Designated Survivor... and Distance Matters

Golf fans around the world have been enjoying two weeks in a row of outstanding Golf delivered by the best players in the Tour.

Why is this worthy of mentioning? Because it is not usual that the entire pack of Top 50 players in the world play two tournaments consecutively.

Players usually take a week off on average between tournaments. That means they only play approximately 20 to 24 tournaments in a year.

Depending on your job or profession, you may think this is too much (of a break). But when you think about it… you need to arrive to the city where the tournament will be hosted on a Wednesday at least, get set to start the next morning, play four rounds between Thursday and Sunday (that’s the plan) and once you finish late that evening, you pretty much have to pack and be on the road or in the Air for the next one.

At what time do they practice the improvements in the game they need, attend Chiro sessions or analyze their game through data…let alone spending some time with family for comfort and mental health?

That’s where the week off between tournaments starts to make sense.

But now back to the last couple of weeks.

The first one, The US Masters. A Tournament that needs no introduction and a place where every single player dream to be invited every year.

The second one, The RBC Heritage in Harbor Town SC. A tournament that has been labeled as a “designated event’ by the PGA Tour.?

Meaning that by contract, eligible PGA Tour players are mandated to play. Even if it is scheduled for the week immediately after the Masters.

What do they get in return? a sizable Money bag and plenty of World and Fedex Ranking Points.

Designated Events is something the PGA Tour was forced to implement quickly (in part) thanks to the pressure from LIV Golf of guaranteeing all Top players in every tournament.

I guess, at the end of the day the Golf fans were somehow winners as well in this drama.

A couple of interesting upcoming designated events are:

The Wells Fargo Champions which is one week before the second major of the year The PGA Championship and the Memorial Tournament which is a few days before the US Open this year.

Distance Matters

Let me shift gears a little bit and talk about the winner last week at the RBC Heritage Tournament, Matthew Fitzpatrick.

Mat is an English professional player that was born in 1994 and won the US Open amateur in 2013 and the US Open Pro in 2022.

A very shy and decent young fella that in my view, is really hard not to like.

In the Netflix documentary Full Swing, we were able to gather two interesting facts about him.?

The first is that he is not only hard working but also very analytical. He always carries his launch monitor to capture stats for him to analyze later in the day. Love that!

And second is that he (in the physical department) was working hard as well to develop strength so he can smoke balls with the driver in a similar fashion of heavy strikers such as Dustin Johnson and Bryson Dechambeau.

Using the methodology of Strokes Gained invested by Mark Broadie and calculated thanks to the great development deployed by the PGA with Shotlink (r), we can check very quickly each component of the game for all Pro players and what’s the impact over their total performance.

For Mat Fitzpatrick, 30% of his advantage or Strokes Gained comes from Putting where he is the number 7 in the Tour. Clearly one of his strengths.

The other 28% comes from driving when he is currently and after a huge improvement number 26.

Now given that it is statistically proven that the longer you hit the driver, the more advantage you are going to get in a Golf round, it was critical for Mat to do something in that regard.

As a result of physical strength training and technical modifications in the swing from the Tee, Mat has increased his average distance with the driver in the last 24 months from 289 yards to 319 yards.?

30 yards or 10% in distance. That for a Tour player is fantastic.

Based on his current numbers and assuming that he is going to maintain his great putting form and continue improving his skills with the driver, I can anticipate that we are going to see Matt Fitzpatrick winning several tournaments per year for the next 3 to 5 seasons.