We will dive into my Sanderson Farms Championship breakdown soon, but here are the 1-128 standings (including Parker Coody/Chad Ramey/J.J. Spaun/Taylor Montgomery withdrawals) for each of the four main statistical categories through the opening two rounds of the event.
*** A red "MC' to the left of a name signifies that a player missed the cut
Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee
Strokes Gained: Approach
Strokes Gained: Around-The-Green
Strokes Gained: Putting
One significant takeaway from that list is that only Daniel Berger, Bud Cauley and Seamus Powerare inside the top 50 of all four categories.
You'd also get an onslaught of additional names when taking in any putting return, including our pre-event outright wager of Michael Thorbjornsen, who just missed the initial list after ranking 52nd this week with the flat stick.
Baseline Putt + Around The Green Score
This category aims to merge actual ball-striking statistics with baseline short-game totals.
This is important because it can highlight the players who are playing the best with their predictable numbers and are due for positive regression with the more volatile portions of their game.
Biggest Underachievers On The Leaderboard
Note: I only ran for players who should be inside the top 65 of the field. The list will include any golfer who made or missed the cut. The list will condense further to only look into the top 50 rated players in my head-to-head model.
Of the 10 more substantial underachievers on the board, only Ryo Hisatsune missed the cut when considering head-to-head totals within my model.
I remain optimistic that Eric Cole will continue his positive trajectory up the board, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Charley Hoffman be one of the larger movers on the weekend.
Biggest Overachievers On The Leaderboard
Note: I removed anyone who graded as a top 20 player in my head-to-head model.
I am willing to accept that options like Ben Griffin and Taylor Moore continue to dismantle models when faced with a Bermuda surface.
I am not necessarily openly looking to oppose either because of the built-in edge they have with their flat sticks on the surface, but that list above makes up a vast majority of the names I am looking to take on in round three.
Who Will Win the 2024 Sanderson Farms Championship?
My model noticed that the last 140 of 155 players it has tracked entering round three are landing no worse than six shots back of the lead. That total marks over a 90 percent rate and would feature 10 situations where either Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Sam Burns, or Hideki Matsuyama ended up being the names to catch the leaders.
With no player at the quality of those seven golfers, I will say that anyone worse than nine-under par will find themselves too far back to capture this title.
Here is a list of all those names who survived the cut:
From there, 27 of the last 30 golfers in my model featured a pre-tournament rank that landed inside the top 35 of the field. I am more willing to exclude this profile as a massive necessity to look further into, but when I stretch this into the top 50 players and who qualified with that data, here are the names:
The best outcome for me is if Thorbjornsen, Chan Kim, or Cole captures this title, although the slew of chasers of Beau Hossler, Berger, Jacob Bridgeman, Keith Mitchell, Lucas Glover, Ryan Fox and Power are notable names to have to hold off for two more days.
