The Concession Key Fantasy Stats

WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession

February 25th – 28th, 2021

The Concession Golf Club

Bradenton, Florida

Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,474

Purse: $10.5 million

with $1,820,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Patrick Reed

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

Because the PGA Tour couldn’t get a permit to play the WGC-Mexico Championship at Club de Golf Chapultepec due to coronavirus, they have had to move the event. It’s a shame, the fact is that after the apprehension of going to Mexico City for a tournament four years ago, players have now gotten used to it and loved the course. Hopefully, the event will return to Mexico next year.

This year, the tour has moved the event to The Concession Golf Club, just outside of Sarasota, Florida. Now the Jack Nicklaus design course isn’t that well known, but insiders say it’s one of the country’s best courses. Since its 2006 inception, it has received numerous awards and accolades, including Golf Digest’s best new private course in America award in 2006 and No. 1 in the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s most challenging courses in the Tampa Bay area every year since 2013. The Concession has never hosted a PGA Tour event, but it did serve as the host venue for the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Golf Championships in 2015, the first year that men and women played on the same course in back-to-back weeks. SMU’s Bryson DeChambeau won the men’s individual title that year while LSU captured the men’s team title over USC.

The little we know about the course is that it presents challenges with undulating, slick greens where correct placement on the green right quadrant will be imperative. It’s similar to what players face at Augusta National for The Masters each year. So everything you remembered about Jack and the way he did greens, throw it away. This is different. So he went more of a strategic green complex. They’re very sophisticated. And when you look, you have to make logic of it like, ‘Why am I supposed to miss that to the left on 18,’ In a press conference two weeks ago, NBC Sports analyst Paul Azinger who lives in the area, was part of the press day and said of Concession, “a golf course that will eat your lunch.”

The course was conceived to be one of the most demanding courses globally, one that could hold either a major championship or either the Ryder Cup or the Presidents Cup. Nicklaus, along with Tony Jacklin, who helped in the building, were given their choice to pick the land to put it on. The course was the main focus, there are no houses on the course, which flows across a variety of landscaping meadows, wetlands, oak hammocks, and pine forests—with spectacular bunkering and humongous green contours. When the course was finished, it became one of the US’s only golf courses to have the highest possible slope rating from its Championship tees. On its opening in 2006, the Florida State Golf Association gave The Concession a 155 slope and 77.6 course rating from the back tees, making it very challenging for players. So we trust that Concession will create a lot of excitement this week.

Since we have very little data to base our conclusions for our four categories, we will take an educated guess on which stats will be needed to succeed this week at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession. Yes, the name has been changed, and it is a handful. But back to the course and the things to watch for. First will be Accuracy off the tee. Remember six months ago when they held an exhibition match with Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady at the Medalist Golf Club? That course was challenging because they tunneled 18 holes through dense forest, and there was no bail-out. You either it is in the fairway or die in the forest of problems off the tee. The same with Concession, there is no bail-out on any hole, so driving accuracy will be necessary. So our first category is Total Driving The course is not only an excellent driving course but demands great shotmaking to the greens as it takes precious iron play. Remember what I said earlier, the course has the same values as Augusta National, in which you have to put the shot on the green but in the right quadrant, so our second category is Greens in Regulation.

Of course, the greens have many undulations and are well guarded, mistakes will be made, and that puts a lot of skills in getting it up and down from just off the greens. So our third category is Strokes Gained Around the Green. This is a combination of all skills in getting it up and down from the short grass and the bunkers around the greens, which have close to 40 of them around them.
Our last category is Strokes Gained Putting. Remember how tough the greens are, I have a feeling that a lot of pros will go crazy with the severe nature of them. So Strokes Gained Putting is an excellent way in determining how a player does overall on the greens, and since putting will be a key to winning at The Concession I don’t see any stat better to end this stat look with.

*Total Driving: It adds up the rank of Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy to come up with a total rank. This will determine which players will hit it long and straight, two items very important for the week.

*Greens in Regulation: Number of greens hit from the fairway or rough.

*Strokes Gained Around the Green: This is a combination of all skills in getting it up and down from not only the short grass but from the bunkers around the greens.

*Strokes Gained Putting: This is a great way in determining how a player does overall on the greens by determining the length of the putt and calculating the percentage the player should make the putt and coming up with a stroke figure.

The 52 of the 72 players from this year’s field with stats from 2021 (lots of non-PGA Tour members with no stats)

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