Augusta National Key Fantasy Stats

Masters

April 5th – 8th, 2018

Augusta National G.C.

Augusta, GA

Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,435

Purse: $11 million (last year)

with $1,980,000 (last year) to the winner

Defending Champion:
Sergio Garcia

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 2018. What we do is take their rank for each stat and then add up the four categories.
The scoring average of the field at Augusta National in 2017 was 73.89, so with par being 72 that means the average score was almost two shots over par, making Augusta National the 2nd hardest course to score on in 2017. It’s also important to see how the weather played a factor, last year’s weather was near perfect but the winds did blow the first two days between 20 to 25 mph, then decreased to 4 to 8 mph for the weekend. The year before the scoring average was 74.42 again because winds were between 10 and 15 mph each of the four days. Now the year before that with good weather but very little wind the course played a lot easier to a scoring average of 72.54 and it ranked the 14th hardest course that year. In looking at the weather for Augusta for this week, I can see a scoring average over par as the winds will be between 8 and 12 mph every day but with rain hampering the tournament on Saturday. It will also be a lot cooler over the weekend, it will be a high of 57 on Saturday and 65 on Sunday.

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. Last year Sergio Garcia showed his advantage as he ranked 6th in driving distance and played the par 5s in 7 under. But in looking at the past champions, it’s mixed with long hitters and short. A perfect example is 2016 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 only 3 out of 10 while in 2016 5 out of 14 while 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.

One thing in looking at the stats, Augusta National doesn’t utilize stroke gain stats which we have been using more of so we have to go back to the old fashion stats. So in looking at the stats for Augusta National, one thing is obvious, the course caters to those that hit 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 34th in greens in regulation (59.82). This was the first time in the last six years that the ranking was higher than 16th, in 2016 it was the 10th highest for the year. As for importance last year’s winner Sergio Garcia ranked T-2nd in greens hit.

Our next category is scrambling and last year the course ranked 3rd on tour while Garcia was T-6th. In three-putt avoidance Augusta played 2nd hardest on Tour while Garcia only had one three-putt for the entire week, only one other player had 1 for the week (William McGirt). Our last category is par 5, now for the average field the Par 5 average last year was 4.75 and it was T-10th on tour. Sergio was 7 under for the week which in the scope of things wasn’t that big of a deal as he ranked T-17th. So how did the 16 players that did better on the par 5s fare? Charl Schwartzel played them the best at 12 under and he finished 3rd for the week. Justin Rose who lost the playoff was 9 under, so playing the par 5s are important. Since 1997 every winner has been under par on the par 5s except for Danny Willett who played them in even par in 2016. But if you average out the winners in the last 21 years, they average 8 under so you can see the importance of playing the par 5s well for the week.

So let’s take a more careful look at how the last two champions became victorious. In 2016 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.

How about 2015 for Jordan Spieth. 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, in 2015 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 a 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 has 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 do 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 2018 Remember this is an international event with six amateurs and lot’s of players that do not play regularly on the PGA Tour, so only 58 of the field of 87 have PGA Tour stats for 2018. 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:

Be sure to join us tomorrow as we preview the Masters and look at who is the best choices for DraftKing games.

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