This article is part of our PGA Tour Stats Review series.
Well, someone else will win a PGA Tour event this week as Justin Thomas is not in the field for the CareerBuilder Challenge in Palm Springs. Who will that be? Here's our stats preview for this week.
First, though, the first of two stats from this week's notes column from the Associated Press' Doug Ferguson: "Justin Thomas hit 34 drives that went at least 330 yards during his two weeks in Hawaii - 20 on the Plantation Course at Kapalua, 14 at Waialae Country Club." When you do that, the game suddenly becomes a whole lot easier.
Make Birdies
The second thing of note from that column was this: all three courses this week – yes that includes the harder PGA West Stadium Course – ended up in the top 10 for the easiest courses of the season list for 2015-16. Translation: even though Alcatraz (No. 17 at PGA West) exists, great ready to make a lot of birdies. The leaders in birdie average (minimum 10 rounds) this PGA Tour season in the field this week are:
Anirban Lahiri - 5.36 birdies per round
John Rahm - 5.25
Scott Piercy - 5.08
Emiliano Grillo - 5.06
Stewart Cink - 5.00
My recommendation here is Piercy, who played consistently well in 2016, finished the fall right with a T3 at Safeway and T4 at Mayakoba and opened his 2017 at the Sony Open last week with a T57 finish where he finished T27 in birdies. A consistent player who can
Well, someone else will win a PGA Tour event this week as Justin Thomas is not in the field for the CareerBuilder Challenge in Palm Springs. Who will that be? Here's our stats preview for this week.
First, though, the first of two stats from this week's notes column from the Associated Press' Doug Ferguson: "Justin Thomas hit 34 drives that went at least 330 yards during his two weeks in Hawaii - 20 on the Plantation Course at Kapalua, 14 at Waialae Country Club." When you do that, the game suddenly becomes a whole lot easier.
Make Birdies
The second thing of note from that column was this: all three courses this week – yes that includes the harder PGA West Stadium Course – ended up in the top 10 for the easiest courses of the season list for 2015-16. Translation: even though Alcatraz (No. 17 at PGA West) exists, great ready to make a lot of birdies. The leaders in birdie average (minimum 10 rounds) this PGA Tour season in the field this week are:
Anirban Lahiri - 5.36 birdies per round
John Rahm - 5.25
Scott Piercy - 5.08
Emiliano Grillo - 5.06
Stewart Cink - 5.00
My recommendation here is Piercy, who played consistently well in 2016, finished the fall right with a T3 at Safeway and T4 at Mayakoba and opened his 2017 at the Sony Open last week with a T57 finish where he finished T27 in birdies. A consistent player who can go low when he needs to (his 2015 win came at -19). I like him this week.
Kevin Kisner Alert
Kevin Kisner is in the field this week and was an 8-foot putt last week at the Sony Open away from joining the 59 Club. En route to finishing T4 he ranked fourth in strokes gained-tee to green, including first in around the green, along with the nice combination of T21 in driving accuracy and T17 in driving distance. As someone who doesn't hit a lot of foul balls, which is really the only way you can go awry at this event, Kisner is a strong pick.
Who's in the Field
Phil Mickelson (subject to change), Patrick Reed, defending champion Jason Dufner, past champion Bill Haas, Bryson DeChambeau, Nick Watney, Zach Johnson, Keegan Bradley, Paul Casey, Graham DeLaet, Jerry Kelly, Colt Knost, Martin Laird, Danny Lee, Chez Reavie, Boo Weekley and more are playing.
Our two picks are Johnson and Reavie. Johnson finished T6 last week at Sony, including a second-round 61, and ranked T10 in birdies with 21, seventh in strokes gained-approach to the green, 14th in putting and T17 in greens in regulation.
Reavie also made a run at the 59 Club – he shot a 61 on Sunday and finished T8 for the event – and was T18 in strokes gained-off the tee, second in approach to the green and third in greens in regulation. That should work well this week.
The Weather
This week is going to be very un-Palm Springs like weather with rain expected Thursday, Friday and Sunday and cool temperatures, only getting out of the 50s into the 60s. That should make these courses play easier, and potentially give us additional runs at 58 or 59. It could also get breezy Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
