Augusta National Key Fantasy Stats

Masters

April 6th – 9th, 2017

Augusta National G.C.

Augusta, GA

Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,435

Purse: $9.95 million (last year)

with $1,800,000 (last year) to the winner

Defending Champion:
Danny Willett

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most important stats for Augusta National, based on data from last years Masters, and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2017. What we do is take their rank for each stat and then add up the four catagories.
The scoring average of the field at Augusta National in last year was 74.42, so with par being 72 that means the average score was two and a half shots over par, making Augusta National the 3rd hardest course to score on in 2016. It’s also important to see how the weather played a factor, last year’s weather was near perfect but the winds did blow all four days between 10 and 15 mph. So with good weather, the wind caused the course to play just under two shots harder than in 2015 when the scoring average was 72.54 and it ranked the 14th hardest course in 2014. In looking at the weather for Augusta look again for high scoring, the weather is going to be good but on Thursday and Friday it will be in the mid-60s with winds blowing up to 25mph. So expect high scores. On Saturday and Sunday it will be warmer, in the mid-70s but winds decrease to about 6mph.

UPDATE on Tuesday afternoon: We are finding out now that Wednesday is going to be terrible.  100% chance of rain, it’s so bad that there could be possible tornados in the area.  The weather forecast for Thursday and Friday has also changed, good news no rain.  The bad news, it’s going to be cold, may just go above the 60s and very windy, with gusts up to 35 mph.

Now one thing that we have to look at is the claim that Augusta is great for long hitters. That is in part true hitting it long does have it’s advantage, especially on Augusta’s par 5s. But in looking at the past champions, it’s mixed with long hitters and short. Perfect example is last year and in 2015. Danny Willett ranked 32nd in driving distance while in 2015 Jordan Spieth ranked 52nd. But look at the top-ten for the week, last year 5 out of 14 and in 2015 only one of the 11 were ranked in the top-ten in distance, showing that there is more to Augusta than people think.

In looking at the stats for Augusta National, one thing is obvious, the course caters to those that hits lots of greens, can scramble well, can avoid three putts and play well on the par 5s. So these are the four stats we pick for this week’s key course stats.

In looking at Augusta National last year, the course ranked 10th in greens in regulation (58.90). As for scrambling it ranked 3rd (49.81), in three putt avoidance it ranked 1st and in par 5s scoring average it ranked 14th.

So let’s look at how the last two champions became victorious. Last year Danny Willett was T-6th in greens in regulation, he was 1st in scrambling, T-2nd in three putt avoidance and 54th in par 5 average. So are stats panned out in 3 of the 4 catagories.

So how about Jordan Spieth in 2015? He ranked 2nd in Greens in Regulation, hitting 75% of his greens. He was T-10th in scrambling, T22nd in three putt avoidance and T-4th in Par 5 Scoring. One other important item that won’t be on this list but you should have in the back of your mind, making lot’s of birdies, last year Spieth led that stat making 28 birdies for the week while Willett was T-16th making just 13 for the week.

Again if a person can hit a lot of greens and scramble well on the ones he misses and make a good share of putts, especially in the 4 to 10 foot range he is a can’t miss to not only contend, but possibly winning.

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

*Scrambling: So which course is tough to get it up and down on holes players miss the greens. Since all of the area’s around the greens are mowed short and are left with really hard shots to get it close, scrambling is important. You are not going to be perfect so you have to make sure you can make pars from some tough places

*Three putt avoidance: Augusta have the toughest greens in the world to putt on. They only average 6,486 square feet so they aren’t big or small, but they are sloppy and you can be faced with a lot of ten foot lag putts. So when you are 30 or 40 feet away it’s really hard to get up and down in two putts and is important.

*Par 5 scoring: This is the one place long hitters due have an advantage on, the par 5s. Three of the four are within reach of the longest hitters and depending on how Augusta sets up the 8th hole, that could be easy or hard. But to win it’s important to do well on the Par 5s.

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2017.

Remember this is an international event with five amateurs and lot’s of players that do not play regularly on the PGA Tour, so only 68 of the field of 94 have PGA Tour stats for 2016. One other thing, the Masters is not part of the PGA Tours shotlink program so you won’t see stats like Strokes Gained this week:

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