Key Fantasy Stats TPC Boston

Deutsche Bank Championship

September 2nd – 5th, 2016

TPC Boston

Norton, MA

Par: 71 / Yardage: 7,242

Purse: $8.5 million

with $1,530,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Rickie Fowler

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats from TPC Boston, based on data from the 2015 Barclays when the course was last used on the PGA Tour and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016.

TPC Boston is a Arnold Palmer design that has be reworked by Gil Hanse and Brad Faxon. The course has a touch of links style as it plays firm and fast, but it’s still a course for long hitters as in it’s 13 year history players like Adam Scott, Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Charley Hoffman, Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler. All of these players hit it long. On the other end of the spectrum, short hitters like Olin Browne, Webb Simpson and Steve Stricker have won, many because of their awesome around the green game. Still the focus should be on long hitters and ball strikers having a big advantage. Of the 13 champions, nine of them ranked in the top-ten in greens hit, so if a long hitter is on his game he does have a big advantage. Another thing you won’t see a poor putter win here, the greens are 6,00 square feet and have a lot of undulation in them so look for a player who is in the zone inside of ten feet.
Now while the par 4s play easy, last year it ranked T-30th in par 4 scoring average the par 5s are some of the toughest on the PGA Tour. Last year they played to a 4.81 scoring average and ranked T-6th on tour, so they aren’t layups like many other courses.
Now things are going to be tricky this week, there are several storms off the Atlantic coast in between Florida and the outer banks of North Carolina that could play havoc on this event with bad weather on Sunday and Monday, so the players will have to be prepared for anything. Right now long range forecasts call for a nice weekend with cloudy skies and temperatures in the high 70s.
So in looking at our four categories, our first is Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. This is going to be the most important item again since a player that hits it long, straight and then hits a lot of greens won’t be beat, just like last week at the Barclays when Patrick Reed was 3rd in strokes gained tee-to-green.

Our second stat is strokes Gained around-the-green, because not only is scrambling important but there are a lot of greenside bunkers so getting them up and down will be important.
Our third stat is putting inside of 10 feet, yes this will be substantial because the greens have lot’s of undulation so making those putts in between five to ten feet is important. Our fourth category is par 4 average, last year it ranked T-30th in this stat which means that players need to play the par 4s low to win.

This is the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs, so those toward the bottom need to play well or sit out a month. But at Bethpage, the course will be for the taking of many of the players, and I can see some excellent scoring.
*Strokes Gained tee-to-green: A combination of driving distance, accuracy and greens hit this will tell you who plays the best from tee to green which will be important this week.

*Strokes Gained around-the-green: A combination of sand saves and scrambling to see who gets it up and down saving par the most.

*Putting inside 10 feet: Very easy, counts every putt from ten feet in to see who makes the most.

*Par 4 Average: How players do on par 4s, who plays them the best.

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.