Technology, analytics help explain this fast-rising threesome

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – It was an opportunity to reflect, and these days that means checking the Snapchat archives.

When Collin Morikawa learned that he was playing the first two rounds of THE PLAYERS Championship with two peers who also turned pro last year, he consulted the social media app to see what he was doing this week last year. He saw his posts from a practice session at the Metropolitan Golf Links in Oakland, California. That’s where the training facility for the University of California men’s golf team is housed. Morikawa was having short-game contests with his teammates as they prepared for a tournament.

Now he’s preparing for another event, but he won’t be carrying his own bag or eating a box lunch in the middle of a 36-hole day. He’ll be playing for one of the most prestigious titles on the PGA TOUR. A lot has changed in the last year. The same can be said for playing partners Viktor Hovland and Matthew Wolff.

In June, those three players shared a stage at the Travelers Championship. They were declared as the next stars on the PGA TOUR. They’d all had impressive college careers, but similar declarations are made on an annual basis.

All three have lived up to the hype. As a result, they’ll share the Stadium Course’s first tee at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. They earned their spots in the year’s strongest field by winning shortly after turning pro.

“I know we’re going to have a bunch of smiles on our face, we’re going to go have fun and hopefully shoot some low scores,” Morikawa said.

They’ve done plenty of that already. Wolff won the 3M Open in his third pro start. Morikawa was runner-up but won three weeks later at the Barracuda Championship. And Hovland recently earned his TPC Sawgrass tee time by winning the Puerto Rico Open.

Add Joaquin Niemann and Sungjae Im to the list, and we’ve seen five players under the age of 23 win on TOUR since July. Seven players from that demographic won on TOUR in the preceding five seasons – and just four won from 1985-2000.

No one can remember a time when three players won so quickly after turning pro. Perhaps in the days of hickory shafts. So, the obvious question is whether this is a trend or just a coincidence, a confluence of talent that all turned pro at the same time.

“There’s hardly any need for an apprenticeship anymore. They hit the ground like veterans,” said Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee. “I think having (a smartphone) is like having Butch Harmon or Harvey Penick in your pocket. You have access to the best teaching and a library of video. And I think social media is working as peer review for teachers. Now, if their ideas fail, they get called out on social media. It’s making instruction better. Now teaching is much more information-based. They know exactly how you create power. They guessed about it before.”

Today’s young players are following in the footsteps of not just Tiger Woods, but also Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. Morikawa, Hovland and Wolff were all born after Woods turned pro. He showed the importance of physical fitness and made young players reconsider what’s possible. They also saw Spieth win on TOUR as a teenager, then watched Spieth and Thomas win majors and FedExCups before turning 25.

Their development has undoubtedly been aided by technology, and not just titanium drivers and solid-core golf balls, but also analytics that help players receive in-depth analysis of their own games and the courses they play. Training aids such as Trackman, force plates and 3D motion analysis have revolutionized instruction. Swing coaches are no longer emphasizing static positions. The focus is on creating the proper forces. That’s why you see unique swings like Wolff’s and Niemann’s and Hovland’s.

“What you had to figure out on your own took so much longer,” said 2018 PLAYERS champion Webb Simpson, who’s 34. “Now we have so much at our fingertips on our phone or on TrackMan. That’s one of the main reasons guys are improving a lot faster and they come out here and they’re ready to win. They understand their games more than I did even out of college. If you would have asked me out of college what are the strengths of my game, I probably would have fumbled over that question. But now guys can tell you, based on statistics, what makes them great.

“Even in the fitting world, you can have a golf shaft that feels great and looks great, but your numbers on TrackMan are saying otherwise, so you quickly eliminate that one and go to the next one. It’s helping guys across the board.”

Unlike the Class of 2011 – which includes Spieth and Thomas, as well as Xander Schauffele, C.T. Pan and others – this current trio all graduated high school at different times. Morikawa spent four years at Cal. Hovland played three years at Oklahoma State, while Wolff made the leap after a record-setting sophomore season at Oklahoma State, where he won the NCAA Championship and swept the national player of the year honors. He’s the third player to win an NCAA individual title and PGA TOUR event in the same year, joining Tiger Woods and Ben Crenshaw.

“The fact that those three guys have won already is unbelievable,” Thomas said. “They probably don’t even realize how impressive it is. But they also understand how talented they are and we do too.”

They’ve all done it with impressive ball-striking. Hovland ranks seventh in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, while Wolff is 11th and Morikawa is 36th. Morikawa’s iron play has already earned acclaim from his peers on TOUR, and it’s supported by the fact that he’s fourth in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. Hovland is 51st in that statistic.

The trio has an average ranking of 18th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and 73rd in Strokes Gained: Approach. That average drops to 190th in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and 119th in Strokes Gained: Putting.

Golf Channel commentator Arron Oberholser believes they are a product of their times. Mark Broadie’s Strokes Gained statistics came to the PGA TOUR when Wolff, Hovland and Morikawa were still in elementary school.

“When I grew up, it was, ‘Drive for show and putt for dough,’” Oberholser said. “These guys grew up after Strokes Gained and Mark Broadie came on the scene and showed the importance of driving distance and approach play.”

Analysts like Scott Fawcett and Richie Hunt use ShotLink to optimize players’ course management. Morikawa said he gets such stats from TaylorMade. Wolff also is a TaylorMade staffer. Fawcett has taught seminars to many of the top college programs, including Oklahoma State. That data gives young players knowledge about all the new courses they’ll face.

“ShotLink data allows us to impart the knowledge to a 22-year-old that guys used to wait 10 years to accrue,” Fawcett said.

All of these advancements can only take players so far, though. At the end of the day, it comes down to talent.

“I think the technology part has helped in training, but when you're standing out there on the 18th fairway with a 7-iron in your hand and a one-shot lead and you need par to win, TrackMan is not really helping you too much at that moment,” said Jim Furyk, the 17-time TOUR winner who becomes eligible for PGA TOUR Champions in two months. “You still have to be mentally prepared and ready and believing in yourself. There's still a mental side to the game, and it's still an art in some respects.”

Perhaps, but more players are painting masterpieces at a young age.