When we’re not examining predictive analytics for players at specific tournaments, we’re often searching for narratives to suggest who might have a strong performance. There are few narratives more relevant than the catch-all “motivation” — and this week should offer plenty of motivated competitors.
Believe it or not, we’ve finally reached the 46th and final regular-season event of the current PGA Tour schedule, which means one last chance at the Wyndham Championship for those trying to keep their playing privileges and squeeze into a spot in the FedEx Cup playoffs, which begin next week.
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Playing one tournament to potentially keep your job certainly seems like the greatest motivational factor we’ll see all year. And yet, looking back over the last three seasons, the so-called bubble boys usually don’t parlay this motivation into results.
Let’s take a look at those players who were between 120th and 130th entering the last event in each of those three seasons, starting with 2019:
Only Brice Garnett (T6) and Patton Kizzire (T13) finished inside the top 30 from this group at the Wyndham, but it should be noted they’d won in the previous campaign. That means they were only playing for playoff berths, not their Tour cards.
In 2020, only Si Woo Kim (T3) and Zach Johnson (T7) finished in the top 40. Once again, each was already exempt based on past victories.
There were a couple of stronger results last year, but only one better than 15th — and that was Adam Scott (T-2), who was already exempt.
All told, of the 33 players on either side of the bubble over the past three years, there were only four top-10 finishes, each from a player who’d already clinched his card. There were 25 results outside the top 30, including 14 missed cuts, more than 40 percent of all players on the borderline.
Now, perhaps that can all be easily explained away using this logic: The players ranked 120-130 were ranked that low because they hadn’t played their best golf, so we shouldn’t have expected a whole lot.
Or maybe we can peruse these numbers and come to the conclusion that motivation alone isn’t enough to make investments on those trying to keep their cards or make the playoffs.
The group this week, from 120 to 130 on the eligibility list (which doesn’t include suspended LIV players), consists of the following players: Nick Taylor, Chesson Hadley, Kramer Hickok, Rickie Fowler, Matt Wallace, Austin Smotherman, Max McGreevy, Danny Willett, Justin Lower, Nick Hardy and Cameron Champ.
None of the above findings mean we should completely fade these guys — especially those who are previously exempt — but there’s certainly a trend here, one which tells us that players need a little more than motivational fuel in order to climb a leaderboard.
Outright winner
Russell Henley (22/1 FanDuel)
At last year’s edition of the Wyndham, Henley became the first player since Emanuele Canonica at the 2001 Nissan Open to finish one stroke back and still not cash a top-five ticket. Back then, Robert Allenby beat five other players in a playoff at Riviera, including golf broadcasting king Dennis Paulson and some guy named Brandel Chamblee.
A year ago, Henley parlayed a three-stroke 54-hole lead into a final-round 71, missing a short par attempt on the final hole and finishing one shot out of what became a six-man playoff. His putting isn’t exactly on fire right now, as he owned the worst Strokes Gained number on the greens of anyone inside the top-25 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic last week. Even so, he still finished T-10, thanks to a tee-to-green performance that ranked behind only winner Tony Finau.
Besides that, what I really like about Henley is that he presumably has some gas in the tank. At a time in the season when most players are worn down, Henley just played his first non-major event in 12 weeks. His schedule last year included three non-major starts during that time. Clearly, he’s gearing up for the stretch run, perhaps believing that he needs to be a little fresher to avoid a repeat of that final round of this event. I like the idea behind it — here’s hoping it pays off.