Cameron Champ proving he’s more than big tee shots

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Cameron Champ has quickly become known for more than his tee shots.   The 23-year-old rookie started the season by appearing on the cover of a golf magazine that was peddling the promise of longer drives. Then he started earning attention for his scores.   No one appeared on leaderboards more often than Champ this fall. He sat inside the top 10 after 13 of the last 16 rounds. He was 64 under par over that stretch.   He will start the New Year ranked sixth in the FedExCup. He is tied with Gary Woodland for the most top-10s this season (3).   At the start of the season, Champ would’ve considered it a success if he made all the cuts. He did much more than that. He won the Sanderson Farms Championship, finished T10 at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and closed the fall with a sixth-place finish at The RSM Classic.   His worst finish in five fall starts was a T28 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where he was in sixth place entering the final round.   He was most proud of the consistency he showed this fall.   Fifteen of his last 17 rounds were in the 60s. Eleven of them were 68 or lower, including a second-round 62 at Mayakoba. He leads the TOUR in birdies (117) and is second in birdie average (5.9 per round).   He had a chance to win The RSM Classic on Sunday despite struggling with his ball-striking.   “My putter really saved me this week. It’s been a good balance. Some weeks, my ball-striking has been great and I really haven’t putted well. And vice versa,� he said.   Champ excelled with both the longest and shortest clubs in his bag. He leads the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+1.48 per round) and could contend for the greatest single-season performance in that metric. But he also ranked 28th in Strokes Gained: Putting (+0.83 per round) this fall.   It’s a very small sample, but no player has ever combined such skill on the tee and off the greens. Even if Champ’s putting regresses as the season progresses, he could become the first player to average more than 1 stroke gained per round off the tee and 0.3 per round on the greens.   The advantage that his distance alone gives him should not be understated, though.   Only twice in the FedExCup era has the leader in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee failed to qualify for the TOUR Championship. Only once has the leader in that statistic failed to win.   The leader in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee has an average FedExCup ranking of 14 and averages 1.7 wins per season.   Bubba Watson is the current record-holder for single-season performance in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. He averaged 1.49 strokes gained per round in 2012, the year he won his first Masters.   There have been only eight seasons in which a player has averaged more than 1 stroke gained per round off the tee. Four players – Dustin Johnson (2016, ’17), Rory McIlroy (2012, ’14, ’16), Watson (’12, ’15) and Sergio Garcia (2005) – have achieved that feat.    Players who surpassed 1 stroke gained per round off the tee averaged 2.7 wins per season and a ranking of 4.3 in the FedExCup.   Last season, eight of the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee qualified for the TOUR Championship, as did 13 of the top 20 in that metric.   Let that sink in for a second. Nearly half of the players who qualified for the season finale were in the top 20 of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee when they arrived at East Lake.   Champ leads the PGA TOUR in driving distance (328.2 yards) while hitting 62 percent of his fairways. His driving accuracy almost equals the TOUR average this season (63 percent).   Mark Broadie, the inventor of the Strokes Gained statistics, calls Champ’s combination of distance and accuracy “remarkable.�   “The Strokes Gained that he loses from reduced accuracy is way more than compensated by his extra distance,� Broadie said.   Broadie has calculated that it takes approximately 3.4 strokes gained per round to win a PGA TOUR event. Champ covers nearly half of that with his tee shots alone. This fall, he gained nearly 2.4 strokes per round with his driving and putting.   “There are a lot of ways to get another 1 stroke per round to reach 3.4 per round,� Broadie said. “A hot putter, sinking one more putt per round, an approach shot or 2 to 4 feet instead of 14 feet, etc.�   Champ may not be able to keep up this unprecedented pace, but perhaps his putter should be mentioned alongside that other club that he is known for.

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