OT - Horses For One Course

[David_Tepper]

The Heritage at Hilton Head has been played 53 times, every year since 1969. Just ten golfers have won the tournament 27 times, over half the time it has been played.

Davis Love has won it 5 times. Hale Irwin and Stewart Cink have won it 3 times. Seven golfers (J. Miller, H. Green, T. Watson, F. Zoeller, P. Stewart,  B. Weekly & J. Furyk) have won it twice.

There is even some repetition among the runners up. Luke Donald has finished 2nd 5 times and David Frost was runner up 3 times.In addition to his 3 wins, Hale Irwin was 2nd twice.

Aside from Augusta National, has any other course produced such a concentrated group of winners over the years?   

[Jeff Schley]

Interesting insight Dave.  I would put up Bay Hill, Memorial, Torrey Pines, Firestone as Tiger dominated those courses. How many others I don't know.

[David_Tepper]

Jeff -

No doubt Tiger skews a lot of golf data all by himself.

DT

[Tim Martin]

The Pebble Beach Pro-Am was won five times each by Mark O’Meara and Phil Michelson. It was won three times each by Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller.

[Phil Burr]

By my count, the Crosby and its successors has been played 80 times.  It has perhaps a more impressive history of repeat winners than Harbor Town.  O'Meara and Mickelson each have 5; Snead 4, followed by Nicklaus & Miller with 3 apiece.  Add two-time winners Watson, DLIII, DJ, Sneds, Casper, Middlecoff, Lloyd Mangrum & Dutch Harrison and that gives you 38 of 80 (47.5%) of the trophies shared by 13 players.  Its repeaters have averaged 2.9 wins there, while Harbor Town's average is 2.7.


Greensboro might be an interesting study as well.  Didn't Snead win 7 or 8?  Seems like Snedeker is always there too.


I suspect the trend will only intensify as the best players schedule only those tournaments they want to play, which is typically on courses they know they will play well.  As for Firestone, apart from the old American Golf Classic, has it ever had a truly open tournament?  It seems to me it's always hosted limited-field events so Tiger's dominance is easier to understand.  It's obviously a course he plays well and he has a limited number of people to beat.  The same is true to a lesser extent of Muirfield and Bay Hill.  Muirfield will always draw a great field as long as Jack is alive, just as Bay Hill did until Arnie's death.  Tiger's dominance is most impressive to me at Torrey, where the field wasn't artificially limited and where virtually all of the American elites would begin their season if they hadn't already done so in Hawaii.

[David_Tepper]

Tim & Phil -

Thanks for the Crosby/AT&T Pro-Am data. I did not think about that tournament as it is played over 3 courses than just one.

In addition to their high level of play, no doubt the strong performances by Californians O'Meara, Mickelson & Miller over the years can be attributed to their experience putting on poana greens.

Snead & Nicklaus were just pretty good players!

DT

[Phil Burr]

It would be easy to view Augusta in a similar light, but to be fair it's a limited field.  Still, 48 of 85 (56.5%) of Masters tournaments have been won by players who won more than one, broken down as follows:


6: Nicklaus
5: Woods
4: Palmer
3: Mickelson, Faldo, Player, Snead, Demaret
2: B. Watson, T. Watson, Crenshaw, Langer, Olazabal, Ballesteros, Hogan, Nelson, H. Smith


48 wins divided by 17 multiple winners equals 2.8 wins per repeater, just ahead of Harbor Town.  But again, a limited field.

[AChao]

From how I look at things, Augusta is the most while TPC Sawgrass is the least.

[David Ober]

Really cool thread.

[Phil Burr]

A venue at the other extreme would be the Byron Nelson tournament.  Over 24 playings at Las Colinas beginning in 1994, only Sergio Garcia won more than once.  It seemed like although the venue appeared weak that the field was always pretty strong out of respect for Mr. Nelson (and perhaps the large number of tour pros who live in the Metroplex).  Winners range from HOF players (Woods, Els, Mickelson, Singh) to one-&-dones (Neal Lancaster, Robert Damron, Ted Purdy, Brett Wetterich).

[David_Tepper]

Since 1982, when it was first played at TPC Sawgrass, the Players Championship has had a fair mixture/assortment of winners in the 39 times it has been played there.


Tiger, Couples, Elkington, Love and Sutton have won it twice. The rest are all one-timers and include short hitters like Fred Funk and Tim Clark. Aside from Craig Perks and maybe Stephen Ames, there are very few unknowns/long shots on the list of winners.

https://www.theplayers.com/past-winners-and-runners-up.html