Royal St. George’s Key Fantasy Stats

Open Championship

July 15th – 18th, 2021

Royal St. George’s G.C.

Sandwich, England

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,189

Purse: $11.5 million

with $2,070,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Shane Lowry

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

Hard to believe we have another major coming up, the seventh major in the last eleven months. It’s the Open Championship and it’s being played at Royal St. George, which is a bit of an oddity on the British Open rota. It’s the only course within easy reach of London and is the only Open course on the English Channel. Of the ten courses on the rota, it’s considered the weakest of them all as many players don’t like its trickery of blind shots and golf historians don’t like the lack of marquee winners since the event returned to the rota in 1981. Yes Phil Rogers was the winner that year and Ben Curtis in 2003 was the most unlikely winner of a major since Orville Moody. Add Darren Clarke who was a popular winner but many never thought he could win a major it looks bleak for the quality of winners. Saving the course’s reputation Hall of Famers Sandy Lyle (1985) and Greg Norman (1993) also won leveling things out a bit.

The general knock on St. George is its quirkiness, something that was acceptable 70 years ago and frowned upon today. There are between half a dozen to 9 blind shots a round, depending on placements of some tee shots but the big knock on St. George is its slopping fairways in which a perfect tee shot could get a wicket bounce and despite landing in the middle of the fairway be in deep rough. An example of that was the 1st, 17th, and 18th holes in 2003, only one in four drives would find the fairways which didn’t settle well with players.

For some who say the course is too hard and unfair, you will have others like Greg Norman who would disagree. In 1993 he had rounds of 66-68-69-64 for a total of 267, the lowest 72 hole score in the British Open (the record was broken in 2016). Now to be fair to the course it was windless that week one of the reasons for low scores. Ten years later with some wind and a bit harder conditions, the winning score was 16 shots higher, as Ben Curtis had rounds of 72-72-70-69 for a 283 total. The last time the Open was held at St. George’s in 2011 Darren Clarke shot 275, 5 under par.

Technology has changed a bit since then along with the fitness of the players so what has the R&A done? They have lowered the yardage of the course for this year by 22 yards. In 2011 it played at 7,211 but for this year it comes down to 7.189. Indeed, the fact that only three of the past 14 Open winners have finished under par here may also explain why any tinkering has largely been limited to adding and moving a few bunkers to catch out the bigger hitters. So what is the R&A betting to make the course play tougher? A combination of rough and a pray that the weather will be windy. Members played their last round at St. George on June 28th and report that the rough is a healthy 3 to 5 inches. The growth was good in the spring and early summer and in the weeks before the Open the rough could get taller. June had an abundance of rain and more rain is predicted in the two weeks before the Open. The big question will be what the weather could be during Open week. Mid-July is the time in England that normally gets great weather, remember Royal St. George’s is way south and there could be a good chance that it looks like San Diego, with clear skies and no wind. That is what is forecasted for the four days of the tournament, no rain, gentle winds, and each day in the low 70s That is the way it was in 1993 when Greg Norman won. But if the weather gets nasty like in 2003 the scores will be higher.
Either way, there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of weather. If it gets bone-dry and hard, the course will play tough because of the bounces making hitting fairways difficult. So in a way players will be looking for wet weather which will slow the bouncing of balls and make it more manageable.

So with that said, how can we judge this course? First, we are going to do something that worked during the 2019 British Open at Portrush in picking our four key stats. We are going to use strictly strokes gained stats. Our first is Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee because driving will be necessary. With thick rough it very important to get it in the fairway. We can see and hear the players talking about the fescue factor this week if you miss the fairway and in the wispy fescue, good luck in trying to make par.
Our next stat is Strokes Gained Approach-the-Green because hitting greens are essential and you have to make sure to hit the greens. Our third stat is Strokes Gained Around-the-Green because players will miss greens and win they will have to get it up and down. Last is Strokes Gained-Putting because that is going to be very important for players this week.

*Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee: The per round average of the number of strokes based on the number of fairways and distance hit

*Strokes Gained Approach-the-Green: Takes into account the number of greens and the proximity to the hole in the interest of saving shots.

*Strokes Gained Around-the-Green: Number of stokes gained from shots around the green, a lot of it is scrambling and bunker play.

*Strokes Gained Putting: The number of strokes gained in putting

The 84 of the 156 players from this year’s field with stats from 2021. Remember there are a lot of foreign players in the field:

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