East Lake Key Fantasy Stats

Tour Championship

September 21st – 24th, 2017

East Lake G.C.

Atlanta, GA

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,385

Purse: $8.75 million

with $1,575,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Rory McIlroy

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats from East Lake G.C., based on data from last year’s Tour Championship and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2017.

This is a classic Tom Bendelow design that Donald Ross completely reworked, a course that favors the shot maker and one that hits lot’s of greens. The course was considered one of the best in America in the 20s and 30s, but with changes to the community in the 50s and 60s, things changed. The course held the 1963 Ryder Cup on it and George Cobb did some changes. The club fell into some really hard times in the 70s and 80s and it took Tom Cousin, a important real estate developer in Atlanta to bring the course back from it’s low point. Ress Jones did the restoration in 1994 but the goal was to bring it back to the changes that Donald Ross made, which he did perfectly.
What makes the course a gem is that each hole is tree-lined so you have to drive it fairly straight. The most important aspect is hitting greens, in the 16 times the course has held the Tour Championship, only one champion has been out of the top-ten in greens hit and seven of the champions led that stat. The greens are also hard to putt and since most of the greens are built up, you miss a green so scrambling becomes key. The bottom line this isn’t a course for the power hitter, short hitters have as much chance of doing well as long hitters.

So in looking at our four categories, we see how much driving and getting the ball on the green makes a difference. So we pick Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green because at East Lake putting the ball in play off the tee is very important, probably one of the most important items on this Donald Ross course. Then getting the ball on the greens is important and we all know how hard it is to hit a Donald Ross green. That is why next up is scrambling, because the greens are hard to hit, when you miss the green you have to get it up and down to win. After that putting average is important, last year East Lake was 45th in putting average so it’s important to putt well on this course to play well. This stat shows how easy the greens are, in 2016 only five other courses had easier greens to putt. Last we have birdies, last year each of the 30 pro’s averaged 3.73 birdies a round, so look for the player with the best birdie average to continue that at East Lake.

*Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green: Looks at the combination of length off the tee and accuracy, then getting the ball on the green so it determines who is best at all of these items.

*Scrambler: Who gets it up and down after missing a green.

*Strokes Gained Putting: The number of putts a player takes from a specific distance is measured against a statistical baseline to determine the player’s strokes gained or lost on a hole.

*Birdie Average: Players that make the most birdies per round

Of the 30 players in the field, 30 have stats on the PGA Tour for 2017:

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