Nate Lashley's iron play was locked in at last year's Rocket Mortgage
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HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA - JUNE 19: Nate Lashley of the United States plays his shot from the 11th tee during the second round of the RBC Heritage on June 19, 2020 at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Perhaps no dominant performance in recent memory on the PGA TOUR was more surprising than that of Nate Lashley at the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic. Not only did Lashley become just the third player this decade to win a TOUR event as an alternate, he led outright after all four rounds and finished six strokes ahead of runner-up Doc Redman.
Lashley ranked 20th for the week in approach shot proximity, but that doesn’t tell the entire story about his pinpoint iron play. Repeatedly – especially on the weekend – Lashley put himself in great scoring positions and took advantage of those opportunities.
In rounds three and four, Lashley hit seven approach shots inside eight feet, the most of any player in the field on the weekend at Detroit Golf Club. While the field’s average birdie make for the week was 14 feet, 11 inches, Lashley left himself just over 10 feet on his birdie conversions. Lashley converted 46% of his birdie-or-better opportunities over the course of the tournament, his career-best performance over 72 holes on the PGA TOUR.
Readers familiar with ShotLink’s proximity statistics may be wondering how a player who hit it that close, that often, did not rank higher in the weekly statistics. A couple of stray numerical outliers are to blame there: twice, Lashley went after the 17th green in two, winding up more than 130 feet away from the hole. These two figures skewed Lashley’s average a bit, masking an otherwise sterling week approaching the greens in Detroit.
Of Lashley's 28 birdies that week, 22 came on putts of 10 feet or less. He hit 14 approach shots within 20 feet in his third-round 63 that gave him a six-shot lead.
There are five players since 2010 to win a PGA TOUR event wire-to-wire and by six strokes or more. Four of those winners – Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Justin Thomas and Martin Kaymer – have been world number one at some point in their career. Nate Lashley, an alternate who had everything going for him that week in Michigan, is the fifth.
With his victory, Lashley became the first player to win wire-to-wire and by six strokes or more for his first PGA Tour title since Jose Maria Olazabal at the 1990 NEC World Series of Golf.