A down week on the PGA Tour schedule gave us time to check in on how the first third of 2023 has been going for the world's best players. To highlight the notable over and under-performers we plotted 2023 versus 2022 true strokes-gained for some names that caught our eye:

In 2022, Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm had the 2nd and 3rd best true strokes-gained averages, respectively. So far in 2023 both have improved on last year by over half a stroke per round to become the clear-cut best players in the world. Rory McIlroy, the 2022 true SG leader, has regressed this year but is still sitting 4th in the DG rankings.

Nicolai Hojgaard has been 2 strokes better per round this year—he's now joined his brother, Rasmus, as a serious contender for a spot on Europe's Ryder Cup squad in Italy this fall.

Last summer, Chris Gotterup and Pierceson Coody were both used as examples of how the road to PGA Tour membership needs to be expedited for up-and-coming players. But even with solid performances last week (and a win for Coody earlier this season!), both have performed well below the level of an average PGA Tour player so far in 2023.

Horschel, Westwood, Frittelli, Knox, Kisner, Harding... #notgood.

Notes from the Zurich

The Zurich Classic is an interesting event in that player-level strokes-gained doesn’t correlate perfectly with team performance in the better-ball portion of the event. The team of Kurt Kitayama and Taylor Montgomery were able to ham-and-egg it better than anyone last week; the duo gained 0.5 strokes over the field in rounds 1 and 3 under the better-ball format, but they would have lost 6.2 strokes if SG from every shot was counted. Amongst the 35 teams that made the cut, Kitayama and Montgomery’s aggregate SG would have put them 33rd, while their team SG gave them a solid T19th.

The unfortunate nature of all team sports is that not all players contribute equally to the team’s success (or failure). Shown below are the 5 most lopsided teams in terms of each player’s cumulative SG performance last week:

1. Hojgaard (+7.5) and Olesen (-10.5): difference of 18 strokes, finished 32nd
2. Im (+13.4) and Mitchell (-2.8): 16.2, 6th
3. List (+9.5) and Norlander (-5.3): 14.8, T23rd
4. Walker (+4.5) and Points (-9.4): 13.9, CUT
5. Norrman (+10.4) and Schwab (-3.2): 13.6, T9th

Rankings Update

Top 10 (see all)
Player	DG		OWGR
Jon Rahm	1	—	1	—
Scottie Scheffler	2	—	2	—
Patrick Cantlay	3	—	4	—
Rory McIlroy	4	—	3	—
Xander Schauffele	5	—	5	—
Tony Finau	6	—	16	—
Sungjae Im	7	—	17	—
Jordan Spieth	8	—	10	1
Collin Morikawa	9	—	13	—
Cameron Young	10	—	15	—
Notables
Cameron Smith	20	8	8	2
Talor Gooch	34	9	59	2
Lucas Herbert	73	30	42	17
Peter Uihlein	88	20	460	9
Edoardo Molinari	177	25	270	7
Aaron Cockerill	272	98	250	131
Scott Gutschewski	282	82	359	—
Alex Fitzpatrick	396	50	—	—

The model was impressed with Alex Fitzpatrick last week, who paired with his older—and more experienced—brother Matt to finish T19 at the Zurich Classic. Both Fitzpatrick brothers averaged roughly +0.3 strokes-gained per round.

Peter Uihlein continues to impress with a T7 at LIV Adelaide, however his Official World Golf Ranking continues to plummet. Unfortunately for Peter—and other non major-exempt LIV players—there isn't much reward for runs of good play outside of a few hefty paychecks.

Player Feature

Davis Riley

age 26 yrs, 4 months

dg rank 91st — owgr rank 69th

weeks in dg top 100 39

dg skill +0.43 strokes-gained / round¹

style above-average distance and iron player

career wins
PGA Tour: 1
Korn Ferry Tour: 2
Amateur: 1

player comps
2022 Nick Hardy (similarity score²: 99.9)
2008 John Merrick (98.8)
2019 J.T. Poston (96.1)

Letzig's Insight
Last week we pointed out the striking similarities between Davis Riley and Nick Hardy’s current skill profile and career progression. The implications of that tweet were vague, but given that the Riley/Hardy team went on to win we are now officially taking a victory lap.

1 Relative to an average PGA Tour field.

2 Similarity scores are uniformly distributed from 0 (least similar) to 100 (most similar). Similarity is based on overall skill and playing style over the previous 3 seasons and a measure of career-long performance. Comps are restricted to players of the same age.

Week That Was

Winner	Event	True SG	xWin
T. Gooch	LIV — Adelaide	+3.56	0.093
L. Herbert	DPT — ISPS HANDA	+2.48	0.008
J. Ahlers	AFR — Tour Champ	+2.21	0.003
S. Gutschewski	KFT — LECOM Suncoast	+2.07	0.002
M. Hensby	SNR — Invited Celebrity	+0.42	0.0

Explainers: True SG, xWins

Talor Gooch had a 10-shot lead and a 97% win probability heading into the final round at LIV Adelaide. The final round saw that win probability first rise to 99% (Gooch was 1-under through 6), then fall to 59% (Gooch played an easy stretch from holes 7-10 in 4-over par, losing 6 strokes to the field), and then finally climb up to 100% as Gooch steadied the ship over his final 8 holes to win by 3.