As I posted my tips a whole 6 days before the off, I am left twiddling my thumbs. Given this, I thought I would look at some trends ahead of the FedEx cup finalé.
My focus is purely upon East Lake since 2001 - as such, we omit the 2001 and 2003 editions of the Tour Championship, which were hosted at Houston GC. Let's see if we can find some pointers which are useful in unpicking the event this week.
Winning scores:
2002: -12
2004: -11
2005: -17
2006: -11
2007: -23 (First FedEx Cup play-offs year, Tiger the winner)
2008: -7 (First year using Bermudagrass greens)
2009: -9
2010: -8
2011: -8
Rank on tour (1 toughest, 47 easiest) : 27th. 18th ranked in 2010 and 15th in 2009.
In 2011, of 35 events that I ranked, the tour Championship was 25th toughest for driving distance (meaning it is relatively easy for players to hit driver), 3rd in driving accuracy (meaning finding the fairways is tough), 21st in GIR (meaning that hitting greens is easier than average, despite tough to hit fairways) and 19th in total putts (meaning the challenge here is not so easy, but not fiendish either)
Best round : 60 (Zach Johnson in Rd3 2007 - finished 2nd overall, 8 shots behind Tiger).
Best opening round by an eventual winner: 62, Bart Bryant 2005. Tiger shot 64 in 2007 in the first FedEx year and Furyk shot a 67 in 2010, the best score since the move to Bermudagrass in 2008.
Poorest opening round by an eventual winner: 73, Phil Mickelson 2009.
Average opening round by eventual winner: 67.7 (average 70 since the switch to bermudagrass in 2008)
Best final round by an eventual winner: 64, Goosen in 2004. In the FedEx cup era, Phil's closing 65 in 2009 is the best closing round.
Poorest final round by an eventual winner: 70, Furyk in 2010. That year, Donald also shot 70, to remain a shot back. Goosen shot 71, to finish 2 shots back. Watney shot 71/74 to sit +5 after the first two rounds and finished 63/67 to storm through to 4th.
Best opening 2 rounds: 127 (Tiger 2007 who opened 64/63 on his way to an 8 stroke victory). Since Bermudagrass in 2008, Scott (2011) and Furyk/Donald (2010) have opened best in 132 strokes.
Best final 2 rounds: 128 Zach Johnson 2007 (60, 68). Watney's 130 strokes over the weekend in 2010 is the best since Bermuda in 2008.
Midway position of eventual winner:
As you can see from the above chart, only once has the winner come from outside the 10 at halfway - Phil, 2009. In 8 of 11 years, a top 4 player has gone on to win the event. 4 times, the halfway leader has won the event.
Interestingly though, the profile is most erratic since the current FedEx/bermudagrass set up began in 2008. Since then, the eventual winner has been 4th, 12th, 1st and 5th at halfway. Furyk was the player who won from a halfway lead and he holds the record for the worst final round score, holding on because the close challengers never quite fired either. The clear inference is that the newly added pressure of FedEx cup honours plays heavily on those who are at the head of the field at halfway. 2007 was the first FedEx year (on Bentgrass then) and Tiger Woods won that year. I think he knew how to handle pressure back then - the fact he was 4 clear after round 2 did him no harm either.....
Midway position of players who go on to finish top 5:
The graph shown goes down to 5th, although it seems (understandably) that the place positions will not go below 4th. Watney in 2010 made the biggest leap from 25th to 4th. That aside, Phil's charge from 12th to 1st in 2009 is the only time since 2008 that a player outside the top 10 has even been in the top 5 come the end. 20 players have placed in the last 4 years; aside from Phil (12th to 1st 2009), Baddeley (10th to T3rd last year) and Curtis (7th to 5th in 2008) we see only players placing from within the top 5 at halfway.
By a distance, this is the strongest trend I have seen so far this season. Truly, it makes a lot of sense to look at players who are already in contention at halfway. I guess this is due a combination of a small field, which readily creates gaps in scoring (as opposed to bunched leaderboards as 70+ players make the weekend) and the fact that so many players have their eye on the potential of a huge prize if they run hot over the weekend. It is difficult to swing free and truly make up ground given these two factors.
So, if punting this weekend, there are some definite trends to follow. Unless you are following a player in the calibre of Phil Mickelson in 2009, a player starting sluggishly is very unlikely to win. Any player not right in the mix at halfway will have quite a task to place come the end. Hope that your player then can start well and then hold his nerve when the pressure is highest. This in part is why I was reluctant to pursue the top 5 in the FedEx standings this week, choosing only 40/1 shot Watney. The pressure will be immense this week. Remember also that of the top 5 Watney is the only player without the Ryder Cup on his mind.
Depending on how things stand, I may be back next week with further thoughts during the event.
Regards
Dave (OneBet)
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