Speaker 1: I miss the green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a brid Egg
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg Bride
Speaker 2: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 2: Frida Egg Podcast. We have a second podcast this week
Speaker 2: and excited to bring on Jake Nichols. Jake is the
Speaker 2: head of Intelligence at the Fifteenth Club, which is a
Speaker 2: golf analytics company that helps players kind of analyze and
Speaker 2: look at their stats to play better. Some of their
Speaker 2: players they have a lot of European tour players are
Speaker 2: Danny Willett, Darren Clark, Lee Westwood, Matt Fitzpatrick, Juice Luton,
Speaker 2: Torborne Ollison and many more. Jake, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, and I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited to kind of get into, you
Speaker 2: know what, what everybody needs to know about the saber
Speaker 2: metrics of golf. I you know, to kick things off.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear a little bit about how you
Speaker 2: got into it in your background.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, so I was always a golf fan more
Speaker 3: than more than anything. I played a little bit when
Speaker 3: I was younger, but but I was always much more
Speaker 3: of a fan. And then in college really started to
Speaker 3: get into looking at sports in a statistical way. So
Speaker 3: baseball and basketball were the two big ones back then.
Speaker 3: And after a year or two of you know, reading
Speaker 3: blog posts and books and whatever was available in those sports,
Speaker 3: I started to wonder why golf didn't have very many
Speaker 3: people operating it. And this was before Mark Brody and
Speaker 3: strokes Gan got big, before his book came out, and
Speaker 3: so there were only a handful of people really in
Speaker 3: the corners of the Internet who were analyzing golf with
Speaker 3: with data. So I just picked it up as a
Speaker 3: side hobby in college and it's grown into full time
Speaker 3: job with Fifteenth Club for the last two years.
Speaker 2: That's cool. Did you do anything else before you got
Speaker 2: into that and in the working world.
Speaker 3: Nope, This was pretty much straight out of college after
Speaker 3: a little bit of loafing around the house.
Speaker 2: That's cool. So tell us a little bit about like
Speaker 2: what's a day in the life for you, Like what
Speaker 2: do you what do you do on a daily basis
Speaker 2: with like golf numbers, and how does it work.
Speaker 3: So it could be really anything. Right now, when we're
Speaker 3: on a report for one of our players, basically a
Speaker 3: check up for him, he's all for a few weeks now,
Speaker 3: so he's looking for a you know, a breakdown of
Speaker 3: his game. How's he trending over the first few months
Speaker 3: of the season. So it could be that it could
Speaker 3: be working on a consulting project for one of our clients.
Speaker 3: We've gotten involved in a lot in the last six
Speaker 3: months to twelve months, and just how can how can
Speaker 3: golf organizations use their data better? So it's analyzing data,
Speaker 3: it's working on software tools to help the players capture
Speaker 3: their data better, to help these organizations track their data better.
Speaker 3: So a lot of numbers, a lot of coding, a
Speaker 3: lot of data visualization which I which I really enjoy,
Speaker 3: and then you know, just figuring out how best to
Speaker 3: communicate insights to the players, caddies, other clients.
Speaker 2: So you know, we've seen like this sabermetrics boom and
Speaker 2: baseball and bat basketball, where you know, they've kind of
Speaker 2: completely revolutionized the sport. And you know, the philosophy is
Speaker 2: behind the sport. How you assemble teams, how you how
Speaker 2: you even you know draw plays in basketball. How far
Speaker 2: behind is is golf from that?
Speaker 3: So I would say when I think about using data
Speaker 3: in like the sports arena, I think there's kind of
Speaker 3: three phases. The first is someone decides to start tracking
Speaker 3: all this stuff. So the PGA Tour installed shot link
Speaker 3: cameras over a decade ago, so now they have all
Speaker 3: this data to play with. So the second stage is
Speaker 3: kind of convincing people that that data can be used
Speaker 3: to create insights, that we can learn from it, that
Speaker 3: it can help players play better, it can help the tour,
Speaker 3: you know, organize events better. It can you know, do
Speaker 3: all this, do all this stuff, uh, basically what we're
Speaker 3: doing right now.
Speaker 1: And then the final.
Speaker 3: Stage is it's fully accepted. And I think in baseball
Speaker 3: it's fully accepted. All the teams use it, everyone talks
Speaker 3: about it, it's on the broadcast, it's in the studio shows.
Speaker 3: I really think golf is still kind of in that
Speaker 3: second stage where we're still trying to convince some people
Speaker 3: out there, some stakeholders in the game, some players, you know,
Speaker 3: of of the of the validity of the results, how
Speaker 3: it can help them out and really get everyone comfortable
Speaker 3: with talking talking about data. So I really think it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's behind baseball for sure, but it's also
Speaker 3: a little bit easier than like applying analytics to basketball,
Speaker 3: where you have to track the ball and ten players,
Speaker 3: and in this court you can, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: only focus on where's the ball positioned at each time
Speaker 3: or one player swing. So it's a little bit easier
Speaker 3: of a problem than basketball or hockey or football.
Speaker 2: What would you say is the biggest pushback that you get,
Speaker 2: like what's the most regular kind of feedback against the
Speaker 2: analytics and using them to kind of try and you know,
Speaker 2: analyze performance.
Speaker 3: I would say there's a few things. The first is
Speaker 3: a lack of understanding of how this is, uh, this
Speaker 3: is different strokes gained.
Speaker 1: It takes a while to really.
Speaker 3: Understand it intuitively. I think you can't really understand it
Speaker 3: in totally. I mean, so I think there's a little disconnect.
Speaker 3: How can you know this is better than just looking
Speaker 3: at the stats that I've looked at for ten years
Speaker 3: or twenty years, or maybe don't look at all. And
Speaker 3: the second one is when it conflicts with what the
Speaker 3: player or the caddy or the coach is seeing with
Speaker 3: their eyes. Try telling a player who you think his
Speaker 3: iron game is merely average that and he might think
Speaker 3: it's you know, top twenty five in the world because
Speaker 3: maybe he's getting the consistent contact that he's looking for,
Speaker 3: you know, his swing feels great, but maybe the results
Speaker 3: just aren't there, or the strategy in the shots just
Speaker 3: aren't there. So there's it's it's difficult sometimes where there's
Speaker 3: some resistance to what the data is telling you.
Speaker 2: So with when you guys start working with players, you know,
Speaker 2: what kind of stuff do you does that encompass? Obviously
Speaker 2: it's you know, looking at their stats. You know, does
Speaker 2: it go into you know, you touched on strategy, does
Speaker 2: it go into how to play the course and in
Speaker 2: different tendencies and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So the initial state that most of our clients come
Speaker 3: to us with is I just want to track my performance,
Speaker 3: track how I've been playing in all these different areas.
Speaker 3: So we have a tool, a software tool that they
Speaker 3: can enter their data into. It tracks their data over time.
Speaker 3: They can you know, slice and dice it. However they
Speaker 3: like to look at it, and that kind of data
Speaker 3: is really used to influence everything else we do with
Speaker 3: them in terms of reports and strategy and you know,
Speaker 3: everything else. So that's kind of the initial thing is
Speaker 3: someone will come to us and say, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: just looking to improve, looking to get better. How can
Speaker 3: you help me track my performance and you know, and
Speaker 3: figure out what's the one or two things that I
Speaker 3: need to work on to you know, become a top
Speaker 3: fifty player, top twenty five player, top ten player eventually.
Speaker 3: And then once once we have that sort of data,
Speaker 3: once they're in degraded into that sort of software tool,
Speaker 3: then some of them are more interested than others in
Speaker 3: in things like one course strategy. So we have a
Speaker 3: few guys who we help prepare for some of the
Speaker 3: big events and some guys who are interested in it
Speaker 3: week to week just what can you tell me about
Speaker 3: the course? What can you tell me about you know,
Speaker 3: what should I be working on in the last three
Speaker 3: weeks of practice before the Masters? What sort of shots
Speaker 3: am I going to face at the at the tournament
Speaker 3: that I should be preparing for. And then at the
Speaker 3: end of the year, there's some clients who are interested
Speaker 3: in scheduling, you know, what's the one or two courses
Speaker 3: that I should play this year that I don't normally
Speaker 3: play that that whether it's something about the field or
Speaker 3: something about the course fitting my game that I can
Speaker 3: really get an edge and maybe outperform my normal level
Speaker 3: of play at that course.
Speaker 2: Interesting. So with the you know, the specific courses, is
Speaker 2: there you know, how much is like the horses for courses,
Speaker 2: is it you know, overplayed or how real is it?
Speaker 3: Uh, it's definitely a factor for sure. I've seen some
Speaker 3: people dismiss it because if you look at just the
Speaker 3: thing is, if you look at just results of players
Speaker 3: at a course, So this guy's going to Sawgrass his
Speaker 3: last five times and he's had four top tens, it's
Speaker 3: not really telling you that much because it might be
Speaker 3: that that player is just really good. You know, if
Speaker 3: that's Henrik Stenson and he's top ten four times out
Speaker 3: of five, well maybe that's pretty close to what you'd
Speaker 3: expect there. So the actual it's it's difficult to tease
Speaker 3: horses for courses out of the data. I don't think
Speaker 3: you can just look at a you know, look at
Speaker 3: a sheet that gives you his results for the last
Speaker 3: ten years and there's more to it. It's more about how,
Speaker 3: you know, how does that player's game fit with the
Speaker 3: course statistically and if we and if we can figure
Speaker 3: that out. Then we can go to tell Matt fitz
Speaker 3: Fitzpatrick or Danny Willett, who have never played a lot
Speaker 3: of the PGA Tour courses, and we can say, well,
Speaker 3: our numbers say your game fits well at Colonial, or
Speaker 3: your game fits well at at the Travelers, et cetera.
Speaker 2: That's it. It's interesting. So with regards to kind of
Speaker 2: you know, how how you guys wait things, And obviously
Speaker 2: with Mark Brody's kind of strokes gained book, he you know,
Speaker 2: he put a big discount on kind of putting, and
Speaker 2: you know, just preaching about how you know, tee to
Speaker 2: green was so much more important, and anything inside of
Speaker 2: fifty yards was relatively you know, everybody's the same. What
Speaker 2: would you say is the biggest difference between say you're,
Speaker 2: you know, top fifty player and number like two fifty
Speaker 2: in the world range, Like, you know, somebody that's kind
Speaker 2: of like a fringe tour guy, whether it's European Tour
Speaker 2: or PGA Tour, kind of bouncing between the web dot
Speaker 2: Com or the Challenge Tour and the and the Big Tour.
Speaker 3: I still would think it's sort of ball striking stats
Speaker 3: for sure. I would say probably a combination of long
Speaker 3: game and also driving ability. So I imagine there's a
Speaker 3: lot more guys in that sort of churn area between
Speaker 3: the Web and the and the big tour who can
Speaker 3: hit it a mile but can't control it. And there's
Speaker 3: a lot of guys in that top fifty in the
Speaker 3: world range who who maybe don't hit it as far
Speaker 3: as those big hitters, but they're really controlling it, they're
Speaker 3: putting it in play, and that kind of above average
Speaker 3: distance plus you know, average accuracy is really really what
Speaker 3: sets players apart. So yeah, definitely, definitely long game is
Speaker 3: kind of still the separator at that level.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious, you know, something I look at is
Speaker 2: I kind of think that the world rankings and the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour is a byproduct of the golf course as
Speaker 2: they play. You know, a couple of weeks ago at Harbortown,
Speaker 2: you see like a distinctly different leader board than you
Speaker 2: do week over week of the PGA Tour, And I
Speaker 2: think there's a few courses that kind of fit that mold.
Speaker 2: Do you think that, you know, the golf courses that
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour plays, the tPCS, the you know, the
Speaker 2: courses that really value you know, kind of do you
Speaker 2: think the courses diminish what a player's skill inside one
Speaker 2: hundred yards as much and then promote the long game,
Speaker 2: or do you think it's in terms of your every
Speaker 2: day golf that long game is more important.
Speaker 3: See I think I think there's definitely rewards based on
Speaker 3: the change in the game over the last fifteen years,
Speaker 3: the ball change and the distance change. There's rewards to
Speaker 3: making the courses fit that sort of elite PGA tour player.
Speaker 3: But I don't really think that they diminish talent inside
Speaker 3: one hundred yards sort of short game. Right now on
Speaker 3: tour the average course you hit driver about ten times
Speaker 3: around or so, which I think is a pretty reasonable
Speaker 3: middle ground. It doesn't give the best hit like best
Speaker 3: drivers in the world, the ability to hit driver on
Speaker 3: every single hole, and it also doesn't really take get
Speaker 3: out of their hands for ten holes around. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think the rough is definitely more playable than maybe is
Speaker 3: fair towards really to promote letting those big hitters out
Speaker 3: of jail when they when they rip off a loose one.
Speaker 2: Okay, so because I think a lot of it. You know, obviously,
Speaker 2: conditioning to firm and fast conditions, how do you guys. See,
Speaker 2: you know, like conditions play a play a factor, like
Speaker 2: whether a course gets rain soaked and it's soft versus
Speaker 2: you know, firm and fast.
Speaker 1: Is it it?
Speaker 2: Does it? Do you see? You know, differences within the
Speaker 2: same golf course, say like a Riviera where it was
Speaker 2: soaked this year versus you know when it's played firm
Speaker 2: and fast in the past.
Speaker 3: I've never actually looked at it, but you can, I
Speaker 3: imagine if you look at the scoring, you can definitely
Speaker 3: see see it come out in the scoring and see
Speaker 3: it come out and really all the other stats.
Speaker 1: We saw it at the match.
Speaker 3: Play this year where the faraways were basically concrete and
Speaker 3: the balls were just running out three seventy five. And
Speaker 3: also when the when the greens slowed down. You definitely
Speaker 3: can can notice it in the in the punting stats.
Speaker 3: I think it was at Innisbrook a few years ago
Speaker 3: where they had reseated the greens or changed something with
Speaker 3: the green surface and everyone was leaving the putt short
Speaker 3: and it was we we like to look at this
Speaker 3: stat like how how often did you get it to
Speaker 3: the hole or just past the hole with your putts?
Speaker 3: And that that course was like breaking our scale. That
Speaker 3: that year just because the players weren't just weren't used
Speaker 3: to putting on the surface. So conditioning can be a
Speaker 3: huge factor with putting for sure.
Speaker 2: I remember that it is their brand new g and
Speaker 2: yeah everybody left it short. So with that stat getting
Speaker 2: into the hole, like, what are some other stats that
Speaker 2: you guys look at that you know, aren't you know?
Speaker 2: On PGA tour dot com.
Speaker 3: A few of the core specific ones that I like
Speaker 3: to look at week to week is what kind of
Speaker 3: trouble can you get into off the tee? So if
Speaker 3: we compare how a player scores from the rough or
Speaker 3: the fairway bunker to how they score from the fairway
Speaker 3: and then just average that for all the different players
Speaker 3: at each hole, you can get a Basically, you can
Speaker 3: get the value of how much it costs you if
Speaker 3: you don't hit the fairway, and that can range at Salgrass,
Speaker 3: East Lake, I think Mierfield Village they're near about half
Speaker 3: a stroke penalty average is somewhere around point three or
Speaker 3: point three and a half, and then on the low
Speaker 3: end you get your Augusta Nationals or Riviera. I think
Speaker 3: this week's TVC Louisiana is low somewhere down point two,
Speaker 3: So that kind of gives you an indication of you know,
Speaker 3: how much how much does it pay to be a
Speaker 3: straight hitter this week versus versus another week.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's always a lot of debate with
Speaker 2: Augusta and like, you know, does putting matter, like what
Speaker 2: does a right to left ball flight matter? Like in
Speaker 2: your estimation? What are the most important stats there?
Speaker 3: So definitely distance since the course got lengthened, that's most
Speaker 3: years that stands out as something that really predicts scoring.
Speaker 3: And that's there's a few reasons for that. Number one
Speaker 3: is it gives you the ability to attack some of
Speaker 3: those holes like thirteen and fifteen. Number two, if you
Speaker 3: can get it around the corner, number ten. And the
Speaker 3: second one is most big hitters also are a little
Speaker 3: wild off the tee. So at Augusta, if you miss
Speaker 3: if you miss the fair way, either you're in the
Speaker 3: second cut, which is basically nothing, or you're in the
Speaker 3: trees and you can normally play a shot out towards
Speaker 3: the green. There's very little penalty for being wild. So
Speaker 3: if you're a big hitter who hits it twenty yards
Speaker 3: past the field and maybe uncorks, really one poor shot
Speaker 3: around at Augusta, that one poor shot isn't really costing
Speaker 3: you like it is elsewhere. So I would say those
Speaker 3: are the big things, and that kind of played out
Speaker 3: this year. Sergio is a big hitter. Justin Rose is
Speaker 3: a big hitter.
Speaker 2: It seemed like Sergio was hitting it further than he
Speaker 2: usually does. I don't know just from the naked eye,
Speaker 2: was he, like, I mean, was that an extraordinarily long
Speaker 2: performance for him?
Speaker 3: It's definitely above average. Sergio is one of those guys
Speaker 3: who I kind of have the same reaction to you.
Speaker 3: He's he's sneaky long in some of these events where
Speaker 3: he's hitting it. You don't really think of him as
Speaker 3: somebody who's a big hitter, but he definitely was at Augusta.
Speaker 1: He was right up there with.
Speaker 3: Not maybe not quite Rory, but with hanging with the
Speaker 3: next tier guys.
Speaker 2: So with you know, kind of the world golf rankings,
Speaker 2: like what how do you view the world golf rankings?
Speaker 2: And if you're if you're kind of opposed to them,
Speaker 2: how would you change the rankings to better really gauge
Speaker 2: who's the best player in the world at a time.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's there's two things. One is.
Speaker 3: Numerous people have found they're a little biased against PGA
Speaker 3: Tour players favoring players from other tours, which is which
Speaker 3: is definitely valid.
Speaker 1: It's easier for.
Speaker 3: Because the official World Golf Ranking has something called a
Speaker 3: minimum points, So these really weak events on the European Tour,
Speaker 3: the Japanese Tour, the Asian Tour are fixed that they
Speaker 3: have to award at least a certain number of points.
Speaker 3: And what happens is these events have quite weak fields
Speaker 3: compared to PGA Tour events, but they're still awarding the
Speaker 3: minimum number of points. That makes them look stronger than
Speaker 3: they really are. So there's a few players every year
Speaker 3: who are benefiting from from going perhaps to the Hero
Speaker 3: Indian Open and winning an event that maybe it should
Speaker 3: award twelve points, but it awards twenty four. And the
Speaker 3: second thing is the World Golf Rankings really award or
Speaker 3: reward accomplishment, So finishing number one is always better than
Speaker 3: finishing number two in a comparable event, and that I
Speaker 3: mean it makes sense as something that they're really designed
Speaker 3: to decide who gets into these big events, and accomplishment
Speaker 3: the golf world has decided is the best way to to,
Speaker 3: you know, figure out who gets to be in these events.
Speaker 3: It's completely different if you're trying to judge who's performing better,
Speaker 3: who's playing better, who the better player is. You know,
Speaker 3: if you put them out on the course for eighteen
Speaker 3: holes and that you look at that numerous cases throughout
Speaker 3: the year where someone wins a tournament, maybe they only
Speaker 3: beat the field by twelve shots the field average over
Speaker 3: the week, which is comparatively small. And then you have
Speaker 3: another you know, the extreme example of this is Stenson
Speaker 3: and Phil at the Open Championship last year. Phil Mickelson
Speaker 3: had probably the second best performance in a tournament in
Speaker 3: the last fifteen or twenty years. Yeah, and he only
Speaker 3: got fifty world ranking points or sixty World ranking points,
Speaker 3: whereas in any other event if he had produced that performance,
Speaker 3: he would have, you know, he would have won.
Speaker 2: And then you know, so if I understand what you're saying,
Speaker 2: like a guy that you know, like just as like
Speaker 2: a top twenty machine is kind of hurt by it,
Speaker 2: you know, because they aren't awarded as many points as say, well,
Speaker 2: I think Kevin Chappel's kind of a good example. You know,
Speaker 2: this year he hasn't been playing very well, but he
Speaker 2: just started kind of found something I feel like the
Speaker 2: last couple of weeks, and you know, then he wins,
Speaker 2: you know, probably not by that big of a margin,
Speaker 2: but he jumps twenty points in the world rankings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just for winning, just for winning one tournament. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I definitely agree if you the fact is, if you've
Speaker 3: finished in twentieth place, I'd love to be able to
Speaker 3: quickly run the numbers for you, but but I can't.
Speaker 3: If you finished in twentieth place every week on tour,
Speaker 3: you'd be one of the best players out there. But
Speaker 3: your world ranking, I don't think it would be very good.
Speaker 3: You might be in the in the hundreds, maybe just
Speaker 3: because you wouldn't have like the My intuition is that
Speaker 3: you wouldn't have enough points to challenge challenge at the top.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. But then it also comes down to like
Speaker 2: definition of what the best players? Is it consistency or
Speaker 2: is it wins? You know, like, you know, how do
Speaker 2: how how would you go about valuing you know, say
Speaker 2: a player, like when you start to look at you know,
Speaker 2: greatest players of all time and and their scope of
Speaker 2: their career, you know, how do you weigh you know,
Speaker 2: dominance and wins versus a guy a consistency factor.
Speaker 3: I think I rely a lot more on results like
Speaker 3: wins major championships as the time.
Speaker 1: Skill gets longer.
Speaker 3: So if I'm judging a player's full career, maybe like
Speaker 3: Tiger versus Jack, then yet I think it's fair to
Speaker 3: look at you know, majors and events one and those
Speaker 3: sort of things over a year. I think if you're
Speaker 3: judging who's the best player by who has five wins
Speaker 3: and who has three, then I think that will not
Speaker 3: lead you to the best player as often as looking
Speaker 3: at you know, more performance based metrics.
Speaker 2: So it would be more like in the Strokes game
Speaker 2: department and everything like and kind of those stats, less
Speaker 2: so on wins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Like at fifteenth Club we have a stat
Speaker 3: called Performance Index, which basically rates every player in the
Speaker 3: world against each other based on you know, adjusts for
Speaker 3: the strength of the fields that they play and the
Speaker 3: difficulty of the courses, and and weighs recent play more
Speaker 3: all those things. And I think this week Rory is
Speaker 3: the number one player over anyone else. And I'm not
Speaker 3: so sure anyone right now would say Rory is the
Speaker 3: best player in golf. People would probably say DJ. But
Speaker 3: even before DJ fell down, the Stairs a few weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Rory was very close to DJ in our numbers, enough
Speaker 3: that one week could have changed things if DJ didn't
Speaker 3: play that well at the Masters. And I think anyone
Speaker 3: in their right mind right before the Masters would have said,
Speaker 3: you know, DJ is the best player in the world,
Speaker 3: and it's not really close because he had accomplished so
Speaker 3: much in his last really I guess nine months. But Rory,
Speaker 3: you see him week to week is just's He's in
Speaker 3: the top ten every single week and he's often in
Speaker 3: contention and really right there with with DJ.
Speaker 2: Who would he on that list on your guys's rankings? Like,
Speaker 2: who are some surprises? I'm assuming obviously you've got you know,
Speaker 2: Speace up there, and Ram is probably up there really
Speaker 2: highly based off of his recent success, But you know,
Speaker 2: who are some kind of I guess, like I'm just
Speaker 2: kind of curious.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so until Rom won, I think we had Rom
Speaker 3: when he won in San Diego. He was rated in
Speaker 3: the teens in Performance Index before he won, and I
Speaker 3: think he was where was he in the world ranking, maybe.
Speaker 2: Fiftieth or fortieth or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, he was, he was outside the top hundred
Speaker 3: before he won and then he was forty sixth after
Speaker 3: he won. So that's a good example of where the
Speaker 3: world rankings kind of screws a guy like him who's
Speaker 3: just absolutely dominant for his first twenty events on tour,
Speaker 3: but it kind of pushes him back Malinori as a
Speaker 3: guy who's who we have as a top twenty player
Speaker 3: right now. Again, he's extremely consistent. He's always, you know,
Speaker 3: just outside the mix. He's rarely missing cuts. Rapha Coberabeo
Speaker 3: was like that for most.
Speaker 1: Of last year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he kind of took it maybe into the Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup and maybe still isn't kind of popping up on
Speaker 3: people's radar, but he was. He was rating as a
Speaker 3: very very good player last year. And it's again because
Speaker 3: you know, week to week he was playing so consistently well.
Speaker 2: So if you were gonna say, like, you know, this
Speaker 2: is a guy that's going to break out, that maybe
Speaker 2: not a name that's not on everybody's radar, like who
Speaker 2: could be the next you know, Thomas Peters type breakout player,
Speaker 2: who would it be? Based off of numbers?
Speaker 1: That's stuff I'll have to give me.
Speaker 3: Give me about ten minutes and I can come back
Speaker 3: to you with an answer, I'll do some searching on
Speaker 3: the sidelines while we talked, so.
Speaker 2: In terms of in terms of the you know, kind
Speaker 2: of players that you're working with now, is it's very European,
Speaker 2: too ur heavy, you know, Is there any guys that
Speaker 2: you look at and think like, I'd really like to
Speaker 2: work with this guy because I know we could make him,
Speaker 2: you know, a better player, Like if so, Like who
Speaker 2: would be some names that you'd love to kind of
Speaker 2: work with and and talk about, you know where there
Speaker 2: might be some you know, deficiencies that could you know,
Speaker 2: greatly improve play.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I'd love to work with Bryson just to experience what
Speaker 3: that would be like for a week, just to get
Speaker 3: inside of his head and see see what crazy theories
Speaker 3: he's he's come up with on his own.
Speaker 1: So that's one.
Speaker 3: An interesting one who is way off the radar is
Speaker 3: jj A Henry.
Speaker 1: A lot of our stats, a lot of the stats.
Speaker 3: When I look at him, he pops up as someone
Speaker 3: who plays very conservative golf. He lays up off the
Speaker 3: tea a lot. When we measure aggressiveness in terms of
Speaker 3: hitting the shots into the green, he always comes up
Speaker 3: as very conservative. I think if putting numbers are conservative
Speaker 3: in terms of he's not really giving himself the chance
Speaker 3: to make putts sometimes, why not getting into the hole.
Speaker 3: So I think if we could could sit down with
Speaker 3: him and have him buy in and maybe play a
Speaker 3: little more aggressive golf, then he could, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: he could improve. So that's kind of one off the
Speaker 3: off the radar.
Speaker 2: Kind of amazing that that's like, you know, one of
Speaker 2: Trone's like whipping boys, and.
Speaker 3: You can absolutely see why it's his whipping boy because
Speaker 3: he does I would say he babi's the ball around
Speaker 3: the course so that he can you know, make a
Speaker 3: cut and cash a check for fifty place.
Speaker 2: Who today is the most miscast, you know, whipping boy
Speaker 2: of tron.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think it has to be Brendan Steel. Brendan
Speaker 3: Steele is a big numbers a big guy that numbers love.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how into numbers he is, but but
Speaker 3: the numbers really like the changes he's made to his game.
Speaker 3: He's really improved how he drives the ball in the
Speaker 3: last few years and and he went from being completely
Speaker 3: ineffective off the tea, not long and not straight to
Speaker 3: being a pretty big hitter who can really control his
Speaker 3: ball and and really really gains strokes in the long
Speaker 3: game now, so just in terms of golf ability that
Speaker 3: that gets unnecessary abuse from Tron, I would say, I
Speaker 3: would say it's Brendan Steel.
Speaker 2: I've always wondered that too, because he does like he
Speaker 2: rips it and he plays pretty aggressive. But you know,
Speaker 2: you get on the wrong side of Tron. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm shocked that you brought up JJ Henry.
Speaker 3: He's He's someone who has always always stood out in
Speaker 3: that sort of aggressiveness data that we whether we've looked at.
Speaker 3: So anytime I anytime I run a new stat, JJ
Speaker 3: Henry is one of the first people I check where
Speaker 3: he isn't it? And normally he's sticking out in some
Speaker 3: different direction.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. So do you do? You say, like, I'm a
Speaker 2: web dot Com tour player and I have you know,
Speaker 2: they don't really have like the shot link data and everything.
Speaker 2: How how would I work with the fifteenth club and
Speaker 2: you guys like, how how would you guys go about that?
Speaker 2: Would it be manual stats? They'd have to keep.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: So so right now, most of our clients on the
Speaker 3: European Tour will have their caddy track the data during
Speaker 3: the round. Since the caddy already pretty much knows the
Speaker 3: length and lie of each shot. Just write that information
Speaker 3: down and input it into our app at the end
Speaker 3: of the round.
Speaker 1: It's it's really simple.
Speaker 3: It takes ten minutes and you can immediately get feedback
Speaker 3: on how you played that day if you're interested in it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's manually tracked, and that is because the
Speaker 3: European Tour doesn't have a shot link esque system. Neither
Speaker 3: do any of the other tours. So that's really designed
Speaker 3: to be a solution for LPGA players, Web dot Com players,
Speaker 3: European Tour players, you know, anyone who doesn't have someone
Speaker 3: tracking that for them already.
Speaker 2: It could be you know, even amateurs like me.
Speaker 3: Huh, yeah, absolutely, it's it's in discussion for an amateur product,
Speaker 3: there's a lot more competition in that space.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think about it because I play in
Speaker 2: you know, am stuff and mid am stuff, and I'm
Speaker 2: always curious about my game, and I kind of like,
Speaker 2: I'm probably the exact person that you hate because I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I think I hit my wedge as well, but it
Speaker 2: could have been you know, terrible wedges. What would you
Speaker 2: say to like the you know, every day gofer like,
Speaker 2: say I wanted to get into thinking more analytically, what
Speaker 2: should I do?
Speaker 3: I would say, first, start collecting data, no matter whether
Speaker 3: you use you know, a product or a spreadsheet of
Speaker 3: your own. I would say, start tracking objectively tracking data
Speaker 3: on your game. Uh, maybe if it's even one part.
Speaker 3: If you if you think, say you think you're putting
Speaker 3: is very poor, take detailed notes of the thirty rounds
Speaker 3: you play this summer.
Speaker 1: And how you put and and.
Speaker 3: That really, I mean, really we're I say this to
Speaker 3: a lot of our clients all the time, is we
Speaker 3: really need data to help you out. You know, we're
Speaker 3: not a we're not a but we're not using our eyes,
Speaker 3: we're not using feel we're we're judging based off data.
Speaker 3: And if you're an amateur, who's you know, who's looking
Speaker 3: to improve, rigorously track your data, however you can and
Speaker 3: really judge where you are. And then maybe you maybe
Speaker 3: you spend all summer tracking and you're putting and you're
Speaker 3: actually not that bad, and you can move on to
Speaker 3: something else. But maybe it reveals that you're you know,
Speaker 3: that you're really poorer outside of forty feet with your putting,
Speaker 3: or really poor inside of ten feet with your putting,
Speaker 3: and that's something that you can then you know, whether
Speaker 3: it's taking a lesson or looking for instruction, you can
Speaker 3: you know, look to improve.
Speaker 2: So if I wanted to go all in, I'm diving in.
Speaker 2: I'm going to collect the data, like how deep do
Speaker 2: you go? Do you say I hit a t shot?
Speaker 2: I hit it two d and eighty five yards to
Speaker 2: the right center? That is it? Is it to like
Speaker 2: the specific side, say I missed a fairway? Like how
Speaker 2: detailed would you go?
Speaker 3: In our basic in our basic app that tracks player data,
Speaker 3: it's it's a simple amount of data just to get
Speaker 3: the to get their strokes gained, calculation out. You need
Speaker 3: the lie of the ball, you need the distance it
Speaker 3: is from the pin. Tell me if it's a impeded shot.
Speaker 3: Are you behind a tree? Because that changes things? Are
Speaker 3: you behind the loop of a bunker? And what's the
Speaker 3: what's the club you used? And where did you miss
Speaker 3: relative to your target?
Speaker 1: Excuse me? So, if you're aiming.
Speaker 3: Ten feet right of the pin and you put it
Speaker 3: sixty feet right of the pin, then that's a miss
Speaker 3: to the right. And just that's the basic level of
Speaker 3: tracking data.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So I imagine that one of the biggest things people
Speaker 2: mess up is how many feet away they are when
Speaker 2: they're putting, because I always feel like people underestimate how
Speaker 2: far away they are. They'll be like, oh, I missed
Speaker 2: a five footer, but they were really like eight feet away.
Speaker 3: Or if they make that five footer, it turns into
Speaker 3: an eight footer.
Speaker 2: That's true, it's it's a and then you know, like
Speaker 2: a it's It's really interesting because I talked to USC's
Speaker 2: coach and they and they started to do strokes gained,
Speaker 2: and something he said to me that I found like
Speaker 2: really interesting was that they have above tour average ball strikers,
Speaker 2: but none of their players are above tour average putters.
Speaker 2: And that's the number one team program in the in
Speaker 2: the country. So like this is where my kind of
Speaker 2: bias where I say, like putting really does matter because
Speaker 2: these guys are or is it that all these guys
Speaker 2: are so good at putting that it's diminished.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, so I think one of the things that's come
Speaker 3: out of Mark Brodie's work is is how important the
Speaker 3: long game is, and people have kind of stuck with
Speaker 3: that as the message, and that message is that it's
Speaker 3: the most important, not the only thing. That matters, and
Speaker 3: I think that kind of gets lost sometimes. But definitely
Speaker 3: if you look at at the spread between what the
Speaker 3: best and the worst putters are doing, it's smaller than
Speaker 3: the spread between what the best and the worst drivers
Speaker 3: and best of the worst approach out players are doing.
Speaker 3: So really that that is it on the on the
Speaker 3: pro tour, I have no idea how the USC results
Speaker 3: are coming out like they are. If they do really
Speaker 3: have tour level ball strikers in that program, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I found it pretty interesting that like
Speaker 2: not even their best putter was in a plus strokes
Speaker 2: gained player. But you know, I mean they do have, like,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the best players in the country.
Speaker 2: You know, I think they've got to Walker Cuppers and
Speaker 2: they've got that, They've got that kid that played in
Speaker 2: the Masters like last year, who's a freshman who from
Speaker 2: China change in. So I mean they have elite you
Speaker 2: know kids. But that's so that's a good question. What
Speaker 2: would you say, is you know, kind of the the
Speaker 2: barrier for you know, like young kids when they come up,
Speaker 2: like is there a common skill that they usually lack,
Speaker 2: you know, when they're young and on tour.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say without having study that that closely
Speaker 3: short game would would be one course, management would be another.
Speaker 3: Maybe you maybe you step on the tour and you
Speaker 3: can hit it long and you your ball striking is okay,
Speaker 3: but you know, you're really inconsistent with a wedge. You
Speaker 3: don't chip that girl right, you can put well inside
Speaker 3: ten feet, but maybe when you lag it, you're you're awful.
Speaker 3: And those are just sort of the kind of things
Speaker 3: that you can solve by putting yourself into better places
Speaker 3: around the green. Maybe you don't play so aggressively in
Speaker 3: certain danger spots. So I would say those are the
Speaker 3: things that kind of separate I feel like the best players.
Speaker 2: It's so much reps too, you know, because oh absolutely yeah,
Speaker 2: And like the mental side of it, Like I think
Speaker 2: about myself like you know, in amateur tournaments when I
Speaker 2: was twenty four versus now when I'm thirty one, and
Speaker 2: I think completely different, I play completely different I play, so,
Speaker 2: you know, like I'm just smarter, And I imagine that's
Speaker 2: a lot of like the maturation. Like I think Dustin
Speaker 2: Johnson's a good example with this wedge thing. It's like
Speaker 2: it's not that he just started practicing he might have learned,
Speaker 2: you know, stuff in along the way. It's not like
Speaker 2: he just started practicing wedges, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, absolutely, I think you're spot on with that.
Speaker 3: You just learn, you learn how to be a better player,
Speaker 3: You learn how to attack different courses because you've seen
Speaker 3: them before. I think that's a big thing. I was
Speaker 3: listening to to No Laying Ups podcasts with Harold Varner,
Speaker 3: and Harold Varner said that, you know, he doesn't think
Speaker 3: Tiger even practices that much at the course because he's
Speaker 3: seen everything. And that's true. He's seen everything for twenty years.
Speaker 3: You know, he doesn't need to be out there grinding,
Speaker 3: whereas you know, maybe Harold Varner, a rookie or a
Speaker 3: second year player, you know, they do need to be
Speaker 3: out there grinding and learning these courses.
Speaker 2: I was kind of surprised when he said he shows
Speaker 2: up to tournaments on Wednesdays.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's a it works for him. I
Speaker 3: don't know how it works for him right now, but
Speaker 3: but if that's if he likes to fly home every week,
Speaker 3: that's what you gotta do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how what would you say, is like the disadvantage
Speaker 2: of a rookie. I mean, obviously they already have the
Speaker 2: chips stacked against them with regards to like the schedule
Speaker 2: and and the ranking system, but playing these courses for
Speaker 2: the first time versus the veterans like they have seen
Speaker 2: them for years. Like what what would you say is like,
Speaker 2: you know, first time course, Like disadvantage is it half
Speaker 2: a shot around.
Speaker 3: Or I don't think it's that big. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's that big at all. I think the disadvantage is
Speaker 3: really that a rookie is not going to be as
Speaker 3: good of a player. If you put a if you
Speaker 3: put put the tour players in two different groups, rookies
Speaker 3: and non rookies, the rookies are going to be just
Speaker 3: worse players, just just because it makes sense. You know,
Speaker 3: these veterans have been on tour for for longer, they're
Speaker 3: normally more skilled players. So I think that's that really
Speaker 3: drives much of the disadvantage rookies face, as they just
Speaker 3: aren't as good.
Speaker 2: So like, how good is Jon Rahm from? Like from
Speaker 2: a strictly numbers standpoint, Like where what are you saying?
Speaker 2: Like I've I've said for a long time, he's he's
Speaker 2: got number one written all over him. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think now everybody's saying that, but like, is he
Speaker 2: a generational player?
Speaker 1: I think he could be right now.
Speaker 3: I think he's he's already in that that like second
Speaker 3: tier of players in terms of you know, for fifth, sixth, seventh,
Speaker 3: best in the world. And just because his his skills
Speaker 3: so far seemed to be he drives them all extremely
Speaker 3: well and he hits his irons.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: That's the kind of that's the kind of template that
Speaker 3: Rory and DJ have really written to the top of
Speaker 3: the game, you know, as they've fixed slowly fixed flaws
Speaker 3: in their game and gained a tenth of a stroke
Speaker 3: here in a quote of a stroke there. Uh, he's exactly.
Speaker 3: John Ram is the exactly the kind of guy I
Speaker 3: can see tweaking a few things and and being, you know,
Speaker 3: the next new number one player in the world.
Speaker 2: We're you know, like, who would you say is kind
Speaker 2: of like the outlier of stats? Is there anybody that
Speaker 2: just like, you know, based off of your numbers and
Speaker 2: then but the performance is like the complete opposite of
Speaker 2: what your numbers would suggest.
Speaker 3: There's a handful of guys who are are quite inconsistent
Speaker 3: with how they play. They'll have weeks where they look
Speaker 3: like look outstanding and they'll contend in tournaments or win,
Speaker 3: and then they'll have a lot of weeks where where
Speaker 3: they where they're missing cuts and missing cuts badly. I
Speaker 3: think Thomas Peters was a guy like that for for
Speaker 3: a long time, basically up until like last fall, and
Speaker 3: now he's you know, whatever that Lee was in those weeks,
Speaker 3: he's kind of fixed that and he's so much better
Speaker 3: for a player. So yeah, a lot of those young,
Speaker 3: mostly young and inconsistent players are really the ones where
Speaker 3: where stats don't tell as accurate of a story because
Speaker 3: it's measuring their average week, which isn't very good, instead
Speaker 3: of their best weeks when they're contending and winning.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's and so much of that could
Speaker 2: be just adjusting to you know, life as a PGA
Speaker 2: tour player, traveling, being on your own, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, all that sort of stuff that we discussed
Speaker 3: about ten minutes ago, the adjustment to the tour life.
Speaker 3: You know, you go from being in a college campus
Speaker 3: or in a you know, your national team's training facility
Speaker 3: for most of your time and practicing with the same
Speaker 3: people and now you're you're spread around twenty countries around
Speaker 3: the world or all over the United States and you're
Speaker 3: expected to perform or you lose your card. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: a tough life.
Speaker 2: So, you know, with this week being a new format,
Speaker 2: and I'm kind of interested to hear how you would
Speaker 2: do this, Like how if you were playing and you
Speaker 2: know or say, you have a player that you know
Speaker 2: is in this event, how would you advise them about
Speaker 2: going to pick their partner? Because you always hear, oh,
Speaker 2: they'll be a great. Their games compliment themselves at each
Speaker 2: other so much like they'll be a great, Like what
Speaker 2: what would be your formula? And how cliched is the
Speaker 2: current one?
Speaker 3: Well, the current one, I don't think it's fully thought
Speaker 3: through in our In our Ryder Cup work, we delved
Speaker 3: into sort of what makes a good foursomes pairing, and
Speaker 3: what it really is about is player A and player
Speaker 3: B both have things they do well and both have
Speaker 3: things they don't do well. And it's kind of about
Speaker 3: putting player A in situations where they're not going to
Speaker 3: be causing player B to hit one of their bad shots.
Speaker 3: So if you have someone who struggles with their short game,
Speaker 3: pair them with someone who's just hitting greens relentlessly so
Speaker 3: they're not so they're hitting a forty foot pot instead
Speaker 3: of a twenty yard chip that they might that they
Speaker 3: might screw up.
Speaker 2: So Graham to Let, you'd pair with like the best
Speaker 2: ball striker in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd put pair of gram to Let with with
Speaker 3: Graham to Let. So we'll see how that works this week.
Speaker 3: Without grand Let hitting his approach shots into the green.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I didn't even think about that. I wish
Speaker 2: I would have thought about that before. What So what
Speaker 2: else do you what else do you look at?
Speaker 3: Okay, So I took a look at this this morning. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: I was disappointed that we didn't have any players choosing
Speaker 3: to play this week, because I do think it's an
Speaker 3: interesting intellectual exercise. So we kind of identify key shots
Speaker 3: throughout the course, and these are shots where the difference
Speaker 3: between how players perform on them is really wide, so
Speaker 3: that they can either hit a good shot that gets
Speaker 3: really rewarded or they can hit a poor shot that
Speaker 3: gets really punished. And a good example of that type
Speaker 3: of hole is like seventeen at Sawgrass. It's only a
Speaker 3: short wedge. If you hit a good shot, you're gonna
Speaker 3: make birdie. If you hit a poor shot, you're dead.
Speaker 3: And you're in for double bogie. So we can do
Speaker 3: that for all holes on tour, and we can break
Speaker 3: it down even to look at key shots.
Speaker 1: So maybe on.
Speaker 3: Eighteen at Sawgrass, the drives a real key drive because
Speaker 3: you can get wet very easily, but maybe the approach
Speaker 3: isn't as important. So when we look at Zurich, there's
Speaker 3: a few holes that stick out, and it's like the
Speaker 3: closing stretch. The key holes all set up for one
Speaker 3: one type of player to play one of them. If
Speaker 3: they play the odd tees, it sets up nicely for
Speaker 3: one group, and the guys playing the even and teas
Speaker 3: it sets up nicely for another. So basically it's like,
Speaker 3: if you have a really good ball striker on your team,
Speaker 3: have them play one set, and then if you have
Speaker 3: somebody who's you know, an accurate driver, good short game putts,
Speaker 3: well then they're better at playing the other holes.
Speaker 2: Interesting, so you're just gonna like watch tomorrow and laugh
Speaker 2: at all the teams that mess this up.
Speaker 3: Oh, if you don't think I'm going to criticize people,
Speaker 3: I might keep it off Twitter, but they will be
Speaker 3: silent judgment for sure. Sean Sean Martin at PGA Tour
Speaker 3: had had a good article where he touched on some
Speaker 3: of the strategy guys are using. He mentioned that there's
Speaker 3: you know, three par threes that are that one set
Speaker 3: of players will have the tee off one and the
Speaker 3: par threes here are really long. A couple of them
Speaker 3: are similar holes you know with water to the left
Speaker 3: that they do set up for for one guy. If
Speaker 3: you're a great ball striker, Lake Graham to let you
Speaker 3: know the awful those and and you get an advantage
Speaker 3: of that that way.
Speaker 2: So if you were going to pick one team, who
Speaker 2: would you be going with this week? In a in
Speaker 2: a one and done, like you know, you had to
Speaker 2: pick one.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 3: I think Stenson and Rose are pretty generically solid in
Speaker 3: terms of how their games match up, both being elite
Speaker 3: ball strikers. I kind of do like how how Spieth
Speaker 3: and and Ryan Palmer set up. Ryan Palmer is a
Speaker 3: pretty effective driver, he has a decent long game. Jordan
Speaker 3: Spieces is also you know, he's very solid around the
Speaker 3: board in terms of his his skill sets, So I
Speaker 3: think they can fit well together. Palmer's are really poor
Speaker 3: putter and have a great short game sometimes, so that's
Speaker 3: not really that much for a sleeper.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he didn't really give me give me any
Speaker 2: any sleepers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't really haven't really dug into the player matchup.
Speaker 2: That's fine. I'm kind of curious since you guys advised
Speaker 2: Lee Westwood and then you're probably really familiar with Terrell Hatton.
Speaker 2: I keep whenever I watch him play Hatton play, I
Speaker 2: think I feel like he's very similar to Lee Westwood
Speaker 2: when he was younger. Is that a good comp for him?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm still not sure
Speaker 3: exactly what Tyrrell Hatton does great out there. I'm not
Speaker 3: terribly familiar with his game in general. I know he's
Speaker 3: been putting out of his mind recently.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's one.
Speaker 2: Thing, crazy ascension in the last eighteen months. But yeah,
Speaker 2: he I I just think it might be his build
Speaker 2: and a swing that that always makes me think of Westwood.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's interesting with Lee Westwood. Do you
Speaker 2: still think he can win a major? I mean, I
Speaker 2: might be crossing some client here privilege, but I still do.
Speaker 2: I've got like an ongoing bat with DJ Paiowski about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I absolutely think he can. You see him put
Speaker 3: himself in the position often enough. The main challenge for
Speaker 3: him is just his ability is deteriorating slowly, just age
Speaker 3: related to decline. So he's gonna run out of opportunities
Speaker 3: where he's you know, firing.
Speaker 1: On all cylinders.
Speaker 3: But in terms of do I think if he puts
Speaker 3: himself in the position he can get it done. I
Speaker 3: absolutely do, especially since so many of the major courses
Speaker 3: fit his game. So many of the major courses fit
Speaker 3: that sort of ball striking oriented drives it well, hit
Speaker 3: his irons well sort of games.
Speaker 2: That's a formula that works pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, for sure.
Speaker 2: It's but uh, I forgot what what you were researching?
Speaker 2: What was that? What? What do we what did we
Speaker 2: ask the.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the breakout player?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, who's your who's your breakout player? If you know,
Speaker 2: they could be outside the top fifty or I don't
Speaker 2: know where where you would term it.
Speaker 3: See, I didn't do my homework. I just too engrossed
Speaker 3: in the conversation.
Speaker 2: It's okay, No, it's fine, it's as so here let's
Speaker 2: talk about a breakout player. Then let's like, have you
Speaker 2: looked in in depth and Adam had win it all?
Speaker 2: I have?
Speaker 3: I've looked at his game great putter ball striking is
Speaker 3: better this year. And that's one of those things that
Speaker 3: for some guys it comes and goes season this season,
Speaker 3: you'll see a lot of guys I had a nice
Speaker 3: breakout with the Irons one season and then you know,
Speaker 3: whatever change the next year and they they kind of
Speaker 3: lose it. But he's a candidate where the rest of
Speaker 3: his game is good enough if he can, you know,
Speaker 3: if that skill proves a little sticky and stays around.
Speaker 2: You know, I put him on a list that I
Speaker 2: did at the beginning of the year of breakout players,
Speaker 2: and I put him on there just like strictly because
Speaker 2: like I saw him in contention like twice last year,
Speaker 2: and like, how you know, is that a pretty good indicator,
Speaker 2: Like for a guy that gets into contention, you know,
Speaker 2: the younger guys that get into contention relatively depending it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter really how they play on Sunday, But like
Speaker 2: just getting into contention, is that a good indicator?
Speaker 3: I mean, anytime you're at the top of the leaderboard
Speaker 3: on a Sunday or near the top, you're playing great golf.
Speaker 3: So yeah, if someone's popping up in seventh place or
Speaker 3: ninth place, a couple of times over the summer. Then yeah, wow,
Speaker 3: that's always a good sign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I want to dive into some Twitter questions.
Speaker 2: We got some good ones here. Sean Reehorn wanted to
Speaker 2: know with all the data accumulated, like what surprised you
Speaker 2: the most?
Speaker 3: Ooh, what always amazes me is the narrow margins shot
Speaker 3: by shot between players. How if your average proximity to
Speaker 3: the green is thirty two feet versus thirty six feet,
Speaker 3: you're one of the best ball strikers in the world,
Speaker 3: and thirty six your average. You know that that kind
Speaker 3: of thing. All of these advantages magnified over hundreds and
Speaker 3: hundreds of shots produced the Tiger Woods. I've always found
Speaker 3: that incredible.
Speaker 2: See. That's something though that like is astounding to think
Speaker 2: is like thirty two feet average proximity and like because
Speaker 2: like I this is like what we talked about with
Speaker 2: like learning how to play the game more is like
Speaker 2: understanding when you have a five iron in like twenty
Speaker 2: feet left is like a really good shot and not
Speaker 2: you know, necessarily firing at the pen. And like when
Speaker 2: the average proximity is like thirty six feet, that's you know,
Speaker 2: most golfers would probably think it's like twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, because the all they're shown on TV is
Speaker 3: somebody sticking a wedge in from one hundred yards, uh
Speaker 3: with to get an eight footer for Birdie.
Speaker 2: How do you when you go to a tournament in person?
Speaker 2: What do you do? I'm kind of curious.
Speaker 3: If I'm going as a fan, I'll normally just follow
Speaker 3: a group, follow a player, you know, if there's one
Speaker 3: or two guys I'm interested in, I'll follow them around
Speaker 3: and just if I've never been to the course before,
Speaker 3: try to walk eighteen holes and get a lay of
Speaker 3: the land. If I'm going there with a client, you know,
Speaker 3: to work with clients, you know, you'll go on a
Speaker 3: practice days mostly and and be in meetings and on
Speaker 3: the range and not really get to see much of
Speaker 3: the course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of prescribed by the same theory you
Speaker 2: do when you're going as a fan. Is like I
Speaker 2: always tell people, pick you know, a group, don't pick
Speaker 2: you know, like pick an off the Beaten Path group
Speaker 2: that like still has like really good players in it,
Speaker 2: like you know, like and just watch them play all
Speaker 2: eighteen holes because they'll have less fans. It's easier to
Speaker 2: get around and you get to see, like how they
Speaker 2: play a golf course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I like to go to the Travelers in
Speaker 3: Connecticut and that one there's normally some high profile players
Speaker 3: who play there, and but the other groups, if the
Speaker 3: high profile groups are on the back nine, the front
Speaker 3: nine is desolate. You know, you can follow a group
Speaker 3: and be one of five people who are walking with
Speaker 3: them and you just get to see every shot they
Speaker 3: hit throughout the round.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm kind of curious he brought up the
Speaker 2: Travelers and it spurred my memory to Patrick Cantley, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to get your kind of take. I know
Speaker 2: this limited stats, but like, what do you see from
Speaker 2: Patrick Cantley? And you know, obviously everybody I think hopes
Speaker 2: he stays healthy, but what what kind of in his
Speaker 2: game is you know popped? And why he's played so
Speaker 2: well and so few starts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, he's he's my answer for the breakout player,
Speaker 3: even though he might have already broken out already by
Speaker 3: the numbers through his first four or five tournaments back
Speaker 3: he's you know, he looks incredible, looks like he's going
Speaker 3: to you know, pick up easily and you know, finish
Speaker 3: as like a top twenty five or top fifty player
Speaker 3: in the world.
Speaker 1: Once he gets enough, once he gets enough.
Speaker 2: Starts, Yeah, I mean he used to. I mean, he
Speaker 2: was unbelievable in college. It's it's unbelievable that he he
Speaker 2: kind of the whole thing that's happened. And you know,
Speaker 2: he overshadowed beef in college, which is crazy, you know,
Speaker 2: and how good?
Speaker 1: Oh exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And those guys, those guys who are number one,
Speaker 3: number two players in the world for a few years
Speaker 3: in college and as amateurs almost always turn out to
Speaker 3: be at the very least top fifty guys.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 2: That's what I said to Tron the other day. He
Speaker 2: he but like, because like I still kind of I
Speaker 2: still am in on Casey Wittenberg. You know, I think
Speaker 2: he's gonna make it.
Speaker 1: It might feel a little long for Casey Puttenberg, but hey,
Speaker 1: I'm in on it.
Speaker 2: I haven't sold my property yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, we'll see, all right.
Speaker 2: Sean Martin wants to know what's the next frontier for
Speaker 2: golf stats, and you know, how will they more accurately
Speaker 2: depict what occurs on the course? What's in the next frontier?
Speaker 2: He asked, like three questions in one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sean got a little greedy with that on, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I would say, just really create so we have strokes gained,
Speaker 3: which is which is fantastic and really helped us understand
Speaker 3: why players are getting it done and why they aren't.
Speaker 1: So I think that's great.
Speaker 3: The next step is to dig into maybe more granular examinations,
Speaker 3: sort of like that missfair Way stat I talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: There's a there was a.
Speaker 3: Great piece I can't remember who wrote it from last
Speaker 3: year or the year before about what makes Jordan Spieth
Speaker 3: such a great putter, And it's because he always gets
Speaker 3: it to the hole.
Speaker 1: He always gives it a chance. So I think a
Speaker 1: stat like that.
Speaker 3: Like who are the guys who are always giving it
Speaker 3: a chance versus the ones who are trying to diet
Speaker 3: into the hole? Just really these these new stats to
Speaker 3: help us understand the parts of a player's game. Uh,
Speaker 3: And that's what we've seen in other sports. Baseball has
Speaker 3: this this radar system which tracks everyone in the field
Speaker 3: now and so you can you can tell how far
Speaker 3: a player ran to catch a ball, and so they rank,
Speaker 3: you know, who's the fastest outfielder, you know, who makes
Speaker 3: more catches, who you know hits the ball the hardest
Speaker 3: and all those sort of stats are are you know,
Speaker 3: getting people more comfortable with these, It just gives you
Speaker 3: more tools for for someone like for someone like Sean
Speaker 3: to tell a story about a player, and you get
Speaker 3: fans interested in the broadcast can can use these things
Speaker 3: just just to tell the story a little bit better.
Speaker 3: So when Sam Saunders is out there, it's not just
Speaker 3: well he's Arnie's grandson. We can actually talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about a little bit about what makes him a
Speaker 3: good player.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's you know, it's the out of
Speaker 2: the backs narratives are just awful. It's a you know,
Speaker 2: at least put some context behind why he's a professional
Speaker 2: golfer rather than he's, you know, our grandson of Arnold
Speaker 2: Palmer or friends with Jordan Speed. It's uh, the stats
Speaker 2: can fill that void. This kind of relates to what
Speaker 2: you were just talking about, And I think this is interesting,
Speaker 2: Like do you have currently had the ability with stats
Speaker 2: to tell who performs better on a back nine in
Speaker 2: a major or other bit like a nerve stat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do calculate a round basically looking at how
Speaker 3: someone plays in contention under like stressful rounds. We call
Speaker 3: it uh, and that just looks at if you enter
Speaker 3: around within a shot or two of the lead, how
Speaker 3: do you play with the lead versus how you normally play?
Speaker 3: So if you're so, if you're Rory mcilroyan, you normally
Speaker 3: beat the field by x amount? Then how do you
Speaker 3: play under pressure? And vice versa? If you're if you're
Speaker 3: six back going into the fourth round, how do you play?
Speaker 3: How do you play when there isn't as much to
Speaker 3: play for?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, and there's a lot of work to be
Speaker 3: done in that area. We just just in the last
Speaker 3: few weeks we've rolled out a basically a win probability
Speaker 3: model where we're going to be tracking with more exact numbers.
Speaker 3: How people if you have a forty percent chance by
Speaker 3: our model on the tenthal the final round, you know,
Speaker 3: how do you play going in from there? So I
Speaker 3: think the data is out there, it's just a matter of,
Speaker 3: you know, putting it together.
Speaker 2: Who would be who's like the best in contention by
Speaker 2: your metrics?
Speaker 3: So neither of these guys have been in contention very often.
Speaker 3: I think only about a dozen or fifteen times. But
Speaker 3: Thomas Peters and Matt Fitzpatrick pretty much always have gotten
Speaker 3: the job done. When they're in contention, or at least
Speaker 3: when I say got the job on, they've played better
Speaker 3: than they normally play in other rounds.
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of Fitzpatrick. Do the stats prove out,
Speaker 2: you know, like is he a really you know, like
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about like what makes him
Speaker 2: so good?
Speaker 3: His ball striking's excellent and his putting is excellent, and
Speaker 3: those are two pretty decent cornerstones to build your game around.
Speaker 2: Comparison for him.
Speaker 3: I think Jordan Speith is a longer hitter than him,
Speaker 3: and I think I think.
Speaker 1: Fits might be a little bit better of a ball striker.
Speaker 1: Speith kind of.
Speaker 3: Has these good years in these bad years, But I
Speaker 3: think overall that's not a bad comparison for what for
Speaker 3: what Matt could be if he added some more distance
Speaker 3: to his game. That's sort of like a you know,
Speaker 3: a high high target for him to reach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like I imagine if he could have
Speaker 2: like some sort of like a Justin Rose like renaissance
Speaker 2: like that. What that guy did with to his game,
Speaker 2: it like is unbelievable to me, with like how he
Speaker 2: added like thirty yards, Like it's not easy to add
Speaker 2: thirty yards to your t shot.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, And there's been a handful of guys
Speaker 3: who've on that. Brendan Steel, like I mentioned earlier, but
Speaker 3: Justin Rose is a completely different player than he was
Speaker 3: even eight or ten years ago. So yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that's definitely in play for for fits. And when he
Speaker 3: already comes in here putting extremely well and ball striking
Speaker 3: is great, he could has a really high potential.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got I got a quick question for you.
Speaker 2: And next first time winner Major winner, who's it going
Speaker 2: to be?
Speaker 3: Uh So, who among the leak guys have one? One Fowler,
Speaker 3: Aduckie and John Rahm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you've got a ton of young guys.
Speaker 2: You've got you know, you've well, you've got Paul Casey's
Speaker 2: right there, Justin Thomas. You've got Norrin Hatton Coocher. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So so I can't say Coocher, I'm like get blocked
Speaker 3: on Twitter by some people.
Speaker 2: No, that's fine. You're in a you're in a safe
Speaker 2: haven here. We there's not as much hate on I
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 3: I would say the next next Major winner is probably
Speaker 3: rom first time. I think his game sets up well
Speaker 3: for Aaron Hills. I think it sets up well for
Speaker 3: Quail Hollow too, so I think he'll be in serious
Speaker 3: contingent of both of those.
Speaker 2: It is interesting. So we I had this talk with
Speaker 2: Starson and Tron and and DJ after them, and I
Speaker 2: was talking about how I'd probably take if I was
Speaker 2: if it was a major and I had three guys,
Speaker 2: I think Justin Rose would be in my three, like
Speaker 2: with you know, probably Dustin and and Rory? Who would
Speaker 2: be your Dustin and Speth? Who would be your three
Speaker 2: that you'd pick if it was every major championship, you
Speaker 2: get your top three and it you know, regardless, you know,
Speaker 2: knowing the courses, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think I would pick speF because his game kind
Speaker 3: of travels to a lot of different courses.
Speaker 1: H uh.
Speaker 3: And then DJ and Rory because they're the best. So
Speaker 3: that isn't very exciting.
Speaker 2: But so I'm off base going with Rose.
Speaker 3: I mean, Roses Rose is a great player. He's right
Speaker 3: up there in terms of ball striking travels.
Speaker 2: So, okay, all right, we're gonna get you out of here.
Speaker 2: You've been more than gracious with your time and listening
Speaker 2: to my stupid questions, So let's go. Let's go with
Speaker 2: our tradition of overrated underrated. So you just you know,
Speaker 2: you got to decide if there're you know, no middle
Speaker 2: ground here.
Speaker 1: All right, Oh I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. Practice rounds.
Speaker 1: Underrated as long as you do them right.
Speaker 2: What what do you have to do to do them right?
Speaker 3: I we don't really work with players in terms of
Speaker 3: practice round type stuff, but I'd like to turn a
Speaker 3: few guys into some guinea pigs and figure.
Speaker 1: Out how to do them right. Well, that's that's where
Speaker 1: I'm coming from.
Speaker 2: I'll do your I played practice rounds for these tournament
Speaker 2: What would you do if you were me in a
Speaker 2: practice round?
Speaker 3: So if you play a course that the pros play
Speaker 3: every year, I think we would just walk around and
Speaker 3: pick out maybe eight key shots in the realm and
Speaker 3: really talk through caddy stat geek and player and really
Speaker 3: talk through uh strategy in terms of those shots, you know,
Speaker 3: bringing data and you know how comfortable a player is
Speaker 3: hitting a certain shot and and all that.
Speaker 1: Sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a good point. It's like because
Speaker 2: like when you're uncomfortable, that's usually when you hit bad shots.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why I try not to stray too much
Speaker 3: into criticizing players for laying up or you know, whatever
Speaker 3: during tournaments is they might not be super comfortable hitting
Speaker 3: that particular shot in that particular win to that particular
Speaker 3: green that day. Yeah, and that the solution to that
Speaker 3: is just, you know, realize that that shot might be
Speaker 3: coming in and try to prepare for it.
Speaker 2: Interesting, all right, The like the equipment transition period when
Speaker 2: you change equipment overrated, I think so too. It's so similar.
Speaker 2: Do you do you what do you guys see like that?
Speaker 2: I'm turning all these quick questions in.
Speaker 3: The long one. Yeah, it's not something that I know
Speaker 3: too much about. I can't give you that much of
Speaker 3: an informed opinion.
Speaker 2: Laying up.
Speaker 3: Overrated, all right, So be aggressive, be aggressiveness.
Speaker 2: Jet lag and international travel.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, this is definitely properly rated. I think people
Speaker 3: really get it, though, I would say, let's say underrated,
Speaker 3: because you still see guys who are flying back from
Speaker 3: Asia to playing tournaments the next week, which is crazy
Speaker 3: to my mind.
Speaker 2: Doing it this week, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Buba's doing it. There are a few guys who played
Speaker 3: in the European Tour event in India the week before
Speaker 3: the match play, and that's basically flying around the world.
Speaker 1: We saw, at least.
Speaker 3: Anecdotally what happened to speak a year ago. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think underrated in terms of how players make their decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious. You know. The last question now is
Speaker 2: Bubba and the golf ball. Has there been like a
Speaker 2: statistical change since he switched to the putt put both?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's terrible now. The ball strikings bad.
Speaker 3: His wedge play is bad, which makes sense if you're
Speaker 3: gonna play a you know, if that's an inferior ball,
Speaker 3: if it's something he isn't used to. But who knows
Speaker 3: who has any insight into that head?
Speaker 2: So do you think JB and them are going to
Speaker 2: use the Volvic during alternate shot?
Speaker 3: I hope not for their sake. I can't imagine what
Speaker 3: it would be like to for JB. Holmes to use
Speaker 3: a to use an orange or a pink ball that
Speaker 3: he's never hit before and for nine holes or even eighteen.
Speaker 2: I remember I one time hit my mom's like women's
Speaker 2: ball and the way it launches with like a nine
Speaker 2: iron is insanely different. Yeah, Like I couldn't even imagine
Speaker 2: playing something like that and like trying to get used
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 3: To play overrated, underrated on the ball thing I think
Speaker 3: it seems like it would be something that I'd at
Speaker 3: least want my partner to spend some time with it
Speaker 3: the week before and in practice arounds getting used to it.
Speaker 2: So, like the million dollars a year he gets paid
Speaker 2: by them, I think personally that he's losing that inn
Speaker 2: course earnings.
Speaker 3: Oh, if he's playing like he is now, he's losing
Speaker 3: more than that. He's like a he's like a five
Speaker 3: million dollar player. If he plays like he is the
Speaker 3: last few years and playing like this, he's you know,
Speaker 3: he's gonna make three million dollars less probably if he
Speaker 3: can't figure something out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good smart decision making.
Speaker 3: But he knows he might turn the round and make
Speaker 3: us look at Lake idiots for criticizing him.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the Vulvic Revolution is happening. He just has
Speaker 2: to get used to it. Yeah, he could just start
Speaker 2: painting the ball too, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do the what was it Tiger used to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Have somebody paint the Nike's the Swish one ya. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think he might just I might want to just
Speaker 3: go to title list and say, hey, can you can
Speaker 3: you put some paint on these balls?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, we'll get out on the Bubba Talk. Thanks
Speaker 2: for coming on and uh, if anybody doesn't follow Jake, Uh,
Speaker 2: it's a great Twitter follow. If people are interested in
Speaker 2: Fifteenth Club, I guess you just find a out of
Speaker 2: contact for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a contact form on the website and
Speaker 3: also just follow us on Twitter and we're you know,
Speaker 3: we're happy to talk on there.
Speaker 1: It's at Fifteenth Club
Speaker 3: And always you can reach out to me too, So awesome,
Speaker 3: happy to talk golf.