It’s that time of the year again when golfers the world over begin to lick their lips in anticipation of the Masters. This year’s renewal has been injected with extra spice thanks to the tantalising prospect of Tiger Woods making his long-awaited, top-flight tournament comeback. Tiger has written more than his share of fairy tales at Augusta National over the years and teeing it up a little over a year after a being involved in life-threatening car crash would rank right up there alongside any of them. Just imagine the scenes if he were to play himself into contention!
But beyond our hopes and dreams for Tiger, who is going to win? It’s a question that every golfer and golf fan will currently be debating. It’s part of the pageantry and tradition leading up to the first men’s major of the season. And because both the PGA Tour’s ShotLink Data and the DP World Tour's player data now flow into Clippd, it’s one that we can explore via selected areas of data feedback within the platform.
To be clear, we have not set out to assess an exhaustive list of contenders. We have limited our investigations to the top-12 players in the Official Golf World Rankings, which automatically rules out a host of serious prospects, including serial Masters contender Jordan Spieth, as well as Louis Oosthuizen, Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau, to name but a few. We also recognise that there are always outliers (Immelman, Cabrera, Schwartzel, Willett) and there are different schools of thought when it comes to picking a winner at Augusta National.
It is also useful to note that we have only just started to work with ShotLink Data and have yet to add weather adjustments – and let's also not forget how tough the conditions were at The Players Championship! In addition, we are currently working on a new element of the Clippd model that factors in course conditions and set-up (rough length, green speed, fairways firmness etc). As PGA Tour players compete on courses that are set up to be more difficult, we will see their Player Quality numbers go up. Similarly, if you play on easier set-ups with short rough and softer, slower greens, your Player Quality will probably drop a bit from its current level.
So, what we have done is look at recent Masters Tournaments and dial into the key aspect of the game — approach play — that winners more often than not excel at. Looking at it through the lens of traditional stats, the average GIR for Masters winners has risen from 46 in the 1980s to 52 in 2010s. Last year’s champion Hideki Matsuyama was 4th in the field for Strokes Gained Approach, while runner-up Will Zalatoris was 9th. This, clearly, is anything but exhaustive in terms of a data set, but we know that Augusta National requires players to hit more 5, 6 and 7 irons than they would at a normal PGA Tour event.
By taking the average driving distance for the world’s top-12 ranked players, we have calculated the key distance ‘bins’ for approach play at Augusta National, in other words where they will be required to hit proportionally the highest number of approach shots from.
The stats show us that these ‘bins’ are at 140-160 yards and at 220+ yards. For the latter, it is interesting to note how pivotal par-5 performance is at the Masters. Our tables above and below show Average Shot Quality for the world’s top-12 players over the last 20 tournament rounds at these two distances. If the bar chart is capped in green, it denotes that the player is currently trending upwards, red means they are trending downwards and grey means their trend line is flat.
The data shows us how close these players are in terms of their current skill level, but four players separate themselves from the rest: Hideki Matsuyama, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Viktor Hovland. As you can see from their Player Quality dashboards on Clippd (below), there is precious little to choose between these four players, all of whom are proven winners, with three of the four having won majors.
Hideki Matsuyama: Player Quality
Collin Morikawa: Player Quality
Justin Thomas: Player Quality
Viktor Hovland: Player Quality
Over the last 20 years, 65 per cent of Masters champions had already won a tournament in the same calendar year, which puts another tick in the column next to Matsuyama (Sony Open) and Hovland (Dubai Desert Classic). Indeed, both won tournaments at the tail end of 2021, too.
So let’s look at the par-5 performance of Hovland and Matsuyama over their last 20 rounds. Why? Because over the last two decades, the men who have slipped their arms into a Green Jacket have been an average of 8 under par for the week for Augusta National’s four par-5s.
Hideki Matsuyama: Scoring Trend, Relative Importance and Par 5 Performance (last 20 rounds)
Hideki Matsuyama's Clippd stats (above) show that his scoring has not been as good in recent weeks, but then again the PGA Tour has stopped at some tough courses where the set-up and conditions have been tough and scoring, particularly at Bay Hill, was high. If he putts well (shown as 37% in Relative Importance), just as he did last year at Augusta National, the defending champion should be in the mix. His Par 5 Scoring over his last 20 rounds is also a healthy sign and like so many others, he'll be looking to put his foot down on holes 2, 8, 13 and 15 next week.
Viktor Hovland: Scoring Trend, Relative Importance and Par 5 Performance (last 20 rounds)
In the Clippd data visualisation from Viktor Hovland's Clippd dashboard (above) we can see the importance of both Approach play and Putting to his scoring, as well as an encouraging uptick in his already prodigious Off The Tee performance in recent weeks. He is also tracking well ahead of the PGA Tour average for Par 5 performance, which bodes well for his hopes of landing a first major title.
We're not suggesting these insights will identify the winner at the 2022 Masters Tournament but they should give you food for thought when building your team for the official Masters Fantasy League. We hope you will join us in the Clippd League we have set up within the game. You have to pick four players from set categories: one American, one international, one first-timer and one past winner. There are options on each category in the data above!
Best of luck and enjoy what should be another outstanding Masters.
But beyond our hopes and dreams for Tiger, who is going to win? It’s a question that every golfer and golf fan will currently be debating. It’s part of the pageantry and tradition leading up to the first men’s major of the season. And because both the PGA Tour’s ShotLink Data and the DP World Tour's player data now flow into Clippd, it’s one that we can explore via selected areas of data feedback within the platform.
It is also useful to note that we have only just started to work with ShotLink Data and have yet to add weather adjustments – and let's also not forget how tough the conditions were at The Players Championship! In addition, we are currently working on a new element of the Clippd model that factors in course conditions and set-up (rough length, green speed, fairways firmness etc). As PGA Tour players compete on courses that are set up to be more difficult, we will see their Player Quality numbers go up. Similarly, if you play on easier set-ups with short rough and softer, slower greens, your Player Quality will probably drop a bit from its current level.
So, what we have done is look at recent Masters Tournaments and dial into the key aspect of the game — approach play — that winners more often than not excel at. Looking at it through the lens of traditional stats, the average GIR for Masters winners has risen from 46 in the 1980s to 52 in 2010s. Last year’s champion Hideki Matsuyama was 4th in the field for Strokes Gained Approach, while runner-up Will Zalatoris was 9th. This, clearly, is anything but exhaustive in terms of a data set, but we know that Augusta National requires players to hit more 5, 6 and 7 irons than they would at a normal PGA Tour event.
By taking the average driving distance for the world’s top-12 ranked players, we have calculated the key distance ‘bins’ for approach play at Augusta National, in other words where they will be required to hit proportionally the highest number of approach shots from.
The stats show us that these ‘bins’ are at 140-160 yards and at 220+ yards. For the latter, it is interesting to note how pivotal par-5 performance is at the Masters. Our tables above and below show Average Shot Quality for the world’s top-12 players over the last 20 tournament rounds at these two distances. If the bar chart is capped in green, it denotes that the player is currently trending upwards, red means they are trending downwards and grey means their trend line is flat.
The data shows us how close these players are in terms of their current skill level, but four players separate themselves from the rest: Hideki Matsuyama, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Viktor Hovland. As you can see from their Player Quality dashboards on Clippd (below), there is precious little to choose between these four players, all of whom are proven winners, with three of the four having won majors.
Hideki Matsuyama: Player Quality
Collin Morikawa: Player Quality
Justin Thomas: Player Quality
Viktor Hovland: Player Quality
Over the last 20 years, 65 per cent of Masters champions had already won a tournament in the same calendar year, which puts another tick in the column next to Matsuyama (Sony Open) and Hovland (Dubai Desert Classic). Indeed, both won tournaments at the tail end of 2021, too.
So let’s look at the par-5 performance of Hovland and Matsuyama over their last 20 rounds. Why? Because over the last two decades, the men who have slipped their arms into a Green Jacket have been an average of 8 under par for the week for Augusta National’s four par-5s.
Hideki Matsuyama: Scoring Trend, Relative Importance and Par 5 Performance (last 20 rounds)
Viktor Hovland: Scoring Trend, Relative Importance and Par 5 Performance (last 20 rounds)
We're not suggesting these insights will identify the winner at the 2022 Masters Tournament but they should give you food for thought when building your team for the official Masters Fantasy League. We hope you will join us in the Clippd League we have set up within the game. You have to pick four players from set categories: one American, one international, one first-timer and one past winner. There are options on each category in the data above!
Best of luck and enjoy what should be another outstanding Masters.
Last edited by Josh; 31-03-22 at 16:46.
