Strokes gained at the Masters: Spieth wins his first major

Jordan Spieth won the Masters in record fashion. His victory illustrates very well that the winners of tournaments are the best putters out of the best ball strikers. Interestingly, the top six players in strokes gained tee-to-green finished in the top six in the Masters tournament. The winner, Jordan Spieth, was the best putter of the six (and he also happened to be the best putter of the tournament).

Spieth beat the field by 4.8 strokes per round, with 60 percent (3.0 strokes per round) gained with superior play from tee to green. He gained the remaining 40 percent (1.8 strokes per round) with his putting, where he was ranked first. Here’s a strokes gained breakdown of the top ten finishers at the Masters:

Strokes gained per round (ranks in parentheses)
Golfer Total Tee-to-green Putting
Jordan Spieth 4.8 (1) 3.0 (4) 1.8 (1)
Phil Mickelson 3.8 (T2) 3.4 (2) 0.4 (23)
Justin Rose 3.8 (T2) 3.4 (3) 0.5 (21)
Rory McIlroy 3.3 (4) 2.4 (5) 0.9 (9)
Hideki Matsuyama 3.1 (5) 3.6 (1) -0.5 (48)
Ian Poulter 2.6 (T6) 2.2 (6) 0.4 (26)
Paul Casey 2.6 (T6) 1.9 (8) 0.7 (17)
Dustin Johnson 2.6 (T6) 1.5 (12) 1.1 (7)
Hunter Mahan 2.3 (T9) 1.6 (11) 0.7 (14)
Zach Johnson 2.3 (T9) 1.6 (10) 0.7 (15)
Charley Hoffman 2.3 (T9) 1.0 (19) 1.3 (3)
Top 11 average 3.0 2.3 0.7
Fraction of total 100% 76% 24%

Here are the top ten in strokes gained putting at the Masters:

Strokes gained putting per round
Rank Golfer Putting
1 Jordan Spieth 1.8
2 Mark O’Meara 1.4
3 Charley Hoffman 1.3
4 Russell Henley 1.2
5 Morgan Hoffmann 1.1
6 Cameron Tringale 1.1
7 Dustin Johnson 1.1
8 Steve Stricker 1.1
9 Rory McIlroy 0.9
10 Tiger Woods 0.9

Here are the top ten in strokes gained tee-to-green at the Masters. Notice that top six players in strokes gained tee-to-green finished in the top six in the tournament:

Strokes gained tee-to-green per round
Rank Golfer SG T2G
1 Hideki Matsuyama 3.6
2 Phil Mickelson 3.4
3 Justin Rose 3.4
4 Jordan Spieth 3.0
5 Rory McIlroy 2.4
6 Ian Poulter 2.2
7 Ryan Moore 2.1
8 Paul Casey 1.9
9 Henrik Stenson 1.7
10 Zach Johnson 1.6

This strokes gained analysis was possible because, for the first time, the Masters put TRACK shot information on their website. Thanks to Jake Nichols who did the strokes gained putting calculations that appear in the tables. From that I added the scoring information to determine the strokes gained tee-to-green results.

Well before the Masters started I came up with a list of ten players mostly likely to win the Masters using past Masters results and PGA Tour results from the 2014 season. The article appeared on golf.com here

2 thoughts on “Strokes gained at the Masters: Spieth wins his first major

  1. Stephane Barras

    Yes, you right mostly about putting… As thanks to Masters Track Shot Information I was able to do the same excercice converting the Master Track Data to CaddiePlayer Data > you can see the graph there quite impressive from all the data I collected (since 2013) Its the first Time a Player can achieve 67% from Zone3 > http://www.caddieplayer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99:jordan-spieth-another-record&catid=8&Itemid=471

    Best regards from Shanghai, just completed the Volvo China Open whom the Winner Wu AhShun not only made history but as well participated in my putting research back in 2011.

    Stéphane Barras, CaddiePlayer founder

    Reply

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