If you were asked to think of a PGA Tour player who hasn’t won as much as they should have, Charles Howell III is probably one of the first names that comes to mind. Howell played 22 full seasons on the PGA Tour from 2001-2022 and was a model of consistency, never averaging less than +0.3 SG/round in a season. He had 15 (!) seasons where he averaged at least +0.7 SG/round. Since 1983—the beginning of our database—only 22 players have gained more strokes in PGA Tour rounds than CH3.

And yet, despite those dazzling strokes-gained figures, Howell only has 3 PGA Tour victories to his name (and, after last week’s win in Mexico, 1 LIV win as well). To understand how much of an aberration Howell’s career has been, we looked at how golfers’ career SG compare to their win total. For example, Howell has gained a whopping 1727.7 strokes over his peers in his career while winning 3 times, which works out to 575.9 strokes-gained per win. That seems like a hefty price to pay.

Shown below are the top 10 players in terms of SG/win, restricting to active players who are nearing the tail end of their careers (only PGA Tour data is considered):

1. Louis Oosthuizen: 1 win, 762.3 strokes-gained, 762.3 SG per win
2. Charles Howell III: 3, 1727.7, 575.9
3. Lee Westwood: 2, 912.9, 456.5
4. Paul Casey: 3, 1164.4, 388.1
5. Ian Poulter: 3, 980.2, 326.7
6. Kevin Streelman: 2, 562.3, 281.1
7. Bo Van Pelt: 1, 263.0, 263.0
8. Stewart Cink: 8, 2005.4, 250.7
9. Pat Perez: 3, 747.9, 249.3
10. Luke Donald: 5, 1221.1, 244.2

For Howell, the (predictable) story of his career is that despite the remarkably consistent SG numbers, he didn’t manage to put that many great weeks together. His +5.7 SG per round last week was the highest of his career by over a stroke (with the important caveat that it was only a 3-round event).

Rankings Update

Top 5 (see all)
Player	DG		OWGR
Jon Rahm	1	—	1	—
Rory McIlroy	2	—	3	—
Scottie Scheffler	3	—	2	—
Patrick Cantlay	4	—	4	—
Tony Finau	5	—	12	—
Notables
Paul Casey	20	5	85	4
Chris Kirk	35	18	32	15
Charles Howell III	36	68	312	11
Eric Cole	114	54	179	151
Ludvig Aberg	153	29	—	—
Marcel Siem	154	67	256	81
Ryan Gerard	272	94	302	170
Guido Migliozzi	392	86	160	3
Wilco Nienaber	479	51	398	3

Player Feature

Paul Casey

age 45 yrs, 7 months

dg rank 20th — owgr rank 85th

weeks in dg top 100 925

dg skill +1.32 strokes-gained / round¹

style above-average distance and accuracy, elite iron player

career wins
PGA Tour: 3
European Tour: 15
KPGA Korean Tour: 1

player comps
2012 Steve Stricker (similarity score²: 89.3)
2018 Stewart Cink (83.5)
2009 Stephen Ames (82.1)

Letzig's Insight
At an age where most players start to experience a decline, Casey has continued to excel. In his last two seasons on the PGA Tour his iron game was one of the best in the world, gaining more than 1 stroke per round on approach shots in both seasons. Casey is our highest ranked player in the 40+ division.

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
C. Howell III	LIV — Mayakoba	+5.7	0.995
C. Kirk	PGA — The Honda Classic	+3.37	0.214
M. Siem	DPT — Hero Indian Open	+3.32	0.182
C. Blomstrand	NGL — Winter Series II	+0.93	0.0
J. Floydd	ALP — Ein Bay Open	+0.84	0.0
D. Mostert	CHA — N Mandela Champ.	+0.52	0.0
N. Panichphol	ATGT — Singha E-San Open	-0.2	0.0
B. Coletta	ANZ — TPS Hunter Valley	-0.26	0.0

Explainers: True SG, xWins

Charles Howell III lapped the field at last week’s LIV Mayakoba event, gaining just over 5.5 strokes per round against the 48-man field and winning by 4. This works out to a True SG average of +5.7/round, which we estimate would be good enough to beat a typical PGA Tour field (over 3 rounds) more than 99% of the time.