ETSU Men’s Golf Performance Breakdown

Exploring the ETSU Men's Golf Team's performance: Discovering insights through data analysis to lay the groundwork for future improvements.

ETSU Category Leaders

Scoring

Five out 8 players have a scoring average under par, with a team average of -0.56 per round

- World number 25 Mats Ege ranks number 1 on the team with an average of -2.22 per round, with Algot Kleen, world number 89, not far behind at -1.97 over a combined 139 rounds.

- ETSU have a Par 3 average of +0.11 and Par 4 average +0.04. However they play the par 5’s particularly well averaging -0.40 per hole. 

- Interestingly Mats and Algot lead the way in both par 4 and 5 scoring against the rest of their team mates.

- The team have an impressive birdie or better rate with an average of 4.01 per round, however they also see a double or worse ratio of 0.42 per round with only 3 out of the 8 players are currently averaging less than 1 per tournament. 

- Round 2 has been the slowest round for the team, with a strokes gained average of 0.0, lower than either R1 or R3. With college tournaments often being 36 holes on the opening day this could be a case of fatigue, as only 2 players Matthew and Jenson perform better in the second round vs the first.

Strokes Gained Analysis

Strokes Gained - Off The Tee

- ETSU have excelled tee to green with a team average of +0.27 off the tee and +0.32 in approach. 

- Matthew Dodd-Berry ranks highest in SG driving at +1.24 with an impressive combination of distance (302Y) and accuracy (68.3%).

- Overall the team are very straight off the tee with finding an average of 61% of fairways whilst importantly keeping their major or penalty miss to 7.5%.

- Jensen Forrester shows that distance is not everything as despite being the shortest hitter on the team at 285Y he ranks 4th in overall driving, thanks to excellent accuracy and finding 73% of fairways. 

Strokes Gained - Approach Analysis

- All but two players have a positive SG in approach with no one losing more than -0.75.

- Mats tops the approach play ranking with a SG of +1.55, excelling inside 200Y.

- As a team, ETSU have been particularly strong from 50-100Y from the fairway averaging +0.06 per round in this window. Perhaps also an insight into their strong par 5 scoring.

Strokes Gained - Short Game

- There is room to gain around the greens for ETSU with only three players having a positive SG, and a team loss of -0.07 per round. Remi has led the way by some margin around the greens with a gain of +0.27 per round.

- However like we see with all players short game really is a tail of three thirds. 

- From the easy locations every player has a strong SG and an average of +0.17 per shot confirms they are taking advantage of their good misses.

- Five out of the eight team members have also been very solid from the medium shot locations and a positive SG. Archie and Ben have been the stand outs, gaining +0.05 per shot respectively.

- Like many players it is the hard shots that will often dictate how the short game data looks, and in ETSU’s case this is true to form. They average a loss of -0.28 per shot from these positions, with the difficult bunker shot being the biggest culprit at -0.33 per shot.

- It is no surprise that, Remi, the number 1 in short game also leads the way in this hard shot category. He has lost only -0.12 per shot (+0.16 vs the team) perhaps due to excelling around the greens, but also and quite possibly as he has less of these difficult shots vs the team average.

Strokes Gained - Putting

- On the greens is where the team should be looking to shift their focus to going into the 2024 season with the team averaging a loss of -1.40 strokes per round. 

- Algot is the only player to have gained in putting, with an impressive +0.41 average.

- Like we have seen from our PGA tour research, the best putters are usually the best inside 15ft. This rings true with Algot who gains in every range inside 15ft and this should be a primary target for the team to target improvements on the greens.

- Whilst holing putts from distance is a nice bonus, Speed control is usually a deciding factor from mid range.  Upgame pro has a  unique ‘good putt metric’ that outside of 25ft is a putt that finishes within 8% of the start distance to give a clear indication how players speed is. For ETSU this is another area that can find improvement on the greens, in particular from 40ft+ where as a team they average only 53%, putting pressure on their short range putting and running the risk of a 3 putt.