Ben Griffin held a 3-shot lead heading into the final round of the Sanderson Farms Championship—then his driver abandoned him.

Griffin hit only 3 fairways (T73rd out of 78 players) and averaged 291 yards (56th) off the tee in his final round; this combination of short and inaccurate led to a field-worst -3.3 strokes-gained OTT. Griffin ultimately lost in a 5-man playoff to Luke List.

On that note, here are the 10 worst off-the-tee performances by 54-hole leaders since 2004:

1. Steve Stricker, 2009 Bob Hope: 3-shot lead, -5.6 SG: Off-the-tee, finished T3
2. Matthias Schmid, 2022 Barbasol: 2, -4.7, T8
3. Ben Griffin, 2023 Sanderson Farms: 3, -3.3, T2
4. Paul Casey, 2018 Travelers: 4, -3.0, T2
5. Nick Watney, 2014 Wyndham: 1, -2.9, T5
6. Bubba Watson, 2014 Memorial: 1, -2.9, 3
7. Ian Poulter, 2015 Honda Classic: 3, -2.8, T3
8. Austin Cook: 2018 CareerBuilder: 1, -2.7, T14
9. Luke Donald, 2014 RBC Heritage: 2, -2.6, 2
10. Rory Sabbatini, 2007 WGC Bridgestone: 1, -2.5, T2

Rankings Update

The 2023 Korn Ferry Tour season finished up last week, with the top 30 players on the points list securing their 2024 PGA Tour cards. If, for some reason, you don't follow this tour closely, here's a summary of each graduate's 2023 season and their current DG rank:

Among those who played a full KFT season, 8 players had a True SG average above 0—the performance level of an average PGA Tour player (think David Lipsky). They all graduated comfortably.

Ben Kohles finished the season on top of the points list thanks to two early wins and a consistent end to the year. At 90th, he is also the top-ranked grad in the DG rankings.

Nicholas Lindheim made the most of his shortened season, averaging +1.1 True SG per round in 8 starts. He played the fewest events of the graduates and led the tour in points per event.

Pierceson Coody and Paul Barjon had the worst strokes-gained averages among the graduating class at -0.8 strokes per round—both had two wins along with 9 missed cuts.

Adrien Dumont de Chassart probably had the most impressive stretch of the KFT season: he began by winning his professional debut and then followed that up with 5 consecutive top 10s, locking up a 2024 PGA Tour card less than two months after turning pro.

Player Feature

Luke List

age 38 yrs, 9 months

dg rank 86th — owgr rank 80th

weeks in dg top 100 200

dg skill +0.41 strokes-gained / round¹

style bomber, good iron player, bad putter

career wins
PGA Tour: 2
Korn Ferry Tour: 2

player comps
2022 Jhonattan Vegas (similarity score²: 99.2)
2020 J.B. Holmes (92.7)
2015 Robert Garrigus (85.9)

Letzig's Insight
List is one of those players who we would have a vastly different perception of if he could putt. Since becoming a full-time PGA Tour player in 2016, List has gained 506 strokes with his ball-striking, the 15th best mark in that time period. Unfortunately, he also lost 287 strokes on the greens during those seasons (the most by 87 strokes).

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.

Digits Of The Week

0.5%

The probability—at the start of the final round—that -18 would be good enough to win or get into a playoff at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

-18 ended up being the number partly because the course played harder than we were projecting (-0.8 actual vs. -1.6 projected), but mainly because nobody near the lead played great: the top 7 heading into Sunday all failed to break 70 on a day where the field’s average was 71.2.

The Sanderson Farms was also an outlier from a tournament-long SG perspective: List (and the 4 other players in the playoff) gained just 2.9 strokes over the field on the week, the 3rd lowest among winners of full-field PGA Tour events in 2023 (only the Charles Schwab and Arnold Palmer had lower).

Week That Was

Winner	Event	True SG	xWin
M. Fitzpatrick	DPT — Alfred Dunhill	+3.57	0.095
P. Barjon	KFT — KF Tour Champ	+3.31	0.166
L. List	PGA — Sanderson Farms	+2.37	0.005
D. Puig	ASA — Int'l Series Singapore	+2.36	0.005
L. Vacarisas	CHA — Open de Provence	+1.86	0.001
B. Quigley	SNR — FURYK & FRIENDS	+0.71	0.0

Explainers: True SG, xWins

LIV golfer David Puig won in dominating fashion last week in Singapore, bettering the field by 5 strokes. Puig is still just 21 years old, and we have him ranked as the 16th best player under the age of 25.