Hero World Challenge: How players fare at Albany Golf Club can tell us a lot about 2023 outlooks

Last year, at the beginning of December as the world wondered when Tiger Woods would officially return to golf, 20 of the best golfers in the world gathered in the Bahamas for the Hero World Challenge. Jordan Spieth finished last of the 20, in part because of a penalty he very much could have avoided.

Spieth and playing partner Henrik Stenson teed off from an incorrect tee box on one of the holes at Albany golf course during the tournament, and were penalized for doing so. Shortly after his round, Spieth explained what had happened and was caught referencing the Hero as, essentially, a hit and giggle. Here’s what he said about the 20-player, no-cut tournament.

“I actually didn’t think we were going to get penalized because it’s a charity event, but then I realized there’s world ranking involved and all that,” said Spieth. I think the frustrating part for us now is that every other group’s going to be — they’re making sure to tell them, but for us they didn’t. It obviously didn’t matter for us, which is fortunate, I think, for those guys.”

Spieth received 2.4 Official World Golf Ranking points for finishing five shots out of 19th place (coincidentally, occupied by Stenson).

But is the Hero, despite its OWGR points available, really just a charity event at the end of a long year like Spieth alluded to, or can it tell us more about the players who play well at the end of a calendar year before rolling into the next? In other words, is this 20-player field simply a weigh station for OWGR points before the best in the world put the clubs away for Christmas, or is it a harbinger for what’s to come over the next 12 months?

There are a number of different ways to break this down, but the simplest is to look at what the top three and bottom three on the final leaderboards of the Hero did in the years directly following their performances. I went back to the 2016 Hero World Challenge and pulled the top three and bottom three in every year, except for 2020 because the tournament was canceled amid the COVID-19 outbreak (in case of ties for third or 18th, I averaged players’ numbers together).

The data here is interesting, and seemingly more representative of the field makeup than anything else. There doesn’t seem to be a massive differentiation in the following year’s performance for those who finished in the top three at the Hero World Challenge compared to those who finished in the bottom three.

For example, Viktor Hovland, Scottie Scheffler, Sam Burns and Patrick Reed formed the top three last year, and that group went on to win six times in 2022 (with four of those coming from Scheffler). However, Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson and Jordan Spieth finished in the bottom three, and they combined to win five times in 2022 (with McIlroy contributing three of those victories). The takeaway is unsurprising: All 20 players at the Hero World Challenge are really good.

If you start to look at each and every year, one theme does begin to emerge. While there’s no guarantee that the top three at the Hero will have a better following year than the bottom three, it is clear that the top three almost always have tremendous following years while the bottom three don’t always follow suit.

A good example of this came at the 2016 Hero World Challenge where Hideki Matsuyama won, Henrik Stenson finished second and Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar tied for third. Even when averageing the following years for those in third, that group won five times and gained 5.36 (!) total strokes per round in 2017. The bottom three of Tiger Woods, Russell Knox and Emiliano Grillo? Not so much.

The lesson here appears to be that the Hero almost always has a great field full of players up and down the leaderboard who are going to have a ton of success the following year. However, if you do happen to finish in the top three, you’re almost certainly — and this should not be a surprise given the time of year and the caliber of player involved — going to be part of a group that has an incredible following year. That’s something to keep in mind when this leaderboard shakes out in the Bahamas this weekend