Key Fantasy Stats Oakmont

U.S. Open

June 6th – 19th, 2016

Oakmont Country Club

Oakmont, Pa.

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,219

Purse: $10 million (last year’s purse)

with $1.8 million (last year) to the winner

Defending Champion:
Jordan Spieth

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats for the Oakmont Country Club, based on data from the 2007 U.S. Open and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016.
A distinctively different course is holding the U.S. Open, one that has already held 8 of them in 89 years. The iconic course is one of the hardest courses in golf, the last time it held the Open the scoring average was 75.70 meaning the field averaged five and three-quarters shots over par. Before that the Open was played at Oakmont in 1994 and the scoring average was 73.94, but back then the course was played at a par 71 instead of the par 70 for 2007 and this year, so it was just about three shots over par. The difference in how tough the course played had a lot of do with the weather. In 1994 it was dreadfully hot and humid, so the course played fast, and players got more run out of the ball. With the lack of rain, the rough wasn’t lush as it was in 2007, thus a lot easier to get it on the green or close from the rough. In 2007 the weather was very un-Pittsburg like because it was cool. When the players teed off at noon on Thursday in 1994, the temperature was 89 degrees with a 4 mph breeze. Every day was like that, but on Thursday in 2007 the highest temperature for the day was 72 degrees, with 11 mph winds. The first three days was cool and it did rain a bit, so the rough was super tough and the winds made the course tougher. The final round was the only warm day, it got up to 88 degrees by the time the leaders teed off, with 11 mph winds.
Now for this year it’s been wet leading up to the Open, last week they had close to an inch of rain. Now the course is on a hill and does drain well, since there are no trees the sun and wind do dry it out fasters, but the point is the weather is going to make this course play differently. Just look at the weather forecast, you can see light rain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, followed by good weather over the weekend. So will the cooler conditions (between 82 and 87 degrees) make the course play harder or easier? If history repeats, we could see high scores like we did in 2007.

Every phase of the game will be examined at Oakmont. First you have to hit it straight off the tee because the fairways are lined with strategy placed bunkers that are tough to get out of, along with rough that is 4 to 8 inches of Kentucky Blue Grass mixed with perennial rye grass. Once you hit the fairway, hitting it into the greens is an adventure, they are hard to hold and with lots of undulations, you have to place the shot on the right side to have a putt at birdie. Once on the greens a new adventure awaits as the lightning-quick greens will be the fastest greens players will ever experience (14.5 on the stimpmeter). The winner needs to hit it long and straight; it’s a big advantage to have the shortest distance to the green, even if it means hitting out of the rough. In 2007 Angel Cabrera was the second longest driver in the field which helps him hit 47 of the 72 greens, ranking T-3rd. So the winner will probably be one of the top-30 on the Tour’s Strokes gained tee-to-green category. Players have to drive it straight and not drive it into bunkers. Remember this; Oakmont has 210 bunkers and 92 of them guard the fairways of all the par 4s and 5s. No course is more penal from fairway sand than Oakmont was in 2007, for those that drove it into sand they had a 33% return of making par or under on the hole. In 2007 the cost of rough stat was .525 shots lost for driving it into the rough on the courses 14 par 4s and 5s. So we can’t stress the disadvantage of hitting it off line and short. In 2007 four of the top-6 on the leaderboard were in the top-11 of driving distance with Cabrera being 2nd, so the odds for players like Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Rory McIlroy, Tony Finau, J.B. Holmes and Brooks Koepka are better since they hit it the longest on the PGA Tour.
Is there any one part of playing Oakmont that favors a certain player? The easiest items from 2007 were driving distance (ranked 30th on tour that week), Driving Accuracy (ranked 5th) and Greens hit (ranked 3rd from all courses in 2007). After that the course ranked 2nd hardest in putts per round, one-putt percentage and par 3 scoring average, it was the most difficult of all the other course on the PGA Tour in 2007 in Scrambling, Sand Saves, birdie average, 3-putt avoidance, putting average, Par 4 average and par 5 average.

So in looking at our four categories, our first is Strokes Gained Tee-to Green. This is going to be the most important item and frankly go to the top and sort through it, I would say that someone in the top-30 will win this week. Now in 2007 they didn’t have Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green, so we have to look at several stats. First in 2007 Oakmont ranked 30th in driving distance for the year, they were 5th in driving accuracy and 3rd in Greens hit. As for the winner Angel Cabrera, he was 2nd in driving distance, T-48th in driving accuracy and T-3rd in greens hit. What is awesome is that Cabrera was terrible in driving accuracy but hit it so far that he was left with a short iron, so he overpowered Oakmont. Our second stat is putting inside of 10 feet; that is important because Oakmont has some of the hardest greens in the world to putt. It’s the greens themselves, and they are a particular breed of Poa Annua that was first discovered when the course opened and had carried over. The greens are the smoothest you will ever putt, they are hard to spike up and tear up and will be fast. On the average, the PGA Tour putts on greens that run at 12 on the stimpmeter but this week they will be between 14 and 15.5, remarkable speeds. With some of the undulations, the greens will be challenging, but lot’s of putts will be made. In 2007 Oakmont ranked 1st in putting average, 2nd in one-putt percentage, 1st in 3-putt avoidance and 2nd in putts per round. For Cabrera, he was 6th in putting average, T-35th in one-putt percentage, T-6th in 3-putt avoidance and T-28th in putts per round. Our third stat is scrambling, lot’s of players will miss greens at Oakmont and will have to get it up and down. In 2007 the course ranked 1st in scrambling while Cabrera was T-50th. Our fourth category is sand saves, remember there are 210 bunkers at Oakmont and 78 of them will be around the green so you can see that being able to save par from the bunkers is important. In 2007 Oakmont was the hardest in sand saves while Cabrera was T-21st.

So you can see Oakmont will be very special, and you can eliminate about 116 of the 156 players, I see only about 40 players having any chance of winning.
Now remember the U.S. Open is an international event that not only allows players to qualify as over half the field has to qualify, but there are players from all over the world, so this chart only has 80 players on it. That’s because the other 76 players don’t play full time on the PGA Tour and have not played enough rounds to qualify for stats.

*Strokes Gained tee-to-green: Course may have only been 25th hardest on tour, but you need to hit it long and straight along with hitting lot’s of greens. So this is important to find a player that will do this

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

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

*Sand Saves: The percent of time a player gets it up and down from a bunker.

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

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