses longer and harder, we can make the equipment harder to use – for the elite player, and those who want to truly test themselves against that metric. That means playing exactly by the rules. But there should also be a class of golfer who plays for fun; drop a ball where it went out of bounds, etc. Those players could have the benefit of modern driver heads – and shorter golf courses.

  18. epyon

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:10 am

    Shouldn’t smash factor = Ball Speed / Club head speed? I think its reversed in the article.

    • Zak Kozuchowski

      Jun 5, 2015 at 10:14 am

      Yes, and we have made that correction. Thanks for pointing out our mistake.

  19. patrick

    Jun 5, 2015 at 9:09 am

    Rich I’m a big fan.of your articles. And because you’re a statics guy it adds to your credibility. I wish I was 22 again and had access to a launch monitor.
    I saw the PGA tour video on Justin Thomas and his ability to consistently hit exactly the same spot on his driver plus his ability to replicate his swing faithfully , led to.his phenomenal smash factor. Like Bubba Watson , Justin Thomas has a gift. All you can do is sit back and admire.

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

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My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply.  Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean.  Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open betting preview

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As the Florida swing comes to an end, the PGA Tour makes its way to Houston to play the Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course.

This will be the fourth year that Memorial Park Golf Course will serve as the tournament host. The event did not take place in 2023, but the course hosted the event in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Memorial Park is a par-70 layout measuring 7,432 yards and features Bermudagrass greens. Historically, the main defense for the course has been thick rough along the fairways and tightly mown runoff areas around the greens. Memorial Park has a unique setup that features three Par 5’s and five Par 3’s.

The field will consist of 132 players, with the top 65 and ties making the cut. There are some big names making the trip to Houston, including Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Tony Finau, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala.

Past Winners at Memorial Park

  • 2022: Tony Finau (-16)
  • 2021: Jason Kokrak (-10)
  • 2020: Carlos Ortiz (-13)

In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the Rabbit Hole by Betsperts Golf data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value). 

Key Stats For Memorial Park

Let’s take a look at several metrics for Memorial Park to determine which golfers boast top marks in each category over their last 24 rounds:

Strokes Gained: Approach

Memorial Park is a pretty tough golf course. Golfers are penalized for missing greens and face some difficult up and downs to save par. Approach will be key.

Total Strokes Gained: Approach per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Tom Hoge (+1.30)
  2. Scottie Scheffler (+1.26)
  3. Keith Mitchell (+0.97) 
  4. Tony Finau (+0.92)
  5. Jake Knapp (+0.84)

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee

Memorial Park is a long golf course with rough that can be penal. Therefore, a combination of distance and accuracy is the best metric.

Total Strokes Gained: Off the Tee per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Scottie Scheffler (+0.94)
  2. Kevin Dougherty (+0.93)
  3. Cameron Champ (+0.86)
  4. Rafael Campos (+0.84)
  5. Si Woo Kim (+0.70)

Strokes Gained Putting: Bermudagrass + Fast

The Bermudagrass greens played fairly fast the past few years in Houston. Jason Kokrak gained 8.7 strokes putting on his way to victory in 2021 and Tony Finau gained in 7.8 in 2022.

Total Strokes Gained Putting (Bermudagrass) per round past 24 rounds (min. 8 rounds):

  1. Adam Svensson (+1.27)
  2. Harry Hall (+1.01)
  3. Martin Trainer (+0.94)
  4. Taylor Montgomery (+0.88)
  5. S.H. Kim (+0.86)

Strokes Gained: Around the Green

With firm and undulating putting surfaces, holding the green on approach shots may prove to be a challenge. Memorial Park has many tightly mowed runoff areas, so golfers will have challenging up-and-down’s around the greens. Carlos Ortiz gained 5.7 strokes around the green on the way to victory in 2020.

Total Strokes Gained: Around the Green per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Mackenzie Hughes (+0.76)
  2. S.H. Kim (+0.68)
  3. Scottie Scheffler (+0.64)
  4. Jorge Campillo (+0.62)
  5. Jason Day (+0.60)

Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult

Memorial Park is a long and difficult golf course. This statistic will incorporate players who’ve had success on these types of tracks in the past. 

Total Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult in past 24 rounds:

  1. Scottie Scheffler (+2.45)
  2. Ben Griffin (+1.75)
  3. Will Zalatoris (+1.73)
  4. Ben Taylor (+1.53)
  5. Tony Finau (+1.42)

Course History

Here are the players who have performed the most consistently at Memorial Park. 

Strokes Gained Total at Memorial Park past 12 rounds:

  1. Tyson Alexander (+3.65)
  2. Ben Taylor (+3.40)
  3. Tony Finau (+2.37)
  4. Joel Dahmen (+2.25)
  5. Patton Kizzire (+2.16)

Statistical Model

Below, I’ve reported overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed.

These rankings are comprised of SG: App (24%) SG: OTT (24%); SG: Putting Bermudagrass/Fast (13%); SG: Long and Difficult (13%); SG: ARG (13%) and Course History (13%)

  1. Scottie Scheffler
  2. Wyndham Clark
  3. Tony Finau
  4. Joel Dahmen
  5. Stephan Jaeger 
  6. Aaron Rai
  7. Sahith Theegala
  8. Keith Mitchell 
  9. Jhonnatan Vegas
  10. Jason Day
  11. Kurt Kitayama
  12. Alex Noren
  13. Will Zalatoris
  14. Si Woo Kim
  15. Adam Long

2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open Picks

Will Zalatoris +2000 (Caesars)

Scottie Scheffler will undoubtedly be difficult to beat this week, so I’m starting my card with someone who I believe has the talent to beat him if he doesn’t have his best stuff.

Will Zalatoris missed the cut at the PLAYERS, but still managed to gain strokes on approach while doing so. In an unpredictable event with extreme variance, I don’t believe it would be wise to discount Zalatoris based on that performance. Prior to The PLAYERS, the 27-year-old finished T13, T2 and T4 in his previous three starts.

Zalatoris plays his best golf on long and difficult golf courses. In his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the category, but the eye test also tells a similar story. He’s contended at major championships and elevated events in the best of fields with tough scoring conditions.  The Texas resident should be a perfect fit at Memorial Park Golf Club.

Alex Noren +4500 (FanDuel)

Alex Noren has been quietly playing some of his best golf of the last half decade this season. The 41-year-old is coming off back-to-back top-20 finishes in Florida including a T9 at The PLAYERS in his most recent start.

In his past 24 rounds, Noren ranks 21st in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 30th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green, 25th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses and 21st in Strokes Gained: Putting on fast Bermudagrass greens.

In addition to his strong recent play, the Swede also has played well at Memorial Park. In 2022, Noren finished T4 at the event, gaining 2.2 strokes off the tee and 7.0 strokes on approach for the week. In his two starts at the course, he’s gained an average of .6 strokes per round on the field, indicating he is comfortable on these greens.

Noren has been due for a win for what feels like an eternity, but Memorial Park may be the course that suits him well enough for him to finally get his elusive first PGA Tour victory.

Mackenzie Hughes +8000 (FanDuel)

Mackenzie Hughes found himself deep into contention at last week’s Valspar Championship before faltering late and finishing in a tie for 3rd place. While he would have loved to win the event, it’s hard to see the performance as anything other than an overwhelming positive sign for the Canadian.

Hughes has played great golf at Memorial Park in the past. He finished T7 in 2020, T29 in 2021 and T16 in 2022. The course fit seems to be quite strong for Hughes. He’s added distance off the tee in the past year or and ranks 8th in the field for apex height, which will be a key factor when hitting into Memorial Park’s elevated greens with steep run-off areas.

In his past 24 rounds, Hughes is the best player in the field in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens. The ability to scramble at this course will be extremely important. I believe Hughes can build off of his strong finish last week and contend once again to cement himself as a President’s Cup consideration.

Akshay Bhatia +8000 (FanDuel)

Akshay Bhatia played well last week at the Valspar and seemed to be in total control of his golf ball. He finished in a tie for 17th and shot an impressive -3 on a difficult Sunday. After struggling Thursday, Akshay shot 68-70-68 in his next three rounds.

Thus far, Bhatia has played better at easier courses, but his success at Copperhead may be due to his game maturing. The 22-year-old has enormous potential and the raw talent to be one of the best players in the world when he figures it all out.

Bhatia is a high upside play with superstar qualities and may just take the leap forward to the next stage of his career in the coming months.

Cameron Champ +12000 (FanDuel)

Cameron Champ is a player I often target in the outright betting market due to his “boom-or-bust” nature. It’s hard to think of a player in recent history with three PGA Tour wins who’s been as inconsistent as Champ has over the course of his career.

Despite the erratic play, Cam Champ simply knows how to win. He’s won in 2018, 2019 and 2021, so I feel he’s due for a win at some point this season. The former Texas A&M product should be comfortable in Texas and last week he showed us that his game is in a pretty decent spot.

Over his past 24 rounds, Champ ranks 3rd in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and 30th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses. Given his ability to spike at any given time, Memorial Park is a good golf course to target Champ on at triple digit odds.

Robert MacIntyre +12000 (FanDuel)

The challenge this week is finding players who can possibly beat Scottie Scheffler while also not dumping an enormous amount of money into an event that has a player at the top that looks extremely dangerous. Enter McIntyre, who’s another boom-or-bust type player who has the ceiling to compete with anyone when his game is clicking on all cylinders.

In his past 24 rounds, MacIntyre ranks 16th in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 17th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and 10th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses.

MacIntyre’s PGA Tour season has gotten off to a slow start, but he finished T6 in Mexico, which is a course where players will hit driver on the majority of their tee shots, which is what we will see at Memorial Park. Texas can also get quite windy, which should suit MacIntyre. Last July, the Scot went toe to toe with Rory McIlroy at the Scottish Open before a narrow defeat. It would take a similar heroic effort to compete with Scheffler this year in Houston.

Ryan Moore +15000 (FanDuel)

Ryan Moore’s iron play has been absolutely unconscious over his past few starts. At The PLAYERS Championship in a loaded field, he gained 6.1 strokes on approach and last week at Copperhead, he gained 9.0 strokes on approach.

It’s been a rough handful of years on Tour for the 41-year-old, but he is still a five-time winner on the PGA Tour who’s young enough for a career resurgence. Moore has chronic deterioration in a costovertebral joint that connects the rib to the spine, but has been getting more consistent of late, which is hopefully a sign that he is getting healthy.

Veterans have been contending in 2024 and I believe taking a flier on a proven Tour play who’s shown signs of life is a wise move at Memorial Park.

 

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Opinion & Analysis

Ryan: Why the race to get better at golf might be doing more harm than good

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B.F. Skinner was one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, developing the foundation of the development of reinforcement, and in doing so, creating the concept of behaviorism. In simple terms, this means that we are conditioned by our habits. In practical terms, it explains the divide between the few and far between elite instructors and college coaches.

To understand the application, let’s quickly review one of B.F. Skinner’s most important experiments; superstitions in the formation of behavior by pigeons. In this experiment, food was dispensed to pigeons at random intervals. Soon, according to Skinner, the pigeons began to associate whatever action they were doing at the time of the food being dispensed. According to Skinner, this conditioned that response and soon, they simply haphazardly repeated the action, failing to distinguish between cause and correlation (and in the meantime, looking really funny!).

Now, this is simply the best way to describe the actions of most every women’s college golf coach and too many instructors in America. They see something work, get positive feedback and then become conditioned to give the feedback, more and more, regardless of if it works (this is also why tips from your buddies never work!).

Go to a college event, particularly a women’s one, and you will see coaches running all over the place. Like the pigeons in the experiment, they have been conditioned into a codependent relationship with their players in which they believe their words and actions, can transform a round of golf. It is simply hilarious while being equally perturbing

In junior golf, it’s everywhere. Junior golf academies make a living selling parents that a hysterical coach and over-coaching are essential ingredients in your child’s success.

Let’s be clear, no one of any intellect has any real interest in golf — because it’s not that interesting. The people left, including most coaches and instructors, carve out a small fiefdom, usually on the corner of the range, where they use the illusion of competency to pray on people. In simple terms, they baffle people with the bullshit of pseudo-science that they can make you better, after just one more lesson.

The reality is that life is an impromptu game. The world of golf, business, and school have a message that the goal is being right. This, of course, is bad advice, being right in your own mind is easy, trying to push your ideas on others is hard. As a result, it is not surprising that the divorce rate among golf professionals and their instructors is 100 percent. The transfer rate among college players continues to soar, and too many courses have a guy peddling nefarious science to good people. In fact, we do at my course!

The question is, what impact does all this have on college-age and younger kids? At this point, we honestly don’t know. However, I am going to go out on a limb and say it isn’t good.

Soren Kierkegaard once quipped “I saw it for what it is, and I laughed.” The actions of most coaches and instructors in America are laughable. The problem is that I am not laughing because they are doing damage to kids, as well as driving good people away from this game.

The fact is that golfers don’t need more tips, secrets, or lessons. They need to be presented with a better understanding of the key elements of golf. With this understanding, they can then start to frame which information makes sense and what doesn’t. This will emancipate them and allow them to take charge of their own development.

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