TPC Southwind Key Fantasy Stats

WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational

July 30th – August 2nd, 2020

TPC Southwind

Memphis, TN

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,238

Purse: $10.5 million

with $1,787,560 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Brooks Koepka

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 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2020.
So last year change came as the WGC-Bridgestone, which had been played since it’s inception in 1999 at Firestone South, was forced to move. With the advent of Bridgestone not wanting to be a part of golf, that meant the PGA Tour had to look elsewhere. And the PGA Tour found a reliable friend in FedEx to take it over. The only problem, FedEx would only take over the sponsorship if it meant that their tour stop in Memphis would take over the WGC event. For years the TPC Southwind was the home of the FedEx St. Jude Classic, which was a successful event the week before the U.S. Open. The only problem, the tournament didn’t attract a lot of marquee names. 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 was a special course that even held the 1960 and 1975 PGA Championship on. It was considered very tough in its day and had some brutal par 4s.
Over the years, Firestone got more manageable and when the move was made, many thought that TPC Southwind would be a tougher layout. In the last year, it held the FedEx St. Jude Classic in 2018 TPC Southwind played to a 70.52 average, the 11th toughest course on the PGA Tour in 2018. In the history of TPC Southwind, the course never played below its par until last year when the scoring average was 69.50, and it was the 25th hardest course on tour. Many wondered why the change and it was easy. Last year as a WGC event, the field was only 78 players, while as a regular tour event, the field was 156 players, the added players added to the scoring average. Still, if you look, the winning score is about the same, so it’s no big deal.
Memphis has been pretty dry of late, only getting less than an inch of rain for the last month when it usually gets three and a half inches. So the rough hasn’t been able to grown has thick as in past years. Still, it’s supposed to rain during tournament week so that it will soften up things.
Over the last ten years, while the FedEx St. Jude Classic was played on it, the fairways and greens were always hard to hit. But that changed last year, again probably because only half the players are now in the field. Still, it’s tough enough to make TPC Southwind a very challenging course.

In looking at our four categories, our first for TPC Southwind are strokes gained tee-to-green. Last year the course ranked 19th in driving accuracy and 12th in greens in regulation while winner Brooks Koepka was 6th. Over the years, this has been an essential stat for the champions. In 2018 Dustin Johnson won and was 1st in this stat. The same with the winner Daniel Berger in 2017 and 2016, he was first in both years. In 2015, champion Fabian Gomez ranked 1st, so that is pretty consistent, and the reason that strokes gained tee-to-green is essential. Next significant is one-putt percentage, TPC Southwind ranked 47th last year and 45 in 2018 and 47 in 2017 while it was 47th in 2016, meaning that players had many one-putts. Koepka was T-1st in the previous year as he had 42 one-putts. In 2018 Johnson ranked T-30th 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 37th last year and 31st in 2018. Koepka was 1st in this stat last year while Johnson was 4th in 2018, T-24th in 2016, and Gomez was 8th in 2015. Our final category is birdie average last year it ranked T-24th while in 2018 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 3.73 last year, 3.27 in 2018, 3.11 in 2017, 3.16 in 2016 and 3.15 in 2015. For Koepka, he averaged 5.25 birdies per round last year and was 3rd, Johnson also averaged 5.25 in 2018 and 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 25th hardest course on tour, but you need to hit it long and straight along with hitting lots of greens as it ranked 12th in this category last year. So this is important to find a player that will do this

*One-Putt Percentage: The figure 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 69 of the 78 players from this year’s FedEx St. Jude field with stats from 2020:

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

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