BlogW.M. Phoenix Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Brandt’s wild win:

What a wild finish in San Diego on Monday.  Not many players can finish there round and have to wait 23 hours to find their faith.  Brandt Snedeker shot 69 and was able to finish up on Sunday.  When everything was said and done, Snedeker was the only player to shot a final round under par, the next best round was even par 72 by Robert Streb.  Of the 71 players in the final round, 69 were over par and 23 shot in the 80s.  Third round co-leader Scott Brown shot 87, in looking at the history of the PGA Tour in four round, stroke play events going back to 1970, 2,511 have led after 54 holes and previously the worst score was 82 by Jack Nicklaus in the 1976 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am, Bob Gilder in the 1980 Memorial and Dustin Johnson in the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.  So Brown has put his name on a record that may never be beaten in golf again, highest final round after having the third round lead.  Gosh Brown’s round was so bad, only five pars, 11 bogeys and two double bogeys that in the history of the PGA Tour going back to 1970 there have only been 8 other scores higher, the biggest being Mike Reasor in the 1974 Tallahassee Open when he shot 114.  You wonder why so high, back then there was no exempt tour and Reasor didn’t have any status.  After making the cut he injured himself, but had to play the final two rounds to be able to play in the next event.  So swinging the club with just one arm, which was hurting and using a 5-iron he shot 123 and then 114 in the final round, the highest round in PGA Tour history.

Now making Snedeker’s final round so great was the final round scoring average was 77.90 so Brandt was just under 8 shots under the par for the final round.  In some eyes when Snedeker finished and the round was postponed to Monday, some figured it was a tough break.  But the players who really got the tough break was those who had to play on Monday.  Originally the round was to start at 8am and at that time everything was calm with no wind.  But the course was a mess, a dozen trees over 50 feet fell and needed to be taken care of so the course could be playable.  So the round started three hours later, at 11am and about 15 minutes after that the wind start blowing, creating havoc for the 49 players that had to complete their day.  So the golfing Gods gave Snedeker and big gift because it was close to impossible for any of those players to do well.

With the win Snedeker has won 8 times, with four of them in California.  Have to also think that he can really go crazy in the months ahead.  Brandt has always been a great west coast player and only has two top-tens in Florida, both at the Valspar Championship.  But one thing to think about is Snedeker at the Masters.  The course is perfect for him and he didn’t finish T-3rd in 2008 and T-9th in 2013.

Back to Phoenix:

The Tour returns to Phoenix and one of the biggest parties of the year at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.  It may be SuperBowl week with the big game being played outside of San Francisco, but they still will pack them in to watch golf.  Last year 564,368 went through the turnstiles with 159,906 on Saturday alone for what is the biggest party of the year for the PGA Tour.  It seems that they all go over to either the big pavilion that has been a mainstay of the tournament since it started or the 16th hole, golf’s version of the Roman Coliseum.  The 16th hole could be the wackiest place on the PGA Tour.  A combination of true golf fans wanting to see some great golf along with a lot of others that wear out their arms hoisting their favorite adult beverage.  The hole is completely surrounded by bleachers and hospitality tents, giving it that gladiator feel to it.  It’s become such a mainstay that organizers are thinking of just making the façade a permanent fixture and having it stay up year round.

Injury report on two players:

We have been in the dark on the futures of Kevin Stadler and Jim Furyk.  Both have had serious wrist injuries, which have required lot’s of rest but frankly rest doesn’t seem to have help.

As for Stadler, after playing professional golf for 12 years and on his 292 worldwide start Kevin Stadler won his first PGA Tour event at the 2014 Waste Mangement Phoenix Open.  After the win he finished T-8th at the Masters and was runner-up at the French Open four months later.  But nine months after his win in Phoenix, Stadler started feeling pain in his left wrist and a couple of weeks later withdrew from the WGC HSBC Champions, the injury was diagnosed as a broken bone.  Stadler had no idea on how it got broken other than overuse but in 2015 he wasn’t able to defend his Phoenix title and only played three times the last being the John Deere in July which he missed the cut.  Little has been heard from Stadler since, he hasn’t tried to play in another event and won’t be back this week to play in Phoenix to reminisce his greatest triumph in golf.

As for Furyk, Tim Rosaforte on Golf Channel had the story on how Furyk will have surgery on his left wrist and will miss another 3 months.  Furyk hasn’t played on the PGA Tour since the BMW Championship in September and was forced to withdraw from the tournament due to a bone contusion in that left wrist, which has hampered him for months.  Many thought he would be back at the AT&T Pebble Beach but he won’t.  For Furyk who is 45 this has to be scary.  He had surgery on the same wrist in 2004, undergoing arthroscopic surgery to repair cartilage damage.  So this could be related to that and who knows if Furyk will be able to come back from this.  He is confident that surgery is the best way to fix it, still it’s always dangerous.

WM Phoenix Open history:

It began in 1932 as the Arizona Open and has been played at the TPC of Scottsdale, since 1987.  After the first two years, the event took the name, Phoenix Open in 1935. The only older tournaments on the PGA Tour are; the British Open (1860), U.S. Open (1895), Western Open (1899), Canadian Open (1904), PGA Championship (1916), Texas Open (1922) and the Nissan Open (1926).

Due to lack of local support, the tournament was discontinued after 1935. The tournament was revived thanks to the energy and vision of one man, Bob Goldwater, Sr. who was an avid golfer.  So in 1939, Goldwater’s new fledgling golf tournament was the official rebirth of the Phoenix Open. Goldwater was left with most of the work, he printed the tickets, sold sponsorships and obtained the use of Phoenix Country Club. He even invited a few of his friends to tee it up at the tournament. Those friends just happened to be Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and a golfer by the name of Ben Hogan. “I loved those early years,” said Goldwater. “I look back on those days with a sense of pride mixed with wonderment.” And, yes, after a few more persuasive talks and the success of the 1939 Phoenix Open, The Thunderbirds came around and lent their full support. During that 1939 tournament, a 27-year-old up-and-comer named Byron Nelson won the $700 first prize. Hogan finished second, 12 strokes back, and collected $450. Since then, The Thunderbirds had been a part of the event every year except 1943, when wartime travel restrictions forced a one-year hiatus. The list of professional golfers who have won in Phoenix reads like the golf Hall of Fame: Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Jimmy Demaret, Billy Casper, Gene Littler, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Miller Barber, Johnny Miller, Ben Crenshaw, and more recently Lee Janzen, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Tom Lehman, Mark Calcavecchia and Kenny Perry just to name a few. Over the tournament’s 77 year history, the Open has been known by many names, including the Western Open, the Arizona Open, the Ben Hogan Invitational, the Phoenix Open, the FBR Open and now the Waste Management Phoenix Open. The tournament has been played at Phoenix Country Club, Arizona Country Club and the TPC Scottsdale, which has been the home course of the tournament since 1987. 2015 will mark the 29th consecutive year the tournament has been played at the Stadium Course at the TPC Scottsdale, and it has had a renovation to spruce it up and make it more challenging for the players. Thanks to the most fan-friendly tournament venue on Tour, it attracts the largest galleries of any golf tournament in the world. In fact, compared to the days when the tournament was held at Phoenix Country Club, and the top attendance mark was 186,000 (1986), the event has grown by leaps and bounds. At the 2008 FBR Open, a PGA Tour record 538,356 fans attended the tournament, including 170,802 during Saturday’s third round alone. 2008′s Saturday attendance used to be a single-day PGA Tour record until 2013 when 179,022 fans came out for the third round. The 2014 event set a new attendance record when 563,008 fans came out.  2015 was suppose to be the last year of Waste Management’s six-year sponsorship deal, but they have renewed their commitment and tacked on another ten years and will sponsor the event to at least 2025.

Course information:

• Played at TPC Scottsdale, Scottsdale, Az.
• Par:  71 / Yardage: 7,261
• In 2015, the South course was the 22nd hardest course on the PGA Tour  playing to a 70.752 average.
• The TPC of Scottsdale was designed by Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish, with Howard Twitty and Jim Colbert serving as player consultants.  The course opened in 1986 and had some interesting features like desert between the holes and fairways with many plants from the surrounding area. The layout also features mounding for spectators. The course can easily accommodate over 100,000 spectators, last year 159,906 showed up for Saturday’s third round.  The average green size is 6,770 square feet, which is a little over the average on the PGA Tour. The course has 72 bunkers and six water hazards.
• Surrounded by spectacular mountain views, the course was designed specifically to host the Phoenix Open, and the aforementioned mounding promises an excellent view to all of the  the 500,000+ in the galleries. Hole No. 16 will always be remembered as the site of Tiger Woods’ hole in one in 1998. Hole No. 17 will be remembered for the first and only hole in one on a par four during a PGA Tour event, which was recorded by Andrew Magee in 2001.
• Major renovations were done before last years event with four greens completely rebuilt while the other 14 resurfaced and reshaped.  45 yards was added, but three holes will play slightly shorter.  Every bunker was redone, in most cases bringing them more into play.  Also, 250 trees were added so the combination of trees and bunkers coming into play off the tee will make the course slightly tighter.  Despite the change average scores may be a bit higher but look for the winning score, which has averaged 22 and a half under par for the last 18 years to stay the same.

Here is a new feature we have, a look at key stats that are important for those playing at TPC Scottsdale:

This is based on the most important stats for TPC Scottsdale, based on data from last years Waste Management Phoenix Open, and using data from all the players in the field for with stats from 2015 and 2016. What we do is take there rank for each stat and average that number between players rank in ’15 & ’16.

The scoring average of the field on TPC Scottsdale in 2015 was 70.75, so with par being 71 that means the average score was just a quarter shot under par per round, making the course the 22nd hardest course to score on in 2015.

In looking at the stats for TPC Scottsdale last year, driving and greens hit is important. With fast fairways, the course ranked 22nd in driving distance and 22nd in driving accuracy. Also hitting greens was important, the course ranked 14th in greens in regulation Last year’s winner Brooks Koepka was 3rd in driving distance, T-47thg in Driving accuracy and T-4th in Greens in Regulation. Now add this all together and he was 4th in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. In proximity to Hole Koepka was 11th while in scrambling he was 2nd. He was T-5th in Par Breakers, it did help that he was T-6th in birdies.

*Strokes gained tee-to-Greens: Important because it shows how TPC Scottsdale ranked T12th in this stat, meaning that a combination of driving distance, driving accuracy and greens hit is important

*Proximity to hole: Hitting greens is important, last year TPC Scottsdale ranked 14th, but in proximity to hole, which tells how close players get to the hole, TPC Scottsdale ranked 8th as the players averaged getting it 39 feet and 9 inches.

*Par Breakers: Desert courses always seem to give up a lot of birdies and eagles, last year TPC Scottsdale ranked 12th in that stat

*Scrambling: Of the 52 courses on tour in 2015, TPC Scottsdale got it up and down 63.82% of the time, meaning that only seven other courses were better. So it’s important for players to make sure to get it up and down on those holes that they miss the greens.

For the field last year:

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

For a complete list of all players go to this link for our key course stat.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Waste Management Phoenix Open:

Key stat for the winner:

It use to be the player with the hot putter dominated this tournament as between 1997 and 2007 all the champions except for one (2003 Vijay Singh) were in the top-nine in putting.  On the reverse, between 1997 and 2008 of the 12 champions only three were in the top-ten of greens hit.  Since 2008 of the eight winners, two were 10th in putting as the winners ranked between 10th and 71st in putting.  But in that same period, all the champions were in the top-4 of greens hit (the worst was Kevin Stadler, who ranked 10th) while three of the winners in those seven years led the stat.  Major changed came about to the course in 2004 and then in 2005, so it just took a bit before hitting lot’s of greens took over.  Overall the TPC Scottsdale ranked 14th of all the courses in 2015 in greens in regulation so it’s very important to hit all of the greens.

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

• One unimportant stat:  The course is in the desert and in past years had the longest driving average.  in 2014 the average drive was 301.4, but in 2015 it went down to 288.5 probably because of the changes made to the course before last year’s tournament.  So common sense would be that the winners are big hitters, that isn’t the case.  Since 1997, only four of the last 19 champions have been in the top-ten of the weekly driving distance stat with seven of them out of the top-25.  So hitting it long really doesn’t help in winning this tournament.
• Nine of the last 19 champions have had a Top-10 finish within three weeks before they won the championship, so look for someone that is playing well to win.  In 2009 Kenny Perry finished T6th at Kapalua just three weeks before the Phoenix Open, but Hunter Mahan was not playing well leading up to the 2010 event.  In 2011 Mark Wilson won just two weeks before the event at the Sony Open in Hawaii amd in 2012 Kyle Stanley lost a playoff the week before winning at Phoenix.  Unfortunately that trend ended as the last three winners didn’t play well before winning.  Last year Brooks Koepka was playing his first event in six weeks, taking some time off so the time off was perfect for him.
• Players can’t be afraid of a lot of people watching, considering as many as 100,000 will be in attendance over the weekend.
• Players must hit lots of greens and make lots of birdies. In the last 19 years the winners have averaged hitting 74.4% of the greens and averaged 22.4 birdies for the week.
• One last important fact is that birdies have to be made on par 4s.  This is one of those events in which scoring is lower on the par 4s than the par 5s.  Since 1997, 12  of the 19 champions have done better, last year Brooks Koepka played the par 5s in just 2 under par while he was 11 under on the par 4s.
• After a tough weekend weather-wise in San Diego, after Tuesday the weather will be perfect with everyday being in the mid-70s, no rain and very little wind.