Presidents Cup Recap, LIV Finale, Cheating?
Recapping the Presidents Cup
The 2022 Presidents Cup wrapped up a week ago. Team USA beat a LIV-depleted Team International 17.5-12.5 at Quail Hollow, a golf course that heavily favored the long-hitting U.S. side.
Data-backed strategy in team golf competitions has come a long way over the years. Throughout last week’s Presidents Cup, each captain made strong decisions. That being said, I don’t agree with every decision made. Let’s take a closer look at how pairings were constructed, with an eye towards the alternate shot format, the most strategically important portion of the event.
Complementary Skill Sets
I’ve written about my philosophy for configuring pairings before; sound strategy leverages the most important concept in golf analysis, nonlinearity. The relationship between distance from the hole and expected score is not linear in golf. Two shots to 15 feet will underperform the combo of one shot to two feet and another shot to 28 feet. Each of these combinations carries the same Average Proximity (15 feet), but you score better by stuffing one close to the hole and then hitting one far from the hole as opposed to hitting two mediocre approach shots.
For this reason, in alternate shot, players should be paired with a teammate who has a complementary skill set.
You do not want to pair players with identical skill sets. Instead, you want to leverage the scoring benefits provided by pairing players with complementary skill sets.
Take Tom Kim of the International Team, for example. Kim bunts the ball off the tee, yet he is ranked #21 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Therefore, he’s really strong in other areas of his game; otherwise, he would not be ranked inside the Top 25 of the OWGR. Specifically, Tom Kim has exhibited elite iron play, averaging +0.727 Strokes Gained per round on approach shots in the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.
Tom Kim should have been paired with a long hitter like Taylor Pendrith, one of the longest drivers on Tour. On holes where Pendrith hits the drive, Tom Kim would get to hit an approach shot from 25 yards closer to the hole than he would on his own tee shot. Good recipe! That’s where we’re hoping Kim would stuff his approach shot to two feet.
“Ok, Joseph, but then what happens when Kim bunts a drive and Pendrith has to play from 25 yards farther back than he usually would?”
That’s where we’re fine with Pendrith hitting Tom Kim’s drive to 28 feet. We prefer this combination to two approach shots at 15 feet each. Bear in mind that Pendrith is a long hitter, which generally correlates to strong long iron play.
By pairing players with complementary skill sets together, you are essentially building a Supergolfer. Kim’s unique statistical profile could have been leveraged more effectively to build a Supergolfer.
The Golf Course
The strategy I’ve outlined above makes sense in a vacuum, but did it make sense at Quail Hollow?
Golf courses significantly impact player performance, so we must factor Quail Hollow’s characteristics into our strategy.
Conveniently, Quail Hollow set up perfectly to deploy pairings comprised of complementary skill sets. Fearing matches would end before players reached the scenic(?) Green Mile, the Tour decided to play holes 16-18 as holes 13-15. Crucially, the rerouted golf course positioned all four Par 3s as even-numbered holes (Holes 4, 6, 10, and 14).
Thus, the alternate shot strategy was clear: long drivers tee off on the odd-numbered holes and elite approach players tee off on the even-numbered holes. Under this configuration, the long driver hits nine drives and roughly five approach shots. The elite iron player hits five drives and roughly 13 approach shots. Each team mostly stuck to this script, sending the better iron player off the even-numbered tees.
My gripe with the International Team’s strategy is purely with respect to partner selection. Tom Kim, the shortest core player in the event, was never paired with one of the International Team’s bombers. To be fair, the International Team did not have many bombers (Adam Scott, Cam Davis, and Taylor Pendrith) from which to choose, but Tom Kim should have been paired with one of them.
In both fourballs and foursomes, you want to mix skill sets, especially at Quail Hollow where the odd holes projected to be much more highly correlated with length than the even holes. Check out Strokes Gained numbers from the singles session for Taylor Pendrith and Tom Kim:
As expected, Pendrith fared much better on the bomber-friendly odd holes than Kim did. Stagger the outperformance.
Last point: I understand that in the Presidents Cup, language barriers are a consideration. Captains often prioritize pairing players with fellow countrymen, which may partially explain why Tom Kim played three of his four partner matches with fellow South Koreans.
For what it’s worth, I think this narrative (like most narratives!) is overblown and should not impede optimal pairings. Language barriers can be overcome.
Success is a universal language.
Overall, high marks for each captain. We’ve come a long way. But there is room for improvement.
LIV Finale
Last week, LIV Golf released the format for the season-end finale in Miami:
One of the most important points to understand about LIV is that their strategy is centered around maximizing excitement. Events are 54 holes to condense the leaderboard, which provides final round fireworks. LIV’s regular season tournaments feature both an individual competition and a team competition. If the individual competition is a blowout, the team competition can engage fans. And vice versa.
LIV’s finale is no different. The creative format may seem confusing at first read, but it is actually pretty simple. On Friday and Saturday, the four-man teams are matched up against another team in two singles matches and an alternate shot match. The team that wins two out of the three matches advances. On Sunday, the 16 players on the four remaining teams play stroke play to determine the victorious team. All four players’ scores count towards the team total. With all four players’ scores counting, the leaderboard can shift rapidly.
LIV isn’t optimizing on crowning the worthiest champion; LIV is optimizing on entertainment.
The PGA Tour should take notes.
At an absolute minimum, the FedEx Cup points system must be reformed. Like I’ve argued before, the most logical way to reform the PGA Tour’s infrastructure is to restrict FedEx Cup points to a subset of the PGA Tour schedule. Only allocate points to the biggest ~15 events on Tour. When the first points-eligible event rolls around each year, fans will understand the importance of a high finish. Elite players will no longer sacrifice their chance of winning the Tour Championship when they sit out the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Fans need to understand what a FedEx Cup point represents. At any given point in the PGA Tour season, the FedEx Cup standings must reflect which players are having the most impressive season.
I’m skeptical that anyone truly cares about LIV teams yet, but at least the standings are interpretable:
It’s time for the PGA Tour to start optimizing on entertainment. Fix the points system. Engage fans.
Cheating?
Multiple recent cheating scandals have taken the sports world by storm.
Within the world of chess, 19-year-old Hans Niemann defeated No. 1 ranked Magnus Carlsen in the 2022 Sinquefield Cup. A week later, Carlsen resigned against Niemann after playing just one move. He subsequently accused Niemann of cheating. You can read more about the situation here:
I don’t know whether Niemann is cheating or not. I do know that if he is cheating via vibrating beads in his anus, which has been (absurdly) suggested, he is more committed to finding an edge than I am.
Within the poker world, opinions are split over whether Robbi cheated or not during this crazy hand:
Basically, she either played the hand completely foolishly or she cheated. Many people seem to think it is the former, though personally I lean towards her cheating. Her current alibi does not quite align with the sequence of events. But you can decide for yourself.
Not much ambiguity here:
I’m being told the fishermen accepted their punishments like perfect gentlemen.
Feedback/Contact
Twitter: @JosephLaMagna
Email: Joseph.LaMagnaGolf@gmail.com
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