Key Fantasy Stats TPC Four Seasons

AT&T Byron Nelson Championship

May 19th – 22nd, 2016

TPC Four Seasons Resort

Irving, Texas

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,166

Purse: $7.3 million

with $1,314,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Steven Bowditch

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

Last year’s AT&T Byron Nelson was a mess. Heavy rains the week before and during the tournament caused a mess as a river overflowed and made parts of the course unplayable. The course staff was able to get the course ready for the first round and it was played, but overnight rains on Thursday made the 14th hole unplayable. The problem was the fairway was completely under water so PGA Tour officials decided to play the par-4, 14th as a par-3 for the final three rounds. The yardage changed from the first round from 388 to between 104 and 124 yards for the final three rounds, so par for the course was 69. The weather was so bad that collecting shotlink data became impossible after the first round so we don’t have the wealth of data as we normally have. Also because par changed, the course was different so historically the 2015 event has two scoring averages, one from the first round, as a par 70 the course played to a average score of 70.52 and was ranked 15th toughest on tour. As for the final three rounds, when par was 69 the scoring average was 67.93 and ranked 39th toughest on tour. Over the years TPC Four Seasons has played over par and in the last six years the hardest it ever played was in 2010 when the scoring average was 70.79 and it ranked 12th.
So with no shotlink data for last year we can’t get the stats needed to do our course keys. So what we are going to do is cheat a bit and use the data from 2014. Since the weather was good and winds were up which each day seeing an average of 10 to 15 MPH it gives us a good representation of how the course played.

So this is based on the most important stats for TPC Four Seasons, based on data from the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson, and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016. What we do is take their rank for each stat and then add up the four catagories.
The scoring average of the field for the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson was 70.54, so with par being 70 that means the average score was a half a shot over par, making TPC Four Seasons the 14th hardest course to score on in 2014. We can easily say that this can’t be called a “natural” course but one that has evolved over the years. The land was basically flat ranch land when first built on and all the undulations were man-made. The same goes with the character of the course, over the last 30 years many holes has been redone and hazards added like the water hazards on the 17th and 18th holes which have been drastically altered in the last decade.
The course has a big river that splits it apart and comes into play on the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 14th holes. Lakes have been built and come into play on the 3rd, 17th and 18th holes so water comes into play on nine of the holes.
Water does come into play off the tee on the 3rd, 4th, 9th, 11th and 14th holes and with lot’s of fairway bunkers that’s the reason we choose Driving Accuracy as our first category In looking at the winners, four of the last five winners have ranked in the top-16 with 2012 champion Jason Dufner ranked 2nd and 2014 winner Brendon Todd ranked first. Last year in all the wetness champion Steven Bowditch ranked T-16th, for the week in 2014 driving accuracy ranked 8th toughest on tour.
Next up is greens in regulation in which TPC Four Seasons ranked 19th on tour in 2014. 12 of the last 17 winners were in the top-ten with six of them leading that stat, the last to do it was Jason Dufner in 2012.
Our third important stat is scrambling, because the contours of the greens have shots running off them making it hard to get up and down. In 2014 scrambling ranked 19th in that stat and last year’s winner Steven Bowditch was T-38th.
Last is Par Breakers as it ranked 16th in 2014. As for Bowditch he was first last year mostly because he produced the most birdies in Byron Nelson history with 27.

*Driving Accuracy: Percentage of fairways hit, it’s important to hit fairways in order to score well

*Greens in Regulation: Stat is great barometer on how good players manage their games around TPC Four Seasons. Every year the players that hit lot’s of greens do well.

*Scrambling: The percent of time a player misses the green in regulation, but still makes par or better.

*Par Breakers: Course always seem to give up a lot of birdies and eagles, so it’s a combination of both stats

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2016:

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