Data Series: Apex Data

Welcome back everyone, this is our first of many data research topics we will be breaking down over the next year. First up is a hot topic and seems to always come up multiple times a year... Apex Data. The purpose of this article is to provide some basic understanding of Apex Data and then understand the actual function of Apex Data in your research, and what historical data tells us about Apex data and the correlation of SG:Total and Finish Position, in all conditions and high winds.

So let's jump in...

What is Apex Height?

PGA Tour Definition: The highest point (in feet) of the shot relative to the tee on Par 4 and Par 5 tee shots where a valid radar measurement is taken.

Basic Definition: This is the highest point of a golf ball's flight, it tells us how high a player hit the ball, or how low. Below is a visual from our Player Profiles for Scottie Scheffler's Driver. You can see there is about 20 ft of Deviation, but largely his Apex is 110 ft. When you hear Apex, think of the highest point a ball reaches before it begins to descend.

What does the data say about Apex Height?

Alright, so what I want to do first is lay the ground work for Apex under normal conditions. This will give us a reasonable baseline to make our assumptions for the value of Apex before looking at its potential value in unique weather (high winds).

Below is a chart illustrating the Average Finish Position in an Event by Average Apex Height in that event.

This chart is basic but very powerful. You can clearly see that as players' Apex Height exceeds 120 ft. their Average Finish Position declines quite rapidly. Conversely, the players with the lowest Apex Height have the worst Average Finish Position. Everyone else, the average players in Apex Height, have very similar outcomes with an average finish of 58th to 68th place.

Takeaway: Apex Height is a clear factor on the polar ends of the spectrum. The players with the lowest Apex Height consistently finish the worst while the players with the highest Apex Height, finish dramatically higher in Tournament than the average player.

What is the effect of Wind on Apex Height and performance?

Let's first look at performance under little to no wind. This is per round, and shows the SG Total of players in rounds where the wind was sustained at 5 mph or less.

In this chart, you can see the bulk of players do not see any strong benefit to higher or lower apex, until we surpass 120 ft. Here is where the trendline begins to move upward. This is more to set the groundwork for the next chart, but the main takeaway here is Apex is largely a non-factor except for the elite.

High Wind Effects

This is where it gets interesting. Most recreational DFS players assume high ball flight is bad for the wind and therefore they should avoid these players. This in fact is not true as shown below:

This is by far the coolest chart to illustrate the nonsense that is Apex Height (dis)advantage. In high wind scenarios, the players with the highest Apex performed significantly better than the average group (80-120) and the worst Apex players performed extraordinarily bad. 

So what is the takeaway here? First off, this data shows that Apex Data is actually quite strong on the polar ends of the spectrum. While the majority of players fall into the mid-range which leaves no room for actionable insight, we can see that the worst players are those with the lowest Apex and the players with the highest Apex are clearly the best, especially in high wind scenarios.

But wait, there's more!

This is their Driver data, what about Apex Data for Approach shots? Certainly players are hitting their irons lower to control their golf ball!?

Great question, let's compare the Apex Data for Approach Shots. Below is the same chart but only for approach shots between 100y and 225y and with wind of 15-30 mph.

This is nearly identical to the Driver chart above, you can see a clear advantage for higher ball flights in high wind rounds, with players that have the lowest Apex performed signifantly worse. This is a clear trend for both Driving and Approach play that higher Apex is actually more correlated with good scores than lower Apex.

Takeaway

Hopefully you enjoyed this article, my goal was to get straight to the point with actionable data you can use immediately. So what does this all show? At a minimum, Apex Data serves no purpose for predicting player performance except on the polar ends of the Apex Height spectrum, and at the most we can clearly see that targeting higher Apex Height is actually the strongest factor to identifying good plays. Coincidentally, the advantage for golfers in high wind rounds comes from higher Apex Height, not lower. You can also safely exclude any players with bottom 20% of Apex Height in most scenarios but especially windy rounds.

Best of luck in your research and keep an eye out for our next data research article.

- Redkacheek