TPC Southwind Key Fantasy Stats

WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational

July 25th – 28th, 2019

TPC Southwind

Memphis, Tenn.

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,244

Purse: $10.25 million

with $1,845,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Justin Thomas

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most important stats for the TPC Southwind, based on data from last year’s FedEx St. Jude Classic and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2019.
Now thanks to money and politics there is a change for the better coming to the Memphis area. They have had a very successful tournament, the FedEx St. Jude Classic which had been a mainstay on the PGA Tour since 1958 and had it’s home at TPC Southwind since 1989. The event was the week before the U.S. Open, but the problem was they couldn’t attract a lot of marquee names to the event. So when Bridgestone didn’t want to sponsor their WGC event, FedEx was willing to step up and take over the sponsorship if it would move to Memphis. So they had a deal with the tour who killed the St. Jude Classic and replaced it with the old WGC-Bridgestone. The only sad thing was the Akron area lost the PGA Tour after hosting a PGA Tour event just about every year (except 2002) since the 50s.
Firestone South had the reputation of being a tough course, but over the course of the last decade and a half, it lost a lot of it’s luster and bite. While that was happening, TPC Southwind has continued to hold strong as a tough course. Example of that, last year Firestone South played to a 69.905 average, the 17th toughest course on the course. Meanwhile TPC Southwind played to a 70.520 average a full half a shot harder and the 11th toughest course on the PGA Tour.
Showing how tough TPC Southwind has been, in the last eight years, it’s never been higher than 15th on the list of toughest courses of the year, in 2015 the course played almost a shot harder than it’s par of 70 and it’s 70.93 average ranked it 9th. In 2016 the course played to the same 70.93 average and ranked 10th. In 2017 it again was over par at a touch over a half a shot an round with a 70.63 average making it the 15th hardest course of the year. So for the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational it will be played on a tougher course.
So why is that happening? The course is very tight with very difficult Bermuda rough. Also the weather in June, the time it was played in, was usually dry which made the course run more, thus getting players in more trouble with drives rolling into rough and tough greens to hit. Memphis got a big soaking last week from Tropical Storm Barry which hit Louisiana last week but it has dried out. For the week of the tournament the weather will be dry as each day will be hot and dry, except for Sunday which could see scattered Thunderstorms

So getting it in the fairway is critical and the course has always been demanding in greens hit. As an example, TPC Southwind ranked the 10th hardest course on the PGA Tour in 2018 to hit fairways. In the last seven years the highest it’s ever been was 11th in 2017 and in 2014, and it’s been in the top-ten, four of the last seven years. The same with greens hit, last year 59.30 of the greens were hit as it ranked 5th toughest on the PGA Tour in 2017 55.68% of the greens were hit as it ranked the 6th hardest on tour. Over the course of the last eight years, it’s never been higher than 9th. So you can see why more and more players will find TPC Southwind a challenge test.

In looking at our four categories, our first for TPC Southwind are strokes gained tee-to-green. Last year the course ranked T-11th while winner Dustin Johnson was 1st. In 2015 the course was 6th while 2015 champion Fabian Gomez ranked 1st. Next significant is one putt percentage, TPC Southwind ranked 45th last year and in 2017 while it was 47th in 2016, meaning that players had many one-putts. Johnson ranked T-30th last year while in 2016 he was T-52nd while Gomez ranked T-2nd in that stat in 2015.
Our third important stat is scrambling; players will miss greens and have to get it up and down. The course ranked 31st last year, Johnson was 4th last year, T-24th in 2016 and Gomez was 8th in 2015. Our last category is birdie average last year it ranked 10th, in 2017 it ranked T-10th, it was 14th in 2016, and 2015 was 11th which means it was hard to make birdies as in the field the average was 3.27 last year, 3.11 in 2017, 3.16 in 2016 and 3.15 in 2015. For Johnson he averaged 5.25 last year at TPC Southwind which ranked 1st, in 2016 was 5.00 and was T-1st while Gamez averaged 5.00 and was T-2nd in 2015.
So yes TPC Southwind can be considered a shotmaker type of course, and we will probably get a shotmaker winner.

*Strokes Gained tee-to-green: Course may have only been the 15th hardest course on tour, but you need to hit it long and straight along with hitting lot’s of greens as it ranked 3rd in this category last year. So this is important to find a player that will do this

*One-Putt Percentage: The figure that shows how many times a player one putts a green.

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

*Birdie Average: Average number of birdies made over the course of a round

The 50 of the 64 players from this year’s FedEx St. Jude field with stats from 2019:

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