Maybe it’s me, but I never had any trouble grasping the concept of a tournament winner vs. a season-long championship winner. For instance, they do it in hockey: The tournament winner gets the Stanley Cup and the team with the best regular season record gets the Presidents’ Trophy. Obviously, there’s a big difference in glory for the winner, but I still get it. The same thing happens in soccer all over the world.

Somehow the PGA Tour was very, very troubled by the fact that in 2018 Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship event and $1.6 million in prize money, while Justin Rose won the FedEx Cup and a $10 million bonus. The Tour was so troubled by this that the dichotomy has been removed and from this year forward there will be only one guy on top at the end. As you probably know, to do this they have instituted a “starting strokes” system whereby a strokes handicap is used to give each player in the field a starting score, as follows:
10 under — Justin Thomas
8 under — Patrick Cantlay
7 under — Brooks Koepka
6 under — Patrick Reed
5 under — Rory McIlroy
4 under — Abraham Ancer, Matt Kuchar, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Webb Simpson
3 under — Tony Finau, Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Scott, Gary Woodland
2 under — Paul Casey, Rickie Fowler, Kevin Kisner, Justin Rose, Brandt Snedeker
1 under — Corey Conners, Tommy Fleetwood, Sungjae Im, Marc Leishman, Chez Reavie
Even par — Bryson DeChambeau, Lucas Glover, Charles Howell, Jason Kokrak, Louis Oosthuizen

In some corners, this system is being touted as simpler and easier to understand. Sorry to disagree. I’m aligned with the Official World Golf Ranking, which is ignoring the whole “starting strokes” silliness and awarding ranking points based on players’ scores over 72 holes (kind of like it’s been done for as long as they have been adding up strokes).

Anyhow, and for better or worse, as far as picking a winner in the thing, now it’s necessary to factor in the starting strokes. Based on the factors used here to rank the players in each event – i.e. player rating, recent performance, and player fit for the course – Rory McIlroy is the top pick, with Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, and Rose close behind. But is McIlroy five strokes better than Thomas – that’s the difference in their starting strokes – well, maybe not. Let’s go with Rahm or Thomas.

Following is a look at some members of the field using various perspectives. They appear in ranking order as predicted at this website. (Per the Hawley course fit statistics, driving distance, scrambling, and driving accuracy are the three stats most closely correlated with success at the East Lake course over the past eight years.)

Rory McIlroy – Good fit for the course (top 2 percent of all U.S./ Euro pros in driving distance, top quarter in scrambling, top half in accuracy). Won here in 2016 and leading money-winner ($2.8 million) over the last eight years in this event.
Jon Rahm – Top player in the field in trend of recent performances – coming in with a string of six top-10s in his last seven appearances, including a first, a second, two thirds, and a fifth (last week).
Justin Thomas – Before winning last week’s BMW, he had a string of four straight events with no finish worse than 12th.
Patrick Cantlay – Best fit for the course in the field (top 15 percent in driving distance, top 1 percent in scrambling, lower half in accuracy).
Dustin Johnson – Last in the field in how his recent performance shapes up vs. his prior ranking; his best finishes in the last seven appearances were two in 20th place (St. Jude and Canadian).
Brooks Koepka – Good fit for the course (top half in driving distance, top 1 percent in scrambling, top 20 percent in accuracy).
Jason Kokrak – Trending up; in the top 20 his last three times out.
Matt Kuchar – Was no. 1 in FedEx Cup points when the finals started, now seeded six strokes behind Thomas. Hasn’t finished in the top 40 in four events going back to the British Open.
Louis Oosthuizen– Not a great fit for the course (top quarter in driving distance, bottom third in scrambling, top quarter in accuracy).
Kevin Kisner – Not a great fit for the course (top 10 percent in driving distance and scrambling, top half in accuracy).
Brandt Snedeker – Top-10 finishes in the first two events in the FedEx Cup. Won here in 2012. Not a great fit for the course (bottom quarter in driving distance, top 20 percent in scrambling, top third in accuracy).
Lucas Glover – Good fit for the course (top half in driving distance, top 1 percent in scrambling, top 20 percent in accuracy).
Corey Conners – Second in the field in how he’s improved his rating in the last four appearances, including three finishes in the 20s and a top-10 last week to get into this event. Worst fit for the course of anyone in the field (middle third in driving distance, bottom quarter in scrambling, top 20 percent in accuracy).

Thanks for reading. Hope you’ve enjoyed alookatgolf.com this season.