Rankings & Ratings

Jordan Spieth finished 4th at the Byron Nelson this past week after a final day 62 that shot him up the leaderboard. Of course, the real story was Scottie Scheffler getting his first win of the season and quite literally lapping the field with a four-day total of 31 under par.

Spieth is an interesting case study as he entered the week ranked 53rd in the TUGR Pro rankings, and with a Relative Strokes of 2.15, meaning on average he shoots 2.15 shots worse than Scottie (the #1 player in the world) every time they play against each other. With such a high finish in the event, one would expect Jordan to move up in the rankings, which he did; however, the interesting thing is that his Relative Strokes got worse. If you look at his ranking today, he’s 50th (up 3 spots from last week), but his Relative Strokes rating of 2.27 is 0.12 shots per round worse when compared to last week.

What does this even mean and why should I care?

It doesn’t happen very often, but this move is understandable. Yes, Jordan had a great week finishing 4th and beating most of the field. However, Scottie had an even better week relative to their previous encounters.

Scottie lapped the field. He beat Jordan by 12 shots, or 3 shots per round, which is much more than his previous average of 2.15 shots per round. Hence we have this interesting dynamic of Jordan moving up in the rankings because he beat so many other players, but losing ground in the ranking rating (Relative Strokes) because of how dominate Scottie played.

What’s the punchline?

Magnitude of victory (or defeat) matters, and TUGR rankings perfectly capture this dynamic. How you win or lose is as important as where you finish in the event. Every shot counts, that’s why you never give up on a round. Every shot counts, that’s why you play all 18 holes as if they all matter, because they do!

The TUGR Junior system is more than just a ranking list that shows where you rank - it’s simultaneously a rating system than also tells you the magnitude of your success. That’s why it’s so powerful. The number next to your name isn’t made-up, it means something than can help you improve.

The Otter Creek Championship

We highlighted the Otter Creek Championship last week and discussed in-depth their efforts to grow them game and give opportunities to qualify for their event. This LPGA Epson Tour event will hold a qualifier to give female amateur and professionals the chance to gain an exemption into the main event.

If you would like to learn more about this event, please get in touch with Otter Creek's Head Golf Professional, Andrew G. Weisheit, to receive an application for event entry at [email protected]

Other News

A few other highlights:

• We recently onboarded a couple of Canadian tours, including Golf Ontario and Golf Canada. We’re excited to bring these events into the TUGR system as we continue to grow our tour coverage.

• We recently onboarded a state association that primarily holds 1-day events throughout the summer. We are champions of all tours, especially local tours that play 1-day events. Your events will be captured and kids will be ranked.

• We continue to work with Tour and Tournament Directors to make it easier on them to get their events ranked. If you are a director and want to make sure TUGR is capturing all of your events, reach out.

Our mission is to help fuel better decisions, lower scores, and epic days on the golf course. I believe we’ve caught up on all of our requests to add events, but as always, reach out if we’re missing something.

Rankings updated: http://tugr.org

Thanks,
Jeff