Ocean Course Key Fantasy Stats

PGA Championship

May 20th – 23rd, 2021

Kiawah Island Golf Resort (Ocean Course)

Kiawah Island, S.C.

Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,876

Purse: $12 million 

with $2,160,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Collin Morikawa

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

The PGA Championship is going back to the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, a course that held the Ryder Cup in 1991 and the PGA Championship in 2012. The course also has held the 2003 World Cup and the 2007 Senior PGA Championship.

This is the 103rd edition of this event, The last time the PGA Championship was held at Kiawah in 2012, Rory McIlroy blew away the field with an 8 shot victory over David Lynn. With the win, 23-year-old McIlroy became the youngest player since Seve Ballestero to win two majors. Rory won thanks to shooting 67-66 over the weekend, and he was bogey-free on his final 23 holes.

This year, the course will play at 7,876 yards, 200 yards longer than it played in 2012. Now the 7,876 figure is remarkable when you consider in major championship history it’s 135 yards longer than Erin Hills, which hosted the 2017 U.S. Open and was previously the longest course in a major. The back nine will play at 4,061 yards. There has been no other course that has broken the 4,000-yard mark. There will be seven par 4 holes played longer than 450 yards, of that, two will be over 500 yards. Before we fall off a cliff with this absurd notion of how unfair this is, we have to understand that the characteristics of the course itself and why it sets up to play long. The course is a linksland style course, next to the ocean with seashore paspalum fairways which will be bone dry, and the ball will run a long way. Not only will the ball run farther off the tee, but the course is set up to allow players to bounce shots into the green.

When Pete Dye started building the course in 1990, his wife Alice, a terrific player in her own right, was there to talk Pete into many innovations. When Pete was stuck on what to do to the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass, home of the Players Championship, Alice told Pete to make the 17th hole a short par 3 with an island green. Today the spot is probably one of the most talked-about golf holes in golf. So back in 1990, Alice told Pete that each hole should not be built through dunes but sit on top so that every inch of the course would see the Ocean. Now Alice wasn’t thinking of the scenic value of this decision. Alice was thinking about making sure that nothing blocked the elements of mother nature and that each hole should experience the full wrath of what winds could do to a player’s round. So yes, the yardage is long, but they will receive more roll for most players than they get on an average course. Another element of the course, most of the holes are set up so that shots should land short of the green and bounce up to the hole, thus shortening the yardage. So in reality, the course will play at around 7,500 yards which still is long.
One other factor for this week is the person in charge of setting up the course. Kerry Haigh is the chief championships officer and the man in charge of how the course will play. He is well respected by all the players and, in his 30 plus years of setting up courses, have shown all that he sets up one of the fairest layouts in golf. We can rest assure that Haigh will know of the weather conditions for every moment and will adjust the course to suit the elements. Still, it doesn’t mean that the course will be easy, it won’t be.
This is a very different course because there is a different experience if you miss the fairway. The course is played on one big sand dune, and there are no trees. The fairways are strips through the dunes, if you miss the fairway, good luck. It’s either unkept sand, a possible marsh, or sagebrush. So off the fairway, it turns into a major adventure, high scores will be seen this week.

The most prominent element of the course is mother nature. Since it’s next to the ocean and with no natural protection from the winds that generally blow at 15 mph. This will create its own element to make sure there are no low scores. For the average person, the course is daunting, but for players with precision shotmaking, the course is very fair. Now once you get to the greens, they are tough. 6,000 square feet they have a lot of subtle undulations and even though they are flat, will be easy to putt. So just like last year at Harding Park, weak putters can do well on this course (we saw it last year, Collin Morikawa won, he is considered a weak putter).
I still can’t stress the importance of finding the fairway off the tee and making sure to get the ball on the green in regulation.

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 Kiawah for the PGA Championship. The key for Kiawah is to hit it long and straight. With lots of roll in the fairway, along with wind, it makes it essential. In 2012 Rory McIlroy averaged 311.5 yards and ranked 1st in the field. The average drive for the course was 282.8 yards, and for the year, it was the 13th longest course. Now in accuracy, Rory hit 37 of 56 fairways which ranked T-42nd. The field hit 66.07% of the fairways for the week, which ranked 35th out of 48 courses, so the course proved to be fair to hit the fairways. So our first category for Kiawah is Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee which combines driving distance with accuracy. Our second category is Greens in Regulation, and that is based on the fact that K Kai in 212 saw 56.42% of the field hit the greens, and it was the 5th hardest for the year. As for McIlroy, he hit 48 of the 72 greens and was T-13th in the field. We all know the greens are average size, but with players bouncing the balls in, that helps ease hitting the greens. But when a player doesn’t get it onto the green in regulation, this will cause lots of trouble. The greens are in the middle of the sand, so you miss the green, either chipping from off the edge or hitting it from the sand. Now the sand won’t be easy, it’s not like a normal bunker that caddies rake up after a player finishes, so there will be the possibility of footprints and complicated lies. In 2012 Kiawah ranked 2nd in scrambling as the players only got it up and down 48.89% of the time. One of the keys for Rory winning was getting it up and down 75% of the time, which led the field. Our last category is Strokes Gained putting, which is always crucial in a major. In 2012 Kiawah had a 1.817 putting average and was the 5th hardest course that year. As for Rory, he took 109 putts for the week and was T-8th in overall putting.

*Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee: This determines how many strokes are saved or wasted in driving off the tee, figuring hitting the fairway, and hitting it far.

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

*Scrambling: This stat figures out who gets it up and down the most when a green is missed.

*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.

Of the 156 players in the field, 105 have stats on the PGA Tour for 2021:

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