Tutorial for the Course Key Stats Tool on RickRunGood.com – See the most important stats each week and lookup any stat for any golfer on TOUR.
0:00 Intro
1:20 Correlation
4:06 Course Fit
6:23 Off-The-Tee
9:22 Approach
10:28 Putting
13:33 Outro
The course key stats tool is a statistical breakdown for every golf course with a lot of relevant and pertinent also actionable data for each and every week the drop- down at the top allows you to choose between the golf courses on the PGA tour schedule for that year so depending on what golf
Course you choose you’ll see that data loading in throughout the tool and allowing you to see the differences between those different tracks the general information like Paul yardage average green size and architect will always be available at the top and then you have a stat breakdown a scoring
Average by hole the par for each hole and the scorecard yardage this allows you to tell how many easy holes there are how many difficult holes there are is there any birdie opportunities out there for or birdie streaks for example the way that this reads is number 13 um
The the par five at TPC Scottsdale played over a half a stroke under par which means that would play to about a 4.44 scoring average the uh 11th hole being 33 overpar that means it would have played to a scoring average of 4.33 and you can see that for every
Whole 1 through 18 the correlation section is a calculation that looks at the 12 most recent years if we have it shot Linked In data and all the PGA Tour stats that we have for each golfer each year to determine which types of players have had the most success at each golf
Course this does not look specifically at the winner or just the players who had success for that tournament in that specific year because you’ll be looking at things like all of the winners putt well all of the winners hit their approaches well etc etc etc this builds
A mold of a type of player so it looks at their season long statistics where they ranked compared to their peers and what types of courses and which courses specifically they were more strongly correlated to success so the way that this reads is for strokes gained approach there are only 14 other courses
Because it ranks 15th in which Strokes gained approach was more highly correlated to success than TPC Scottsdale and that is using the full season numbers for every player on the tour how they rank and approach and how they eventually ranked at TPC Scottdale comparing them against other courses is
Important because you’ll always see approach being a highly valuable highly correlated stat Tia green Strokes gain total these are all highly correlated and if we were just to rank them one through 800 uh approach would always be near the top Strokes gain total would always be near the Top If You rank them
Against the other courses you can kind of see which ones outliers are the visual is the green Shadow being the golf course that you have selected the black shadow being the tour average um for that statistic which allows you to kind of visualize where each one of
These bullets uh shows you is more valuable or less valuable then on the left um these are just more stats the reason that I’ve I’ve selected the ones on the right is because they’re the best stats that we have The Strokes gain metrics they’re not very noisy driving
Distance driving accuracy these are very good everybody’s got a decent sample size the ones on the left become a little bit more granular you know approaches from 150 to 175 early scoring average things that might be a little noisier but are worth looking at as well
These are still a you know approach and driving and scoring metrics you don’t see a lot of puttting stats being strongly correlated here so um that’s why I like to have this just to kind of give you an additional idea of some other stats that that might find
Themselves to be highly correlated the course fit table takes the information from above how valuable each one of these metrics are uses that information and each golfer’s last 36 rounds in this case and adjusts their fit so it says who should fit this golf course the best
Or the worst based on those metrics above and because Scotty Sheffer is such a great approach player he gets a nice boost on approach um he is actually a worse putter than this stat shows but because putting is not as important as approach play it does not ding him as
Much here so this table allows you to look across and say okay who gets the best adjusted fit the way that this reads is that Scotty sheffler uh compared to a tour average golf course gets about a 1.75 stroke uh adjusted fit per round at this tournament you can see there are
Four golfers above one per one stroke per round and others that have a very good um history or a very good fit as well I should not say history at all because this does not matter if a golfer has played at this golf course or not it
Does not mean history it means based on their metrics should they fit this golf course and then you can adjust this if you’d rather see a larger sample size if you’d rather see a 100 rounds you’ll see these numbers start to update they’ll go through they’ll redo these calculations
And they will give you a a new adjusted fit number based on your input it might take a a second or two because this is a lot of data coming through there you go so you see this gets adjusted a little bit uh some of the longer term players
Uh who have played well get up near the top or if you wanted to see something very short term if you wanted to go ahead and say just the last 12 rounds you could do that as well and this will be you know some more volatile information because the sample size is
Smaller but this is based on your input the tool will just behind the scenes do the new updated calculations based on the number of rounds that you’ve given it and then adjust the fit accordingly the off the T section is a real deep dive into the shot by shot information
Available in the Rick run good database breaking down each t-shot that the golfer will hit for each hole it shows a variety of different factors that will essentially show who is going to separate themselves from the rest of the field notice there’s no par 3es here
These are just your t- shots on par fours and Par fivs it’ll show the frequency in which Fairways are hit the length of the average Drive the penalty for missing the Fairway and the reward for hitting a long drive these are important statistical metrics when you
Are trying to get to 15 Strokes gained over four days which is usually the number it takes to win a golf tournament these are critical and when you miss a fairway uh at some courses you are in a huge disadvantage and in other courses if you uh hit the Fairway you are
Getting a big reward the way that this reads is that on the fifth hole if you miss the Fairway you are giving up nearly a third of a stroke to the field for missing that Fairway one single shot you’d be losing a third of a stroke because it is that uh
Difficult and that changes the scoring average so much on number one there is nearly no penalty for missing the Fairway 07 Strokes that’s that’s nothing if if you miss the Fairway there the scoring average averages remain generally unchanged you’ll also note how many driver holes there are number one
Is not a hole where a lot of guys hit driver average Drive is only 265 you’ll see holes number three and five uh 10 11 13 that’s where it’s really being Uncorked and that’s where driver is being pulled most frequently if you are able to hit a drive longer than the
Average on that hole you are designated with with a long drive and the scoring averages are also calculated based on whether you hit a long drive or not so for example the holes that reward you the most for hitting a long drive or a drive longer than the average on that
Hole hole number 18 that is worth nearly a third of a stroke uh hole number 13 that’s worth a quarter of a stroke so you can see where opportunity lies uh holes in which along drive is not rewarded well of course number one right that’s why so many lay back it’s why
There is not a huge missed Fairway penalty this will take a little bit of time for you to wrap your brain around but these are important metrics that every golfer on the PGA tour is looking at every caddy knows and they are planning their rounds accordingly after
The t-shot comes the approach shot every single hole with its average approach distance gives you an idea of where those shots are going to be coming in from on the right hand side the approach buckets are generated from 100 yards and in to 200 yards and farther out and the
Percentage of which shots come from each one of those ranges for example from 125 to 150 yards 195% of those shots uh 19 and a half% of approaches come from that range at TPC Scottsdale it is a little more than tour average from 150 to 75 it
Is a lot more than tour average and 175 to 200 again more than tour average so those three buckets are the ones that you should be prioritizing these are not perfect uh approach buckets have their flaws but when you start to see a trend of three buckets in a row from 125 to
200 that are all above tour average and you can go Ho by ho to see where they’re coming from that is valuable information and should be part of your process as if we couldn’t get any deeper the putting section does just that again leveraging the shot by shot data that’s coming in
To the database shows the percentage of Birdie opportunities from each putting range again this might take a little bit of time to wrap your head around so for every uh birdie opportunity whether it was made or not what distance did it come from 99.6% of all bird opportunities came
Between 4 and 8 ft at TPC Scottdale those are very close guys hitting it very close to the pin the average on PGA Tour is much higher 12.2% the number of Birdie opportunities that are coming from 9 to 15 feet at TPC Scottsdale is 16% of all birdie
Opportunities again much lower than tour average 16 to 26 feet lower than tour average it is not until you get to 27 ft and to 36 ft in which TPC Scottdale has more birdie opportunities than the tour average so what does that say it is very
Difficult to hit it close to the pins at TPC Scottdale or at least much more difficult than the average PGA tour course what do we do with this information that’s the million– dooll question and I have the answer we take a look at each golfers make percentage from those putting ranges
And the frequency in which we’re we’re expecting them to get there we’re putting all of that into a calculation and giving a golfer a putting boost this is how much they are expected to gain to the field based on their putting alone now Lucas Herbert is getting a quarter
Of a stroke 024 putting boost it’s the best in this field of guys with a large enough sample size you’ll see there’s a lot of guys who don’t have a big sample size who are better that’s why I have the sample size integrated into this so that means that
Lucas Herbert uh when he gets into these positions from these ranges outpaces the tour average combined with the frequency in which we expect him to get there gives him this level of boost per round and he’s already a very good putter so for example if Lucas Herbert is already
Gaining a stroke per round round putting in this situation at TPC Scott tail he’s gaining 1.24 Strokes per round so that’s a stroke entirely over four days obviously that can go in different directions it’s pretty significant it’s pretty significant because this a vol I mean putting is volatile in general but
That is a very sign significant stat and number to look at and then you can scroll down and you can see the guys that get uh much less boost than that or no boost at all depending on the their um their sample size or the stats for
That week so uh the course key stats is just a ton of data that you can use to really attack the field prepare the golfers that you want to look at the pths to success and way ways that guys are going to separate themselves from the rest of the field
1 Comment
Great breakdown of the tools…Showing exactly why they’re so valuable