BlogShriners Hospitals Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

A very popular event, it has all of the glamour of Las Vegas on a course that a lot of players like to play on.  For some this will be a fun week with a little bit of golf mixed in with the fast-pace action of Las Vegas.

Founded in 1983 as the Panasonic Las Vegas Pro-Celebrity Classic, the event has undergone six name changes in the events history. Frys.Com became the Title Sponsor for the event in 2006, replacing its former title, the Michelin Championship at Las Vegas.  2007 was the final year of Fry’s involvement and in 2008 Justin Timberlake took on the duties of becoming the tournament presenter with Shriners Hospitals for Children sponsoring the event.  Timberlake is no longer associated with the tournament.

At the tournament’s inception, the managers of the tournament prided themselves on running a tournament that stood out amongst the slew of annual PGA events. It was the first event to offer a total purse of $1 million; at the trophy presentation, the winner used to receive his trophy with two showgirls by his side. Though these ideas help separate the event from others, the most drastic deviation from the norm is the tournament’s format, which in a way “borrowed” the format at the Bob Hope Open.

In its inception, the tournament was played over five rounds at between three and four courses. However, in 2003, when the original tournament founders abdicated control to another volunteer organization, the event was immediately switched to the more conventional four round format. Over the years, courses have been dropped and for the 8th straight year it’s only played on the TPC Summerlin.

One thing about this event, it’s always nice winning an event but for some of it’s past champions they never got back to the winners circle again on the PGA Tour.  Looked at the 15 past winners since 2000, only seven Ryan Moore (2012), Jonathan Byrd (2010), Martin Laird (2009), George McNeill (2007), Troy Matteson (2006), Stuart Appleby (2003) and Bob Estes (2001) won again.  The others,  Ben Martin (015), Webb Simpson (2014), Kevin Na (2011), Marc Turnesa (2008), Wes Short Jr. (2005), Andre Stolz (2004), Phil Tataurangi (2002) and Billy Andrade (2000) never made it back to the winners circle and some of them don’t even play anymore on the PGA Tour.

Advantages of the Wrap-around schedule:

What a great world the PGA Tour is.  Just look at some of the players that had high finishes at the Frys.com.  Winner Emiliano Grillo can now have a comfortable 2016, which is still three months away.  With Grillo’s victory we know that his Christmas will be special how great it is to be the first winner of 2016, even though it’s three months away.  The same for players like Kevin Na, he now doesn’t have to worry about the year because he has gotten it off in the proper manner with his runner-up finish.  Even guys like Smylie Kaufman, who was playing in just his fourth PGA Tour event, his T-10th has put $128,571 in his pocket.  Gosh, how far things have gotten, in 1964 Jack Nicklaus won the money race with $113,284 less than what Kaufman made.  Oh it took Ben Hogan 16 years on the PGA Tour before he won his first $100,000.  Going a step further, Gene Sarazen collected money on the PGA Tour between 1920 and 1976 and this may seem hard to believe but in his 56 years of playing he won 38 times, seven of them majors and only won $77,787.  So it’s nice to see all these guys doing so well with the first day of 2016 still 79 days away.

Course information:

TPC Summerlin was designed by Bobby Weed and Fuzzy Zoeller in 1992. The Par 71 course measures 7,243 yards. It has a course rating of 74.3 and a slope rating of 139. The tees, fairways, and rough all comprise of 419 Bermuda Grass, cut at 3/8″, 3/8″, and 2″ respectively. The greens consist of a 1/8″ cut of A-1/A-4 Creeping Bent Grass. This short cut mixed with the always speedy Bent Grass explains the rather Stimpmeter reading of 11 feet. As for hazards, the course features 99 sand bunkers (with 51 around the greens) and water comes into play on four holes.

The signature hole at TPC Summerlin is the short 341-yard par four 15th hole. The large elevated green is reachable from the tee; however, numerous bunkers guard the green, making the play risky, but possibly very rewarding. As for accolades, Golf Digest rated this as the fourth “Best in State” course for 1995-96, and the fifth best for 1997-98. Also, GolfWeek awarded it 98th in the category of “America’s 100 Best Modern Courses” for 1997.

Last year was the seventh time that Summerlin was the only course used and they made a big change in 2009 changing par to 71 by making the third hole a long par 4 at 473 yards.  In addition to this change, 14 trees were added along the right side of the fairways on Nos. 9 and 16, both par 5s. The rough also was grown longer than in years past and for holes 7, 9, 11, 12, 13 and 16 the fairways are going to be between 3 and 5 yards narrower than in 2008.  All of these changed to try and make the course play a bit tougher.  In 2008 Summerlin played to an average of 69.070, while in 2009 with par reduced it played just about the same, 69.152. In 2010 it played to a 68.956 average, while in 2011 it was 68.883, 2012 was 69.713 and the 40th toughest course at of 49. In 2014 the course played to a 69.546 average and was the 43rd hardest course out of 48.  Last year the course played to a 69.659 average and was the 42nd hardest course out of the 52 played.

Lot’s of birdies are made on this course, but if it gets windy, it could be a totally different course that takes a lot of precision.  The finish is demanding with the par 3 17th hole playing the seventh hardest at 3.035 while the 18th hole is the 13th hardest at 3.892.

COURSE KEYS

Last week we tried a new item to help gauge how a player needs to play a course and then look at his yearly stats to help us find the players with the best totals.

Each course has historical stats for different stats catagories and ranks them with the other courses on the PGA Tour for that year.  So we are going to take the four stat catagories that are tough for the week and then take the players in the field, look for their ranking for those stats compared to all the other players.  We add up their rankings for the four different catagories and figure out which players are top for the week.  We are still working on the format but here is a taste of what we are working on, giving out the top-20 in this year’s field off of our list:

Key for playing well at TPC Summerlin:

This is based on the most important stats for TPC Summerlin, based on data from last years Shriners Hospital, and using data from all the players for stats from 2015.

• Par Breakers: Lots of birdies and eagles were made at Summerlin last year (1,739 birdies & 59 eagles) which related to 23.02% of the time players were under par on holes
• Strokes gain tee to green: Only two courses saw average drives going further, Summerlin was ranked 17th in driving accuracy and only seven courses saw more greens hit.  So this is the combination of those stats
• Hole Proximity: Average greens were 7,500 square feet at Summerlin which is average on the PGA Tour in green size.  In proximity to hole Sum merlin ranked 5th
• Sand Saves: Summerlin has 51 greenside greens which found 606 balls.  The course ranked 9th in getting it up and down from those bunkers.

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

Here is a link to all the players with 2015 stats that are in the Shriners Field

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open:

Key stat for the winner:

Making lots of birdies is important.  The average for the last 18 years is 27 and a half.  Since the event went to 72 holes in 2004 it’s been 24 and a half which averages just a notch over six birdies a round.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• With fairways that are wide open, fairways with lots of roll, dominating the par 5s has been a key.  It’s also interesting to note that in the last ten years the winners have averaged 11 under par on the par 4s.  Last year Ben Martin was 9 under while in 2014 Webb Simpson was 12 under the same as Ryan Moore was in 2012. Jonathan Byrd was the best at 14 under in 2010 while the least lowest was 6 under by George McNeill in 2007.
• Being an accurate driver, a long driver or a person that hits a lot of greens doesn’t give you a big advantage.  Scrambling is very important plus not making many bogeys.  If there ever was a tournament that favors the newcomer, this is it.
• Most of the time the weather is wonderful, but every now and then high winds bring big challenges to the players, those that can handle these conditions have the advantage.  But for this year look for perfect conditions with very little wind so scoring will be low
• You have to realize were your at, in Las Vegas “lady luck” is very important in winning, a lot of players that you would never think would win have found the “luck factor” in victory.