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Alright, I have Ron Koss on the line, who you guys all know as PGA Splits 101 on Twitter. How's it going, man? Good, Andy. Thanks for having me here, and I'm glad to be here. Absolutely. Well, I've been following your work for quite some time. I think I first reached out to you a little bit ahead of the PGA Championship, just saying...
How much I would love to have you on the show because I think You know some of the stuff that you dig into with the numbers. I know it's not for everyone But for someone like me I absolutely love it and you are doing god's work in my opinion with your models, man. Yeah, so, you know, um It's this is my podcast debut. So i'm again i'm thrilled to be here and kind of get started with this Uh, but yeah, like this is an exciting time for golf. I mean, you know the whole dfs betting it's kind of exploding right now and um
you know just kind of how I got started you know during the uh I've got a golf background you know I played one year in college I've golfed my whole life and a lot of different other sports too but just when the pandemic hit you know stuck in the house you know I started looking at you know the whole strokes gained all those metrics and uh
I just got hooked and so started building a database and it just kind of took off from there. And then of course the Twitter, you know, I started that I think back in February and I really didn't expect anything out of that. You know, I was basically my goal is just to kind of show people all the different splits that are out there that a lot of people maybe don't think about or don't use in their modeling and
And just the variety of numbers and data and just golf analytics are just tremendous. And so that's kind of how I got started. And yeah, I didn't really expect anything to blow up or anything like this. But like I said, people are thirsty for information.
Me and you, other guys like us, we're out there giving to the people. I love doing it. Again, great to be here. Absolutely, man. Well, let's get right into it. The first question that I want to ask you is, at an extremely elementary level, if you had to narrow it down to the top three most important things that you think are going to determine the US Open Championship this week, what would you say?
I think it's really easy for a lot of people to get diluted. There's so much information out there right now. If you had to just dumb it down and give me like the three most important things, let's start there. I'd start with what everybody's talking about. The whole driving distance. Okay. Like you can't get away from that. I posted something yesterday on Twitter about how, you know, the USDA is trying or they claim they're trying to toughen it up, you know, make it harder for the whole bomb and gouge not to happen.
And again, I got some pushback, you know, people saying, no, it's the same thing's going to happen, you know, but everything comes back to driving distance for me still. You know, I, a lot of people haven't talked about it yet, although I'm sure we'll hear a lot more about the Marine layer. Okay. The Marine layer, it's hitting San Diego this time of year. That's only going to make, you know, bombers even more important. And so driving distance when everything's said and done, I think that's still number one here.
You can never get away from the approach game. We've got some small greens this week. Just Torrey Pines is one of those courses where the approach game and just greens and regulation, it's tough. And so it's one of the top five toughest courses for that. And so you kind of got a combination here of both of those really important numbers. And they're important every week, obviously, approach. And I think you'd agree approach is pretty much always number one. But I think you can't get away from those two.
There's a lot of different other angles. You know me. I've got so many splits, it's hard for me to narrow down to three. The model this week is probably the biggest one ever. I think I've got 12 different important areas I'm looking at. That third one's hard. We can talk about strokes game putting on POA. I think for me, it's kind of like West Coast positive, good on POA. I think those are two
Maybe under looked at elements for this week a little bit. You know, some guys just play, you know, your can't lays play better on the West coast. You got other guy, I got Carlos Ortiz, you know, he's really good on POA. And so just, if you can kind of look at even those two, I think that is another thing to look at. And as we go here, there'll be more I'll talk about, but those would probably be my, my top three for this week.
Okay, so I'm glad that you started with distance because I agree. I think that probably is dominating the conversation this week. I've talked about it on my podcast. I've written about it. I am in the camp that it is going to be absolutely essential this week. I think the one question that I have for you that I may be slightly worried about is, you know,
When Rory won congressional at 16 under the next two winning scores were over par. So the USGA really pushed back. The same thing happened at Aaron Hills when Brooks won at 16 under and the next year Shinnecock was almost downright unfair. I was there. It was an absolute bloodbath. I think, I believe Brooks won at one over par. So what I'm interested to see is, is the USGA going to push back?
to what Bryson did. And we've already heard some whispers. I heard Paul Tozzori go on the tour junkies podcast and talk about this graduated rough situation, which I think in theory sounds great. But at the same time, as Rick Gaiman pointed out to me on Twitter, in reality is an absolute logistical nightmare. I have not confirmed other than kind of conjecture if they're actually going to do that. How do you feel?
I'm with you. I still think that distance is the name of the game here. But could you see the USGA trying to push back? Because I do think, Ron, that Bryson winning this tournament two years in a row is a nightmare for them.
I don't think they want that, right? I do think that they care about the integrity of these golf courses. Bryson winning that way winged foot was not the plan. I can tell you that right now. I've played winged foot many times. That is not the plan of how they expected it to go. So do you think they're going to push back in any way? Is that something that you're considering at all?
Yeah, and that's kind of why I tweeted what I did last night, just researching what the director, John Bodenhammer, as he's come out and said, there are differences. And I think Rhys Jones, he did the original renovation back in 2001.
Then he did some other minor changes in 2019. And he flat out said his goal was to kind of combat all the driving distance and the bombing of people like Bryson. So one of the things I know he did in 2019 was he did push some bunkers further back. I think the first hole for sure, one of the bunkers got pushed back.
Um, closer to that 300 yard range. Um, so I know that is the goal. Now, like you said, it remains to be seen, you know, my thought is they, they certainly can't be stupid enough to let it happen again. Right. But, you know, I guess that's the question, but yeah,
To me, that should be their goal. I don't think anybody really wants to see that happen again. So, yeah, I kind of agree with you. It's a change I hope happens, and I guess we'll just have to see how it plays out. I think that it is their goal. I'm dubious that they're going to be able to execute it because, like I mentioned with the graduated rough situation –
You know, we're talking about a very, very small difference here. Like they're not going to be able to get away with making it six inch rough, you know, a hundred yards out from the green and three inch rough, 250 yards out from the green. That'll just look weird. Right.
They'll get more shit for trying to do that. It'll completely screw with the integrity of the golf course. That's not the way that the golf course was meant to be played. So they can get themselves into trouble if they try and overcompensate too much. I'm kind of with you. I think that, you know, they're kind of in, and this is what I emailed to you too. I think they're in a little bit of a rock and a hard place.
because their other worst nightmare is the PGA Championship, and I'm trying not to get too inside baseball with how the USGA thinks, but the PGA Championship, we have it at Kiowa. Kiowa gets incredible reviews, like absolutely glowing reviews. It plays perfectly, right? I mean, not a bad word from any of the players about Kiowa. And now the USGA...
they've been a little bit more controversial in their setups. They've had players push back before. I was watching some of the USGA films recently, the prior US Opens, just to kind of get pumped up. And Chambers Bay, they took a lot of heat for. Shinnecock, they took a lot of heat for. And it's really important that they get this right. And so I think it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. If they make it too easy...
This is the farmer's insurance open. They have to have the rough thick. They have to pinch the fairways. But the problem with that is, is that that setup of really pinched fairways and super thick rough inherently favors bombers. Yeah. I mean, completely agree. So I guess the question is, you know, if they do keep it the same or they try to change it, it doesn't happen. You know, that's the Bryson question. Is he going to do it again? You know, I don't know. You know, he's,
He hasn't had the best history here at the South course. So yeah, I guess, you know, he's the question mark, you know, and he hasn't been that sharp lately. So, you know, I'm not real high on him right now. And so, yeah, we'll see how that plays out. Well, that's a pretty good segue to another question that I wanted to ask you is how much are you valuing prior success at Torrey? Like how much are you looking at stuff from the farmer's insurance open? So, yeah, so there's,
First of all, the, the farmers just, just this year, the tournament was third toughest on tour. Okay. So it's already tough. So obviously with the changes, it's only going to get tougher, but yeah, there's definitely some differences, you know, and I talked about this a little earlier online, but you know, you have the whole June different season. So that Marine layer is coming in. And so that's going to have an effect. And,
Obviously the pressure of an open, you know, that's, that's going to be completely different. And there's a couple other things, but I will weigh it. It'll be in the model, but I will not put a huge emphasis on course history. I just think there's, there's just so many variables when you get into a major championship that you
You know, course history for me will be weighted a little bit less than usual. But then again, you know, you look at the flip side, you know, Torrey's a long course during the farmers. It's a long course for the major. So it's like you can kind of look at it both ways. But I personally won't be putting a huge emphasis on course history this week. Are you weighing more so previous history at U.S. Opens?
Yeah, I'm going to have, I'm going to be looking at majors. I'll look at US Open specifically. And just kind of in general strong field events. That's another angle I'll look at this week.
But yeah, yeah, US Opens, you know, they're definitely unique. They're definitely very similar, whether, you know, like you said, looking at Winged Foot, you know, Shinnecock, all those in the past. And so they are similar. You know, there's, you know, Steve Shermer, who I don't think he's on Twitter, but at the Sports Gambling Podcast, you know, he had a great chart he posted, basically showing that, you know, like we talked about distance and
you know, your driving distance coming in to the U S open. And usually, uh, if you go back, even the last five, six years of the winners of the U S open, they've all been like in the top 20, the weeks before and, you know, off the tee. And so, you know, I kind of think, you know, everything kind of, every time I try to go a different angle, it just kind of keeps coming back to, you know, that one thing as far as driving distance. So,
So, yeah. So let me ask you a question then. Do you think, cause I I've kind of been struggling with this a little bit too. Do you think that players like a Webb Simpson or maybe a Patrick Reed or a Jordan Spieth at the top who, by the way, Jordan Spieth isn't as short as people actually think he is, but are those players just immediate kind of cross offs for you? Or do you just think that their path is a lot harder?
And I'm sure most people have seen the Jeff Feinberg video tweet where he basically told everybody to cross off most of the list. Sure, I've been talking to him all morning. I know. Yeah, he's tremendous. But no, I think there's some value to that. I mean, I kind of put players into buckets. And I think you definitely have a group of five players at the top as far as the big boys, talking about Bryson Brooks,
Rom, DJ, Rory. And then I kind of look at it like you have this secondary group of players who the length of Torrey won't overwhelm them. They're not super long off the tee. And I'm talking about guys like, you know, Thomas, Shoffley, Zalatoris, Hovland, Cantlay. But their approach game is so good that they can make up for any distance they don't have off the tee. And so you kind of have that secondary group and then you have this kind of this third group
And I guess you're, you're right about speed. You can kind of put him in that, that second group as well. But, you know, like you said, a Webb Simpson, a Reed, even a Daniel Berger, more Kawa, you know, these guys who they lock the distance, but they're, they're just good at golf and they could, they could win any week, even with, you know, the distance. So, yeah,
That really helps me is kind of put players into tiers or buckets, however you want to say it. I think there's definitely a group of players that have an advantage. And even as you go further down the board, I think if you can try to narrow it down to those key metrics off the tee, driving distance, I'll get into this more when we get into more of the metrics, but, you know, approach and rough proximity, you know, who can hit out of the rough. I think that's going to be key this week. Yeah.
Can I ask you a question just more so about distance just to play devil's advocate here because I
The issue that I keep having with being too reliant on driving distance just as a stat, and you're probably the best person to ask because if there's anyone that has figured out a better way to measure distance, it would definitely be you. But I look at some of these driving distance numbers and some of these guys, and I don't really know if I trust it that much, Ron. Like, you know,
I see somebody like Spieth who's 42nd in driving distance over his last 36 rounds. And then I see someone like Hideki that's 70th. Are we sure that Spieth is that much longer than Hideki? The issue that I have with driving distance, just looking at it as a stat is, is that these guys are so advanced and they have so many different shots that they play on the
course, right? It's like if you watch a guy like Justin Thomas or a guy like Bubba Watson play, they're not on the course. They're not hitting stock drivers, right? They're doing whatever the hole calls for. They have a bunch of different shots that they hit off the tee. So sometimes Justin Thomas likes to hit like a little low running cut that
maybe it goes 275 yards. But if he was just teeing up a stock driver on the range, he could bomb it 320. So I worry sometimes about looking at driving. I think it's good for tears, but I don't really know if it's the most accurate measure of how long these players actually are. I think they're so advanced and they like to do a lot of different things on the course, which skews their driving distance stats. Does that make sense at all?
Yeah, and even if you look at the numbers, like what's really the difference between the 40th ranked player and the 70th ranked player? Oh, it's nothing. Like what is it, like 10 yards? So I think we rely a little bit too much on those ranking numbers. And, you know, I guess I can be as guilty as that as anyone. You know, I thought of a better way to rank players. Like if, you know, Bryson obviously has the biggest –
advantage as being number one you know just come up with a different method than just a simple ranking system you know that's something I'm kind of working on right now but but yeah like if you're if you're a Justin Thomas you're going to play to your strength and it may not be maybe hitting a three wood sometimes um and so yeah those can be very misleading um and so that's why usually I don't put a lot of emphasis on driving distance but this week you know
I'm straying from that a little bit. But yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. I agree with you. I definitely think it can be overrated. I'm with you. I am looking at it way more this week than any other week because I don't feel like I have any other option. There's no way to kind of answer my own question. There's no way other than just like conjecture from players to measure who is the longest. Like I bet you a bunch of the...
tour prayers would tell you that like Tony Finau is one of the longest players on tour. Now he ranks 27th in driving distance over his last 36 rounds. He also swings at like 75%. It looks like every time he's on the course. So a guy like Tony Finau, who's 27th and driving distance, uh,
If he basically talked to his team, his coach Boyd Summerhays and was like, and Boyd was like, Hey, Tony, this is probably the week where you're going to want to reach back for an extra couple on a few. Tony Finau could probably do that. Right? Like, I don't think the fact that he is 27 is indicative of the fact that there's necessarily 26 people in front of him in terms of driving distance. So I do think it's incredibly nuanced, but,
I want to ask you, I want to transition to another question that I have for you. So putting on POA, West Coast POA versus East Coast POA. Are you looking at that stuff at all? I'm kind of like mixed on how much I want to really dive into that. Yeah. So I think there is a difference. Like when I go back and look at a lot of the East Coast courses that have POA,
First of all, they're not 100% POA. So like Shinnecock is like, I think it's 80% POA, 20% bent.
I think Winkfoot is the exact same ratio. So... Muirfield, too, I believe features a combination of both. I think even a place like in my hometown, by the way, Detroit Golf Club, I think that is also kind of partial, a little bit of both. So I think that will skew it a little bit. And so kind of what I do is I...
I try to get as pure as I can just to kind of eliminate some of that noise where, you know, the bent comes in and there there's other courses, like for example, TPC Scottsdale, um, you know, it's overseeded, but you know, the POA is what they played on this year. And, you know, I emailed the superintendent and he's basically like, it's a hundred percent POA. So a lot of people don't incorporate, you know, of course, like TPC Scottsdale into their, their POA models, but you know, I I've, I've done that. And, you know, I think, um,
I think POA is one of those surfaces that, as you probably know, most players hate it. And so I do think they're specialists, though. You know, I think there are POA specialists. And so I will kind of value that this week. And so, you know, those courses that have 100% POA, you know, Riviera,
Pebble Beach and others, you know, I will kind of have a little higher emphasis on those in my models this week. Yeah, but I know what you're saying. There is, you know, East Coast, West Coast. I just kind of focus solely on West Coast for a tournament like this. Were there some of what were some of the players that jumped out to you as guys that were more comfortable on PO? I have my guys, but I just want to cross check with you to see if we're kind of looking at the same players.
So, yeah, I've got Patrick Reed, number one. Boost Heisen, number two. Patrick Rogers, three. Mickelson, four. Rahm, five.
And you know you keep going down the list. You know you got Max home on number eight burgers 11 And you got a pretty decent sample size here. You know I kind of take my samples. I don't like to go past 2018 Just because you know players do change over time, but I think that gives that gives a good amount of sample size and so you know that's kind of Kind of the top big names on my list
You know, just looking at guys that on the flip side, you know, you got, you know, Morikawa is 106th on my list. And so, yeah,
It's as hard as Harding Park numbers is. Harding Park was pure POA though, right? No, Harding Park is bent. So yeah, Harding Park is bent. Pretty sure it's bent. All bent. Yes. Yes. Interesting. You are, I think you are right on that. It's sometimes we get, I mean, I live in Los Angeles and you just think that all of these courses are POA. Very small majority of courses in California that are POA.
So the ones on my list that I use that are 100% polar are Chapultepec, Pebble Beach, Riviera, Torrey Pines, and Scottsdale. So those are the main ones I've looked at going back to 2018. Okay. And this is kind of, this is a little bit of a nerdy question, but are you looking at
strokes gain putting on POA just in general, or are you looking more so at a player's baseline on other surfaces versus how they do at POA? So like how they do on POA. So like, for example, Morikawa is a decent example. Morikawa's overall putting splits are never going to be good, but you know,
if he is better on POA than he is maybe on bent and Bermuda, are you looking at that kind of stuff too? Or are you just looking at POA in general? So my POA or my putting model, and I've done this the last couple of weeks, you know, it's kind of a, it kind of has advanced over time, but I definitely go number one POA. Okay. So I'll start with just the basic, you know, how do they perform on that surface?
And then I've kind of gone back and I think I started this with the Masters is comparing how a player does, for example, this week on POA compared to non-POA surfaces. And so then you get that comparison and then you can kind of take that baseline number and see, okay, is this player, how good are they above their average?
non-poa and you can kind of you know even though they may not be the best putter in the world if they're that much better on poa you can kind of maybe feel a little more comfortable in playing them and I'll also you know just even for this week since we're talking about putting you know I'll mix in stuff like three putt avoidance and and this week even looking at the the course numbers for the week
Five to ten feet, I think that's going to be a key range this week. I think it's about four percentage points tougher from that range on Torrey Pines North.
So just I'll take, you know, if I can find some correlation with, you know, numbers like that where I can see, okay, this week it's going to be tougher from that range. You know, I'll build that into the model, you know, just to try to capture a little piece of that. And so I think you can get pretty creative with how you look at it from that perspective. You make a really good point. So when I was doing some of my research, I noticed that at the farmers at least, you
three putt percentage was a lot higher than tour average, which was strange to me because Torrey Pines have 5,000 square foot greens. Those aren't large greens by any means. In fact, they're some of the smallest on tour. I think a big reason for that is, is because so many guys are missing five footers. Yeah. And so, so here's the number. So this for tour average for three putt percentage is 3.03%. Okay. At Torrey, it jumps up to 4.06%.
And then if you want to look at even the three to five foot, like you referenced at Torrey, 83%. Tour average though is 87.4%. So it may not seem like much. No, that's huge. I know, but to the average person, it may not. But yeah, that is huge. That's a huge number. And so, you know, I just think that speaks to these greens aren't simple. And I will say this though, you know, I think POA will somewhat level the playing field just because you,
I think you have your group of specialists on POA, and then you may have some good putters who just don't play good on that surface. And so I think overall, you know, I think it will level the playing field a bit where you can kind of look at T to green numbers, maybe a little bit more. Yeah. So definitely the greens should not be overlooked this week. So I want to talk about short game a little bit too.
What are your thoughts on some of the bunkers here? Because I've noticed that there was a strong correlation between San Save percentage and players who have played well. Are you looking at kind of when you're looking at short game, I was having a difficult time trying for my own personal research, maybe trying to find some guys that have
chipped really well at places like winged foot or places where they're stick rough. Are you just looking at strokes gain around the green in general, or are you kind of trying to get a little bit more specific with that? Because I think strokes gain around the green, just like strokes gain putting, it can be a little bit misleading. A chip
And I was kind of making this point at Congaree, but the chips that you need to hit around Congaree, I don't think there's one shot around the greens at Congaree that is even close to any of the shots that you're going to need to hit around Torrey. So strokes gained around the green, it's not all created equal.
Very true. So just, yeah, just watching that tournament this past weekend, you could, you could, players were struggling. They were struggling on that. And I think with the Kikuyu rough this week, it's just, it's going to be the complete opposite because for some players and maybe overall as thick as it is,
it might be easier to pop the ball out of that rough than it is to, you know, try to hit on some of those tight lies that we saw this past week. So what I kind of look at is I'll kind of take around the green and scrambling. Um, and,
What I like to do, and you've seen this, is I will look at other courses where scrambling has been difficult, and I will go back, and, you know, this is one of the things Fantasy National is great for. Select those courses, and I will kind of get a good idea of, okay, well, 52, let me see, 52% is the average scrambling percentage here, and on tour, the average is 58%. So,
Scrambling is definitely difficult here, and I don't think we should underlook it at all, but I know exactly what you're saying. It can be very misleading. But yeah, so I'll take kind of a capture of around the green. I'll go scrambling. I'll look at scrambling on other tough courses. And so I'll kind of combine those together just to try to get the most accurate picture. But for me, scrambling and around the green will be well behind off the tee and approach for me this week.
Interesting, because I think a lot of people will think that scrambling is going to be huge because so many people are missing the greens, which is true. Would you still say that you're favoring a statistic way more like, I don't know, a
Well, greens and regulation, obviously. But are you concerned about the fact that so many people are going to be missing these greens? Or are you just probably thinking, you know, the guy that wins this tournament, the pathway is, you know, it is so much easier if they're hitting greens. I would just in a vacuum favor ball strikers.
Yeah, so let me rewind a little bit here. I will still value, I'm still going to value scrambling. Maybe not as much as others. I think going back and looking at past history here of, you know, the top 10, scrambling is definitely important. It's definitely one of the top stats. I guess my point was that
I'll still value the other two more. But yeah, with the smaller greens, with players, you know, trying to, you know, if they missed the fairway off the tee, yeah, it's going to be tough to hit those greens. You know, the smaller greens, I think, make scrambling a little easier just because you're going to be closer and, you know, chipping should be a little bit easier from that perspective.
But again, that 52%, that's a pretty low successful percentage for scrambling. So yeah, I'm still going to value it, just not as much. Well, the other thing to think about when I was kind of digging into it and looking into the course on, you know, I've been to Torrey Pines before. I'm going again this year. And you know, what stood out to me about Torrey is that it's not...
It's a relatively flat golf course, Ron, and it just seems like around the greens, you don't necessarily have to have...
The greens aren't necessarily, they're very firm and they're very fast, but they're not incredibly sloping like you would see at Congaree, for example, or Pinehurst or previous U.S. Opens, kind of these pebble greens and these Tory greens. You know, I do think that
Not to say that it completely mitigates any skill around the green whatsoever, but I don't think that the degree of difficulty on some of these chips is going to be extremely hard because you're not dealing with a million different humps and hollows and swales in the greens. You basically just need to be good popping it out of thick rough. Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting to before is
You know, I've read, you know, some people, you know, think it's, you know, going to be much easier, for example, than Congaree, you know, even though the rough is going to be so much thicker. And you kind of think it's going to be harder because the ball could get might be buried. So a lot of things can happen when the ball is buried that deep. But, yeah, I mean, I agree with you. And just going back really quick to another that I kind of went past the first time, but I think the drive percentage is,
is going to be really important for a week like this. And like with the longer rough, you know, around the fairways, those guys who can still make it to the green,
And that's kind of what the good drive percentage looks at. And I think it's a very underrated statistic. And so even looking at guys who are in the, you know, deep in that rough, if they can, a guy like Bryson has the muscle to get it up to the green and still make it on there. And that's another angle I'm going to look at is go back and see on those really tough courses with at least three inch rough, you know, who's still hitting the green, even if they missed the fairway. And so that's going to be another one I'm looking at too.
Who are some of the guys that pop for you in terms of approach play from the rough? Because I know you were DMing me that statistic proximity from the rough, which has been really valuable. I was trying to figure that stuff out to myself when I wanted to find guys that were good iron players out of the rough.
And I kind of made my own little filter on Fantasy National where I was looking at approach play from guys that on courses with difficult fairways to hit and thick rough to try and figure out, like, who are the guys that are really good with their irons out of the rough? Because an iron shot out of that thick rough, it takes a lot of skill and it's just a different...
It's a different ball game than a lot of these shots that players are going to have to hit on a weekly basis on the PGA Tour. You almost have to change your swing a little bit to get more steep, and there's a lot of power that's involved to hack that ball out of the rough. That's why it's so...
difficult if you're farther back because you just can't hit a five iron that way. It's just not even going to work, you know, but you can obviously hit a wedge that way because of the loft of the club, which goes right back to our distance conversation. Have you been able to find anything in terms of some of the guys that are better out of the rough? Is that something that you're looking at or is it just, that's something you kind of have to take your chances on because it's kind of almost too hard to find. Yeah.
Yeah, so on, and that's the one thing, and I love, as much as I love Fantasy National, the one thing I wish could be added is when you're in the rough, what's the percentage of time, you know, a certain player can get to the green? Yeah, me too. So Moose, Moose, if you're listening, you know, but no, seriously, kind of what I did, and really the only solution to that is if you go to the PGA Tour website, they have proximity out of the rough.
So you can go look and you can go tournament by tournament and you can see which players, as far as how close they got to the green or to the hole, uh,
The only problem with that is the PGA Tour website, which is still in the 20th century. They only list the players who made the cut. So you can't see the full field. And so the data already is not completely accurate. So I took what I could and I kind of went to the courses that had at least three inch rough. And so we've got Muirfield, Kiowa, Quail Hollow, Sawgrass, Bay Hill, Riviera, Farmers, Memorial Park, and Wingfoot. And...
And kind of what I did is I just kind of looked at those tournaments going back to Wingfoot. So kind of going back a year exactly. And when I put the numbers in,
Believe it or not, the first player, and maybe this is because his driving distance has increased, so I don't know if he's been in the weight room lately, but Stewart Cink is number one. Siwoo Kim is number two. Dustin is number three. Morikawa, four. Mickelson is five. And if you keep going here, you got Spieth, Brandon Grace, Hatton, Burns, Wyndham Clark. Rory is number 11. And so I'm...
I'm going to put this, I'll be posting this on Twitter here probably about tomorrow morning, just so everybody can see. But it's quite interesting. Bryson, believe it or not, is number 22. Yeah, again, take it with a grain of salt. It's not complete data, but it's pretty much the best at least I can do for right now.
Are there any other statistics, Ron, or anything that we didn't touch on in terms of stuff that you are looking at that you think is going to be really important that maybe some people might be overlooked or you haven't seen part of the prevailing narrative before we close it up and get to maybe some of our picks and opinions on guys? Yeah, last couple things here. So one thing that's really good, Data Golf, which I know everyone's probably familiar with, if you go on there and you go to their search query,
They've got what's called true strokes gained. And what they do is they base that on the strength of the field. And so if you're hitting your approach shot great at wing foot, that's going to really bump up your approach game numbers. And so I really like to go there and look and I'll incorporate some of those numbers for approach for off the tee. And I think it just gives people a better picture of,
Kind of where a player's at, you know, instead of, you know, if a player is dominating a weak field event, you know, kind of skews the data. So I like to do that to get, you know, a little more accurate number there. Another thing I'll obviously some of the splits I'll be doing is, you know, who plays the best on long, difficult courses. Torrey Pines, obviously pretty much the longest course on tour, turning it into that par 71.
When I did the model last week, I kind of, you know, I was talking to Brian Mull. Okay. He's online at the caddy network and he's a former caddy. And he got me thinking, you know, when you're trying to look for players and everybody knows this, you, whether you're playing DFS, whether you're, you're betting, you're,
You want a player that has a high ceiling. So you're looking for those guys who could who could win, who has win equity. And so I kind of built a model with scoring stats. So looking at birdie or better percentage opportunities gained, which is on Fantasy National par five scoring. And then you kind of balance that out with more what I call the safety model.
So for this week, especially, uh, you're looking at my friend Spencer, my colleague at Roto bar, he does that stuff too. It's, it's really great, especially for like differences between GPPs and cash games and draft Kings. It's, it's really good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I talked to him earlier and, uh, yeah, that's, I saw that he posted that today. It's the first time I saw that, but yeah. Uh, but just the safety model looking at, you know, bogies avoided, uh, fairways gained and then, uh,
the percentage of rounds that a player is gaining strokes. So you might only be gaining 0.5 strokes on the field per round, but it kind of shows a level of consistency. And that's another thing that's on a fantasy national is a great stat in my opinion, where you can go in and look and see,
Who's being consistent? And, you know, you're trying to find players, especially for, you know, DFS. You're trying to get 606 through. That's kind of what you're looking for is, you know, who can make the cut. And then you're also looking for those players who can give you a ceiling, who have that win equity, who have the scoring ability to actually win the tournament. And so those are some other little things I'll be looking at and obviously posting as part of my model for this week.
So I know that you are just kind of dipping your toes into the gambling space, but are there any guys that are kind of jumping out to you based on all of the research that you've already done? Yeah, this is very initial. Okay. So my model, you know, uh, probably be done at some point tomorrow, but, uh, that could change my mind on some of these, but, uh,
Looking at the top, I think Rahm is still number one for me right now. I think he's going to be very motivated with what happened at the Memorial. He plays very well on the West Coast, very well on POA. He's fifth, playing on POA. He's kind of my top play. At the top, I...
I've gotten to the point, you know, Kiowa kind of pushed me over the edge here with Brooks. Like he's, he's pretty much got to be an auto bet at this point. I mean, I was not expecting that. I thought, you know, he kind of wasn't looking sharp. You know, the knee was still giving him some problems. And I mean, that's a real tough course and, you know, he went and he did that. And I'm at the point with him where, I mean, I think you almost have to play him if it's a major, you know,
So those would be kind of my top two guys. I'm probably fading Bryson. I just don't think he's sharp enough. I just don't think he's on top of his game. His approach game has been very shaky going back for some time now. Of course, that potential is there. Just on that top level, Rahm and Brooks would definitely be my top two guys. What about you? I'm leaning towards Rory and DJ right now at the top. Gotcha.
I still have to think. I'm still kind of processing, Ron. I get, I changed my mind so many times over, over the span of a week. I'm like you, I start doing everything so incredibly early and,
Rory was the first guy that kind of stood out to me and DJ has been the guy that has kind of grown on me as the week has gone on. I think it is a pretty decent tournament. I rarely ever bet more than one guy in that top tier. I think if you're going to bet two at any tournament, this is probably the one. So I,
I was planning on having Rory and then a bunch of guys in that kind of 50 range. I really like Paul Casey this week. I was giving Justin Rose a hard look, Tommy Fleetwood. A lot of those kind of cheeky Euro guys had my attention. Hatton as well. And I like Berger also. And then I kind of had a change of heart and was like,
what am I doing? You know, like just if bet DJ here at the spy, you have the ability to bet those two guys and still maybe take a chance on some of the guys deeper into the fifties and closer up into the one hundreds as well. So DJ is kind of growing on me as the week has gone on.
kind of farther down, are there any guys that popped in your model that are, that stood out to you that have lower odds or that you think maybe are mispriced or the perception of this perception of them this week is a little bit, a little bit off. So as we go lower down the board now, I will say this can't lay, you know, at around 25 to one, I really like him this week.
You know, he had that little slump there and, you know, he's clearly back to me. And again, West Coast, you know, I know PGA Tout on Twitter, you know, he's really big into don't ever play Cantley on the East Coast. But yeah, he's on the West Coast here. He's on POA, familiar surroundings. I just think his all-around game fits very perfectly here. You know, there's not one thing he really struggles with.
And so I think, you know, his mental toughness, you know, people talk about his demeanor and I just think, I just look at him as a very mentally tough player. And so I think that's going to be a very big skill this week, but yeah, going down, uh,
So Zalatoris is just his talent is enough where, you know, I think he's around 45 to 50 right now. But he is he's just got the talent where I mean, this could be the week, you know, he's got the length. He's got the approach ability, obviously around the green and putting maybe not the best. But at Augusta, he putted the lights out. So, you know, maybe this is his week.
Just going down further, I think Kokrak is still not getting any respect. He's another one that, I mean, he can do it all. He's long off the tee. He's proven he can win. These type of events don't scare him at all. But the big one to me that I don't really understand is Max Homa. Like, he is way too low to me.
Just being a West Coast guy, he's eighth in POA for putting, and he's proven he can win. And so he's definitely someone that I will be on, whether it's for DFS or betting. And I'll throw another one out here, Carlos Ortiz. If you look at his putting splits, he is, I think he's number one. I'll have to go back and look, but number one in my baseline putting
Model for how good he is on POA compared to the other surfaces And he's he's got the distance as well. And you know, he's another guy. I think he could he could compete this this week so Those those are a few of the main guys that that stood out to me. I
Ortiz stood out to me as well. He had the best approach week of his life at the Memorial and his last start by around three strokes. I don't think that he's going to be able to repeat that, but he's been so solid in other areas of his game. He can get really hot with the putter. As you mentioned, he has been historically his best surface and people forget he was actually two strokes off the lead in the second to last group at the farmers in January. How much you want to read into that or not, you know,
I think it is what it is, but it is worth noting that he did play quite well here. That 29th place finish. It's because he shot a 78 on Sunday. He did play really well here at Torrey Pines before. So yeah, I'm, I completely in on Carlos Ortiz actually wrote him up in the rotor baller article that I released this morning. So I'm glad that we're on the same page with that one, man.
Anything else before we get out of here? Is there anything else that, you know, myths that you want to debunk about Tory things you think that people are not paying attention to stuff that's made you mad on Twitter in terms of the narrative, anything that you want, anything else that you want to touch on before I let you get out of here, man.
No, I just think people need to, you know, and as we get more people into the space, we know more people involved in the betting and DFS, and golf is such a great game the more you dig into it. And I know some people aren't as into the numbers as we are, just more casual fans, but just for people to pay attention to a lot of these splits, the more you dig in, the more patterns you can see. And if you're really serious about sports,
you know, and a lot of people do it for a hobby, but if you're serious about getting into it, pay attention to all these splits, you know, even something as little as like we talked about, you know, putting on different surfaces or, you know, is a player, you know, good on bomber courses or are they better on, you know, less than driver courses. I just think when you add all these pieces together and you really start paying attention to them, you know, it really gives you a better picture of, you know,
Again, so many variables for golf, obviously, but it just clears the water, so to speak. Justice for splits. I'm with you, brother. Before we get out of here, dude, why don't you tell everybody about kind of the new venture that you have just started on?
Yeah, so I'm now with 444.com, so a very well-established website with fantasy football. I've been around for years, very successful, and just started to do NBA last year, I believe. And so this year, we are starting golf.
And I'll be teaming up with Ryan Noonan, who's coming over from FTN and a great guy, knows his stuff. And so me and him will kind of be going through just a week by week, every tournament. I'll be posting my model on there starting this week. Still will be posting on Twitter all the time. So that's not going to change. But I'll also be doing some round by round articles on Thursdays.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So those will be on there as well. And anyone who subscribes this week, if you use the code PGA Splits, it's 25% off. If you subscribe this week, it's for the whole week going through the open. So, yeah, I appreciate it. And, yeah, very excited to kind of get going with that.
Ron, I hear your dogs barking in the background. So this is probably a sign to get out of here. Thanks so much for joining me, man. You're welcome on any time. Appreciate it, man. Thank you. That's it for the show, guys. Remember to like, rate, and review for a chance to be entered into my US Open giveaway. I will be back later this week with Joey Doney from the Preferred Line podcast giving our final picks for the US Open. Can't wait for that one. Later. Later.
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