Exploring Most Well-Rounded PGA Tour Players This Season

Once upon a time, before the invention and implementation of Strokes Gained statistics at professional golf’s highest level, I often used the PGA Tour’s All-Around category as a baseline to analyze which players do everything well and, therefore, which ones might have impending value in the betting markets, should their results keep up with the performance.

That little-used stat still exists – and it’s exactly what it sounds like, simply a collation of a player’s ranking in eight different important categories.

As if to prove its effectiveness, five players who currently rank top-10 in the All-Around — Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg, Jake Knapp, Chris Gotterup and Si Woo Kim – are also top-10 in the SG: Total category, which is undoubtedly not just a better gauge of performance, but the best barometer that exists.

In fact, we can uncover a lot by diving into the SG data. It not only tells us which players are better than their peers – and in specific statistical categories – but it can serve as an explanation for just how much better some of the best players really are.

It can similarly interpret which players are the most well-rounded, as opposed to those who might have one distinct superpower.

And that’s the exercise here. Using the four main categories – off the tee, approach, around the green and putting – I delved into the data to find the most well-rounded PGA Tour players, finding that only 15 of them are positive SG in all four areas.

Of those ranked inside the top-10 on the SG: Total list, two didn’t qualify here. Si Woo Kim and Matt Fitzpatrick have each putted worse than the baseline number, which might only serve to spotlight just how proficient they’ve each been from tee to green, considering they’re both having strong seasons compared with recent years.

Let’s get to the 15, with a reminder that such a ranking is malleable and I’ve picked an arbitrary time to report on a definitive cutoff, which could easily include more or fewer or completely different players within the next few weeks.

The Superstars

Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, Cameron Young, Tommy Fleetwood, Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley

Before we even start, I’ll readily admit this: I’ve used a very loose interpretation of the term superstars above. If you’d like to argue and contend that Henley doesn’t qualify for this category and a few others might not either, I’ll probably let you win the fight. That said, these are all top-tier players and it starts with the man who’s having a down season by his standards, but 11 consecutive starts without a win doesn’t tell the entire story for Scheffler, who still ranks No. 1 in SG: Total and 18th or better in each individual category.

He’s still a half-stroke behind his pace at this point in last season’s schedule, but his lead over McIlroy, who was No. 2 both then and now, is very similar to what it was. Results get all the headlines, but SG numbers tell a better story of performance and like Scheffler, Aberg has struggled while in contention this year, but the data show he’s been as good as just about anybody, ranking 16th and 14th, respectively in the two ball-striking categories and not below 55th in any of them.

The Next Tier

Jake Knapp, Chris Gotterup, Nicolai Hojgaard, Min Woo Lee, Alex Smalley

It’s a shame that Knapp’s season has been derailed by a recent wrist injury, because the numbers show he was playing some fairly incredible golf before that happened. I suppose some could contend that Gotterup is something akin to a one-hit wonder, though he’s won twice this season and four times in just over 24 months and, well, there’s really no such thing as a four-hit wonder, but his performance data prove he’s been one of the PGA Tour’s best all season.

And a shoutout here to Smalley, whose streak of six straight top-20 results came to a crashing halt this past week, but his ability to rank amongst the top half in each of these major categories helps to explain why he’s taken such a massive leap in recent months.

The Outliers

Jordan Spieth, Matt Wallace, Ryan Fox

So, you’ve watched Spieth play golf this season. You’ve seen him with one foot in a water hazard, or under a tree, or in some place on the course that only double-digit handicaps usually find themselves. He’s posted exactly zero top-10s this season, which only reinforces your opinion that he’s been wildly inconsistent.

And you’re not wrong – even Spieth himself has compared his play to a Whack-a-mole carnival game, with one aspect of it continually popping up to bite him. But here’s the thing about his performance this year: He’s at least been consistently inconsistent – or maybe that should read inconsistently consistent. Believe it or not, he ranks 41st in SG: Total and while he’s not better than 55th in any of those individual categories, he’s not worse than 78th in any, either.

If anything, it only serves to emphasize what he’s been telling us for months, which is that his game is very close, if he can just rein in each part of it at the same time. And then there’s Fox, this week’s defending champion at the RBC Canadian Open. At 58th in SG: Total, he’s the lowest-ranked player on that list to be positive in the four categories, though he’s just hanging on by a thread.

You don’t need to be a stats maven to understand that his numbers of 0.285 off the tee, 0.026 on approach, 0.054 around the green and 0.008 putting make him just slightly better than the average PGA Tour player in each of those areas so far this season.