Match play by the numbers

It’s fitting that the host city for one of the most unique weeks all season on the PGA TOUR prides itself on staying weird.

Not only is the format for this week’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play distinctly different, but all kinds of players have found success at Austin Country Club. The Pete Dye design has seen its share of power players rack up wins, but also gave us a Kevin Kisner-Matt Kuchar final four years ago. The unexpected and the month of March go hand-in-hand in other sports this month, with this tournament following suit.

Sequence and seeding

When the pool play format was implemented in 2015, one of the criticisms levied against the change was that the win-or-go-home urgency that made the first day of the event so entertaining would be lost. We’ve learned at Austin Country Club, that’s not necessarily the case: while mathematically nobody is eliminated with a defeat in their first match, the numbers say players have less wiggle room than you may think.

Since the format change eight years ago, only 24 percent of players to advance to the round of 16 have suffered a loss in pool play. Nearly 80 percent who have moved on won their opening match. In fact, of the 14 finalists in this event since the advent of pool play, 11 have won their first match of the week. The only player who didn’t win their opener and made it to the finals is Kisner, who did it three different times (one lost match, two halved matches).

If you thought the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments could be unpredictable, just try and fill out a bracket for this thing. Since 2015, the top seed (players one through 16) has advanced to the knockout stage just 33 percent of the time. In 2021, only one top seed moved on, while eight of the ‘D’ block of players (seeded 49 through 64) advanced. In just seven years of the pool play format, a player seeded 61st or lower has advanced out of their group on five occasions.

The eventual champion has been a pretty even mix of favorites and underdogs under this format: four times, a top-five seed in the tournament won it all. The other three times, the winner was seeded 32nd or lower.

Situational stats

Early momentum is critical in match play, especially at Austin Country Club. Since 2016, players who win the opening hole at ACC have gone on to win their match 61.6% of the time, and have earned at least half-a-point at nearly a 75% rate. Leading after six holes has led to a match victory at a 69.7% clip in that span.

Last year, the opening stretch of holes was key to Scottie Scheffler’s success: on holes one through six, he won 12 times, lost only three, and played to a combined score of 13-under-par. In the last five matches Scheffler won, he led at least 2-up through six holes in four of them.

How about leading at the turn? A whopping 74.2% of players who lead after nine holes at Austin Country Club have gone on to win the match. Just a 1-up lead at the turn has led to a player earning either a win or half-point 77.4% of the time. That number jumps to 85.7% when a player has a 2-up lead.

Still, the most impactful holes on the course from a statistical perspective come on the back nine. Wins at the 12th, 13th and 16th holes each impact win probability from 11 to 15%, with the par five 16th carrying the biggest impact historically. Only four players last year headed to the 17th tee one down and still went on to win the match.

Scheffler going for back-to-back

Entering this week, world number one Scottie Scheffler seems as likely a candidate to get back-to-back wins at this event since the move to Austin. In two previous appearances here, he’s made the final both years and lost only twice in 14 matches. He’s already successfully defended one title this season (WM Phoenix Open) and is coming off a decisive win at THE PLAYERS. But consider this: since the World Golf Championships began in 1999, only one man has won any of the events in back-to-back fashion. That’s Tiger Woods, who has successfully defended a WGC title eight different times.

But what Scheffler did at TPC Sawgrass two weeks ago was Woods-ian in nature. Over the last 40 years, there have only been five instances of a player winning a PGA TOUR event by five strokes or more while leading the field in both driving distance and greens in regulation. Woods on three occasions (1997 Masters, 2000 U.S. Open, 2007 WGC Invitational), Dustin Johnson at Riviera in 2017, and Scheffler at the 2023 PLAYERS.

Recent top performers

- What’s Max Homa’s reward for being a top seed at this event for the first time? How about a date with match play menace Kevin Kisner in pool play. Kisner has a ridiculous match record of 21-5-1 here since 2017, reaching the final three times in that span. Only Woods (four times) has made it to the final more in this tournament’s history.

- Only three players have reached the knockout stage each of the last two years: Billy Horschel (who won in 2021), Scheffler (who won last year), and Jon Rahm, the most prolific winner on Tour this season. Rahm, who leads the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Total and scoring average, has a career match record here of 12-7-3.

- Matt Kuchar is the only player to reach the round of 16 four times since this tournament moved to Austin Country Club in 2016. That’s especially impressive considering that he didn’t even play in it in 2022. Kuchar, who won this event in 2013 at Dove Mountain, has four career semifinal appearances, tied with Woods for most all-time.

- Coming off a runner-up finish at THE PLAYERS, Tyrrell Hatton is in strong form headed to Austin. Consider this: Hatton is the only player on the PGA TOUR currently ranked inside the top-20 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Putting. Hatton has also reached the knockout stage three times since 2018, and had a perfect pool play record last year before losing to Seamus Power in the round of 16.