Winner: Si Woo Kim
Around the wider world of golf: Celine Boutier won the Self Regional Healthcare Foundation Women’s Health Classic on the Symetra Tour; Matt Wallace won the Open de Portugal on the ET; Yusaku Miyazato won the Japan PGA Championship Nissin Cup Noodle Cup on the Japan Golf Tour; and Ai Suzuki won the Hoken-no-Madoguchi Ladies on the JLPGA (bangkokbobby has details).
I must take difficulty with Brandel Chamblee and Friends at GC. They said that TPC Sawgrass became "star player evidence," that it become designed to preserve the great players in the sport from capitalizing on their strengths. The implication was that, if the top gamers could use their strengths, a participant like Si Woo Kim wouldn't win because he isn't as desirable.
Oh, honestly? You say an extended hitter is at a disadvantage on a particularly quick direction like Sawgrass? Let me pick out on Dustin Johnson, because he is a good instance here. (I got the Sawgrass percentages from the person scorecard pages, handy from THE PLAYERS Leaderboard web page.)
According to the PGA stats page, DJ hits fifty seven.45% of his fairways on average whilst Si Woo Kim hits fifty five.02%. I would count on that, due to the fact DJ doesn't need motive force that much at Sawgrass, he have to be capable of hit quite a few extra fairways using 3-woods and long irons, while Si Woo desires motive force. (After all, are not you imagined to be extra correct with shorter clubs?) However, Si Woo hit 69.64% of his fairways whilst DJ ought to manage best fifty one.Seventy nine% of his.
That's not a big hitter having his strength taken away. Rather, it's a big hitter not using his strength strategically. That's the very thing Sawgrass is designed to test.
Even hitting from the same vicinity within the fairway, DJ ought to have a big advantage considering that he can hit shorter irons in, this means that they could fly higher, spin more, and land more softly. Indeed, DJ leads the Tour at 74.44% at the same time as Si Woo can simplest manipulate 58.59%. And at Sawgrass, DJ published sixty nine.Forty four% and Si Woo posted 62.50%.
Those Sawgrass figures are still in the ballpark with the yearly averages. The difference could be explained by the course redesign that everybody had to learn. For example, we saw many players miss putts simply because they putted from memory, rather than reading the redesigned greens.
Again, that's a matter of poor strategy. If you know things have been changed, shouldn't you plan your strategy with that in mind?
And it is exactly what Si Woo Kim did. Just because you are a large superstar does not mean you may ignore the fundamentals of the sport. After all, Jordan Spieth failed to even make the reduce and he is nowhere close to so long as DJ. Did the direction rob him of his strengths too?
Brandel and Friends lamented that Si Woo Kim's stats didn't allow them to expect his capability win... And I suspect THAT is the actual problem for them. All folks -- not simply analysts -- agree with we've some distance extra manage over our games (and our lives) than we surely do. No rely how tons facts you acquire, you can't predict how quickly a player will get over harm (assuming you bear in mind to take it under consideration, of route, which the GC analysts clearly did not) or whether or not the weather will cooperate or even what non-public occasions can also have an effect on the sport of character gamers.
In the end, Si Woo Kim became the youngest-ever winner of THE PLAYERS, something this is now not so hard to agree with while you recall his beginner profession or even examine his short pro career thus far. And it really is why he's taking domestic all THE PLAYERS swag and his 2d Limerick Summary to boot.
The youngest to take home the prize,
Kim performed like a man who's wise
Far past his few years.
Now his future appears
To be brighter than most realized. The photo came from this page at chicagotribune.com.
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