Split Tees and Growing the Game
Split Tees
A couple weeks ago Haralabos Voulgaris, someone I respect and frequently cite, tweeted about the subtleties of clock management in an NBA game. To summarize, with more than two minutes remaining in an NBA game, the clock runs after a made basket. But, the shot clock does not start until the inbound pass touches the offensive player’s hands.
So if you are leading late in an NBA game and the defense is not pressuring, it’s savvy to roll the inbounds pass and let as much game clock expire as possible. You are reducing the total number of possessions remaining in the game without reducing your own shot clock. You are increasing your chance of winning the game.
Voulgaris even suggested that if you like to bet on how many total points will be scored in an NBA game, you may want to incorporate the officiating style of the referee for that specific game:
My point is that small things matter, and understanding the nuances of a sport is essential towards finding an edge.
With that in mind, let’s talk about dynamics related to weekend tee times on the PGA Tour.
On a random day on a random course, do you think Jon Rahm would shoot a better score if he teed off at 8:00am or 10:00am? Answer: he’d generally shoot the best score with the earliest tee time (8:00am in this example). Typically as a day progresses, wind increases and greens increase in firmness and difficulty. Each of these elements negatively affects score. Often, peak winds subside as the final groups approach the last few holes of the golf course, so ~1pm-4:30pm tends to play most difficult.
Well how do weekend tee times work on the PGA Tour?
Usually, these are the two options:
Everyone tees off the first hole. Player in last place tees off first (around 8:00am) and player leading the tournament tees off last.
OR
Players tee off Split Tees. Half the field tees off on Hole 1, and the other half tees off on Hole 10.
Option 2 reduces the total time players are on the golf course, so it is useful when the Tour is worried about players not finishing play for the day due to lack of daylight or adverse weather. Option 2 is rarely used, but we should discuss it.
Relevant features of Option 2:
Leaders of the tournament tee off Hole 1 and have the latest tee times
Players in last place (~70th place) tee off Hole 10 and also have the latest tee times
Players in the middle of the pack tee off both Holes 1 and 10 and have the earliest tee times
Maybe you can see where I am going with this…If you made the cut and are near last place going into a Saturday, you do not want the PGA Tour to use Split Tees, especially if wind is a factor. You want Option 1. Without Split Tees, you have a unique opportunity to ascend the leaderboard because conditions will be much worse for the golfers at the top of the leaderboard than they will be for you. The first tee time at Bay Hill yesterday was at 7:00am, and the last tee time was at 1:30pm. The first golfers can finish their rounds before the winds (and opponents) even start.
Perhaps a concrete example would assist here. Following my explanation above, which tournament would be appropriate to look at? Probably a tournament where sunlight hours are short (October-February ish) and where wind is an element. Ok, let’s examine the Genesis Invitational, which took place in Los Angeles in February. Link to tee times.
Entering Saturday’s round, Joel Dahmen was tied for 60th, near the bottom of the leaderboard. The PGA Tour utilized Split Tees on the weekend, so Joel Dahmen was assigned one of the last tee times of the day, which was at 10:49am.
Check out the weather data for Los Angeles on that day:
The weather data is pretty standard. At 10:49am, Joel Dahmen teed off as the winds began to ramp up and played his entire round in stiff winds. He shot 73, beating only eight players for the day.
On the other hand, Jason Kokrak entered Saturday tied for 31st. Since the middle of the pack tees off first with Split Tees, Kokrak teed off at 8:48am, two hours before Dahmen. So Kokrak teed off without a breath of wind (on Hole 10 at Riviera!) and finished his round before the peak winds (~3-4pm). He shot 66, bested by only four players, three of whom had tee times before 9:30am. The strong score catapulted Kokrak into 12th place entering Sunday.
Well if Dahmen had Kokrak’s tee time, scores would have looked different. Dahmen might have jumped Kokrak on the leaderboard on Saturday. The two players were only separated by three strokes before Saturday’s round.
Obviously, I cherry-picked these examples. Viktor Hovland teed off at almost the same time as Dahmen and shot the lowest score of the day (65). But it does not diminish the point: scores worsen as a day progresses, and tee times impact player performance, FedEx Cup Points, money, etc. On Saturday of this weekend’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, early tee times outperformed later tee times by more than 1.5 strokes per player.
For clarity, this is not a complaint. I take no issue with the PGA Tour’s approach to determining weekend tee times.
However, I would suggest that to the extent tee times are left to discretion, the Tour should have objective (and transparent?) criteria around how the decision is made. The impacts are real. Justin Rose failed to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs last year by a single point!
And as sports betting increases in popularity, some transparency into meaningful Tour processes could be a smart preventative measure.
I want you to observe the impact of weekend tee times moving forward. When the Tour utilizes split tees, look for some leaderboard jumpers, especially if wind increases throughout the day. Statistical modelers who have never thought about this before, think about it. There are implications…
PIP PIP!
After stating that it would be kept private, the PGA Tour released the results of the Player Impact Program, a system designed to reward the most impactful/valuable players on the PGA Tour:
I’m not the first person to make this point, but the biggest indictment of the system is that Hideki Matsuyama failed to make the list. Matsuyama won the Masters last year, and the media reaction in his home country of Japan was unbelievable. Dressed in a green jacket, Matsuyama was printed on every newspaper in Japan for days. Also, a video on the 18th green of Augusta National featuring Shota Hayafuji, Hideki’s caddie, was one of the most circulated golf videos on social media in 2021:
Did the impressions from this video count towards Matsuyama’s “Social Media Reach Score?” Were the articles written in Japanese included in Matsuyama’s “Earned Media Score?” Does it make sense to promote golf as a global sport and have criteria like “Awareness among the broad US population” contributing towards a player’s PIP standing?
I wish I could provide answers to the first two questions, but the PIP algorithm is black-boxed. Having a black-boxed formula that awards $40M-$50M annually might not be such a great idea.
Anyway, better luck next year, Hideki. Despite having one of the most globally significant victories of all time, you were simply not impactful enough for a cash prize in 2021. You fell just one contrived social media rivalry short.
Russians
The latest wave of cancellations are in, and this time, we caught some Russians. No, not necessarily Russians who are sympathetic to Putin (who I despise), just people born in Russia.
Take Alexander Grischuk, an elite Russian chess player, for example. When asked about the Russia/Ukraine invasion, Grischuk said:
I was and would support Russia in 99% of international conflicts, but this time I cannot manage to do this. In my view what we are doing is very wrong from both a moral view and practical view.
That statement takes some courage. Critics of Putin are being arrested in Russia for much less.
He’s cancelled though:
We also caught Russian-born filmmaker Kirill Sokolov. Half his family lives in Ukraine, he’s spoken out against the invasion, and his movies have been pulled from film festivals. Thank goodness.
We also caught a prominent Russian-born Opera singer and I’m sure we’ve caught thousands of others. I feel much safer now.
On Friday the R&A, the global golf governing body outside of U.S./Mexico released a statement. From the statement,
The R&A is not currently expecting entries from Russian or Belarusian golfers in scheduled R&A
-qualifying events…In the event that we were to receive entries, we would decline.
The statement received overwhelming support on social media. Really??
I’m old enough to remember when the United States diplomatically boycotted the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, but we still sent our athletes as to not punish the individuals.
But hey if the city of Carmel, Indiana decides to invade a nearby town, I will understand if you unsubscribe from this newsletter. After all, I did choose to be born there.
Feedback/Contact
Email: Joseph.LaMagnaGolf@gmail.com
Twitter: @JosephLaMagna
Other Content from the Last Week
The Shotgun Start’s recap podcast of Bay Hill is spot on and hilarious
Important read about one of the PGA Tour’s partners, PointsBet.
WNBA star Brittney Griner has been detained in Russia for possession of hashish oil. Scary situation and I hope she returns safely soon:
Fascinating read about WNBA ownership and dynamics within the league
Ja Morant’s incredible season continues. You should watch the Grizzlies when they are on national TV:
Warning: The video below is difficult to watch, but it is more important than anything else in this newsletter:
Sadly, I have direct experience with an almost identical situation to the one above. There are important conversations to be had surrounding disciplinary action and mental health. Isolating a struggling individual can lead to bad outcomes. Nobody wants that experience.