Who Made The Biggest Leaps With Their Driver In 2019?

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With so much attention given to the driver and it’s place in the game, Golfweek’s David Dusek uses the year-end down time to look at who made the biggest gains in strokes over their PGA Tour peers.

There is a fun interactive chart for mouse users, but this was really a standout stat:

Conversely, Phil Mickelson finished the year ranked T-165 in strokes gained off the tee with an average of -0.307. That means the 49-year-old, five-time major winner’s driving cost him about one-third of a shot against the average player. But over the course of a 72-hole tournament, if everything else were equal, McIlroy would typically beat Mickelson by about six shots because his driving was so much better than Lefty’s.

McIlroy made the sixth best improvement in 2019 strokes gained off the tee. And it’s not like this was a weakness in his game.