WAGR Files: Introducing the 2024 DRVN.Golf Awards (The Drivvy's)

Spotify 2024 Wrapped is out.  So it's probably a safe time to close the books on the 2024 golf season by launching the first ever DRVN.Golf awards.  "The Drivvy's" will recognize and celebrate golfers around the globe for their excellent play in 2024 in WAGR events.  They say success leaves clues, so let's break down their performance and see if there's anything we can learn from the award winners that can help others succeed and contend for a Drivvy in 2025.

Newcomer of the Year: Eduardo Matarazzo Affonso Ferreira, Brazil

This award goes to the current highest ranked player who made their WAGR debut in 2024 and played primarily in junior events over the year.  Eduardo entered the WAGR rankings in March after winning a junior event in Brazil.  He won four times in seven junior events, all with decently rated strength of field (73 average Power) and performed well in six strong amateur events (all between 125-200 Power).  He had a 72.3 Scoring Average in 2024 and is currently 181st on WAGR, making him the 17th ranked junior in the world.  He'll be a name to watch at next year's U.S. Junior at Trinity Forest.

Honorable Mention:
- Jun Tian, Hong Kong [275 WAGR, 4 wins in 12 events (37.5 median Power). 74.2 scoring avg]
- Aidan Lawson, Scotland [305 WAGR, 4 wins in 10 events (33.9 median Power). 71.3 scoring avg]
- Veer Ganapathy, India [340 WAGR, 3 wins in 7 events (74.4 median Power). 68.5 scoring avg]
- Spencer Harrison, Australia [375 WAGR, 1 win in 8 events (55.8 median Power). 71.6 scoring avg]

Peak Newcomer of the Year: Salem Alabdallat, Jordan

This award is similar to above, but goes to the junior golfer who first entered WAGR in 2024 and reached the highest peak ranking. 12-year old Salem came out of the gates with three wins and four seconds in his first seven events (average 22.7 Power), climbing to a peak WAGR of 145 in August (12th ranked junior in the world).  He struggled in a couple bigger events in the fall -- 77th out of 77 players at the Junior Players and 115th out of 120 golfers at the Asia-Pacific Amateur, but has regained his form with two second place finishes in Amateur events since then. His scoring average for the year is 76.2.

Event Focus:
Salem's most recent 2nd place finish was a 72-84-83 in a 48.24 Power event with a mixed field of 11 players (seven boys and four girls). Four players would've shot above the 95-97-91 posted by Lilian Fuad (887th ranked at the time; for context, a greater Power contributor than playing against first-team AJGA All-American Carson Bertagnole, 905th ranked at the time).

Newcomer of the Year (U.S.): Bailey Sutter, Alabama

This award to the U.S. based player goes to Bailey Sutter, a 2026 graduate who has verbally committed to Alabama.  Bailey is ranked 13th in his class and 41st overall on Junior Golf Scoreboard, and is ranked 398th on WAGR. Despite strong finishes in junior events such as a 6th place finish in the Southern Junior (52.7 Power), he wasn't a ranked player until he won the Alabama State Junior in June.  He followed that up with a Sweet 16 appearance in the U.S. Junior. Sutter was an honorable mention AJGA All-American and has a 71.1 scoring average in 2024.

Honorable Mention:
- Pennson Badgett, North Carolina [735 WAGR, 3 wins in 12 events (111.0 median Power). 73.6 scoring avg. First-team AJGA All-American.  Tennessee verbal commit.]
- Jaden Soong, California [1732nd WAGR, 1 win in 5 events. 70.9 scoring avg. Honorable Mention AJGA All-American.]
- Zach Huang, Washington [1746th WAGR, 1 win in 8 events. 73.8 scoring avg]
- Tucker Gutierrez, Mississippi [1901st WAGR, 1 win 8 events (31.2 median Power). 73.6 scoring avg]

Most Improved Amateur: Jack Turner, University of Florida

Turner has been a ranked player going back to his junior days in 2021.  He reached a junior golfer peak of 850th in early 2022, entered campus in Gainesville last fall ranked 1640 and then dropped to 1771 after a rough fall freshman season.  He has performed remarkably well since the page turned on the calendar, with four top 10's in the spring season college, a semi-final appearance in the North & South Amateur and losing the marathon match to Gator teammate Ian Gilligan in the Western Am.  He is currently 41st in WAGR with a scoring average of 70.1 in 2024. His average True Strokes Gained on DataGolf improved 3.14 strokes between 2023 (-1.87) and 2024 (+1.27).

Turner's improvement and rise in WAGR should bolster his chances of making the Walker Cup team next fall. Below I calculated the future WAGR ranking in Week 33 of 2025 (U.S. Amateur week) of all players in the Top 100 currently, assuming players did not play between now and then.  Obviously a lot will change as these players play next year, but this shows players that have WAGR tailwinds and headwinds each week between now and next August.

Most Improved Junior: Jaemin Park, Republic of Korea

Jaemin started 2024 with a fully-baked WAGR ranking of 2702.  He played in a staggering 27 events this year, winning an equally staggering 10 of them. He recently finished 26th in the Asia-Pacific Am. Currently he is 535th on WAGR with a 70.8 scoring average. His average True Strokes Gained on Data Golf improved 0.79 strokes between 2023 (-3.51) and 2024 (-2.72).

Honorable Mention:
- Luke Colton, Texas [1586 --> 99 WAGR, 2 wins in 15 events (313.9 median Power). 69.8 scoring avg. +3.07 DataGolf True SG improvement between 2023 (-1.87) and 2024 (+1.20). First-team AJGA All-American]
- Ajalawich Anantasethakul, Thailand [1270 --> 282 WAGR, 6 wins in 18 events. 72.2 scoring avg.]
- Kihei Akina, Utah [847 --> 191 WAGR, 2 wins in 13 events. 70.3 scoring avg. +1.21 DataGolf True SG improvement between 2023 (-0.43) and 2024 (+0.78). Second-team AJGA All-American]
- Logan Reilly, Virginia [1592 --> 385 WAGR, 3 wins in 11 events. 70.6 scoring avg. First-team AJGA All-American]

The Jones Award: Mousa Shana'ah, Jordan

The Jones Award goes to the Amateur who won the most amateur events in 2024. This goes to Mousa Shana'ah of Jordan (our second Jordanian Drivvy winner), who won an astonishing 14 out of 26 events played in 2024 (and finished 2nd in five others). He started the year 650th in WAGR and is currently 249th, making him the 29th ranked junior golfer in the world.  His scoring average for the year is 73.5.

As mentioned, success leaves clues.  It may be instructive to take a closer look at Mousa's wins this year, especially the incredible run of five straight wins in six weeks in the middle of the year, in events with generally ever-increasing Power rating.  Might there be something that other golfers can do to emulate this unprecedented level of success?  Here's a few callouts.

WIN 1:
Mousa's first win of 2024 came in the GEM Junior Masters, a boy's event with a field of eight players.  His brother Hashem (78.2 scoring average, with five wins himself in 2024) was the only other ranked player in the field not too long after his first win (he's ranked 445th currently)

[Note: the Pct column is shown to put the International performances in a context more familar with U.S.-based readers.  It's the WAGR points expressed as a percentile performance of all U.S.-based junior golfers.  For example, Mousa's win earned more points than 85.9% of junior performances in U.S. and Hashem's 87-88-79 earned more points than 44.1% of junior performances in the U.S. for a 54-hole score that was better than only 22 of 3950 54-hole scores in AJGA Open events in the U.S.]

WIN 2:
Mousa's first win in an amateur event in 2024 was three weeks after his last win, in the GEM International Amateur Invitational.  Again, it was a eight-player field with six unranked golfers.  Mousa was able to get past Italian amateur Emanuele Galeppini (currently 3054th on WAGR with a 75.8 scoring avg), by a stroke.

[Emanuele is an interesting case study given he splits his time between Italy and the middle East.  In 12 tournaments in Italy, he had a 76.9 scoring average, averaged 43rd place and earned 2.51 WAGR points per event.  In tournaments in the Middle East (mostly UAE), he had a scoring average of 75.1, averaged 13th place and earned 4.17 WAGR points per event.]

WIN 4:
Mousa's 4th win of the year came in a mixed event of 10 players (seven boys and three girls).  Again, his brother was the only other ranked player in the field.  Notice how the Power Ranking is creeping up relative to his first win earlier in the year, in recognition of a stronger field with higher ranked players. Additionally, unranked girls contribute 53% more to a tournament's Power ranking than an unranked boy, so there's an inherent benefit to playing in mixed events. If this was a tournament of 10 boys, the Power would drop from 26.5 to 24.5. Additionally, Hashem's 74-79-84 earned the equivalent of a 75th percentile performance in the U.S. Interestingly, less than 9% of all AJGA 54-hole scores were 237 or worse, with an average finish of 43rd place for those who shot 237 over three days.

WIN 8:
Mousa's 8th win of the year came in a mixed event of eight players (four boys and four girls), right in the middle of his incredible five-win stretch.  Two of the ranked boys did not finish the tournament, so Mousa beat the one other remaining male by 12 strokes and four unranked females in this 95th percentile equivalent performance. Abdulla Kalbat is becoming a more constant figure in these tournaments around this time, rising to 598 WAGR here (he's currently 867th overall with a scoring average of 78.2).

WIN 9:
This was the first of three Summer Swing events that Mousa won in June-August, bookending a trip to Michigan to compete in the U.S. Junior.  Each of the three had the same top three in order and featured 8-9 players with 2-3 unranked females competing. One thing to note is the Power Rating climbed above 50 for the first time.  This is above the threshold recently set by the USGA -- events below this will receive a downward adjustment by up to a third.  It appears as long as these three ranked golfers are in the field going forward, the Jordanian golfers will not be adversely impacted by the new WAGR change and likely will benefit from juniors in other countries declining and/or dropping out altogether.

WIN 12:
Mousa's 12th win of the year is noteworthy because it's the peak Power Rating of any of his wins in 2024, marking the strongest field he's beaten to date.  It was essentially the three same ranked golfers from the Summer Swing series, but Hashem had moved up to 314 and Abdulla moved up to 506. The field featured nine players with five boys and four unranked girls. Neil Nair (76.9 scoring average) from India was an unranked player prior to the event but his 75-77-76 earned him second place and more than the 6.5 points needed to become ranked (in Power tournaments above 40-42 a solo second place finish can become ranked, under the current rules). Abdulla's 78-81-84 243 earned the equivalent of a 73rd percentile performance in the U.S., despite a score that would be only better than 3% of all AJGA Open 54-hole scores in the U.S. and average a 47th place finish.

For context, this 9-player event in Jordan with a 60.6 Power Rating would be higher than all but six of the 83 AJGA Open events held in the U.S. in 2024.

WIN 13:
It was back to the Amateur circuit for Mousa in October, winning one week after impressively making the cut at the Asia-Pacific Amateur. This 17-player (11 men, six women) was the largest field of one of his wins this year.  Not much to call out here other than the stellar performance by Alisa Molokanova, who is currently 161st ranked on WAGR on the Women's side. She has a 73.2 scoring average with four wins in 2024, including a mixed event besting Mousa, Abdulla and Hashem in March. She deserves a Drivvy for Newcomer of the Year on the Women's Side.

WIN 14:
Mousa's amazing year was capped off with win #14 in this 10-player mens amateur field event, climbing to a peak WAGR of 239. There's a few weeks left in 2024...can he match Tiger's 15th "stripe"?  If so, we may have to get him a sponsorship deal with Sun Day Red.  Congrats to Mousa on winning the Jones Award Drivvy for 2024.  There's only one word that comes to mind: incredible!

Zooming out a little further on Mousa's season, we can compare how he performed head-to-head in rounds against different groupings of players, ranked in 125-player bins by current WAGR. For purposes of this exercise, we'll ignore his record against brother Hashem and frequent opponent Abdulla Kalbat (he sports a dominant 74-13 head-to-record against those two combined, with a 5.5 scoring average advantage.

One might expect given Mousa's current ranking of 249, he'd perform well head-to-head when you combine the group of players immediated in front of him and those immediate behind him. However, he is 24-116 combined the 250 and 375 bins, with a 5.8 higher scoring average in head-to-head rounds. Interestingly, we have to go to the 2251-2375 bin to find the first grouping that Mousa has an above .500 record against.  For players ranked 2250 and better, Mousa is 128-438 with a 5.3 higher scoring average head-to-head. For players ranked below 2250, he is 127.5-120.5 with a 0.1 higher scoring average.

We can compare this to collegiate player Gunnar Broin, who is currently ranked 5 spots ahead of Mousa in WAGR at 244.  Gunnar's head-to-head fit what you'd expect. Below .500 in the top 2 groups, close to .500 in the groups close to where he is ranked, and significantly better performance against players he ranking ahead of.

Junior Player of the Year: Blades Brown, Tennessee

This award goes to the player who played primarily in junior events in 2024 and averaged the most WAGR points per event.  Blades played in a mix of junior, amateur and one pro event and averaged an impressive 8.098 points per event, highlighted by a 5th-place finish at the Jones Cup Invitational, a 26th-place finish at the PGA's Myrtle Beach Classic, and runner-up finish at the Junior Players.  For the year, he had a scoring average of 70.5. He is currently ranked 77th on WAGR (4th-ranked junior) but this 8+ average performance is at a level consistent with the 41st ranked player overall.

Honorable Mention:
- Luke Colton, Texas [8.014 Points per event, 69.8 Scoring Avg]
- Kartik Singh, Alabama [7.033 Points per event, 69.8 Scoring Avg]
- Miles Russell, Florida [7.028 Points per event, 71.0 Scoring Avg]
- Tyler Watts, Alabama [6.932 Points per event, 71.3 Scoring Avg]

Player of the Year: Luke Clanton, Florida State

Not too much more to add here that already hasn't been said about Clanton.  He's had an incredible season, averaging over 14.9 points per WAGR event in 2024. And if we can petition that powers that be in Ponte Vedra that a Drivvy Player of the Year should be worth three PGATourU accelerated points, then Clanton would have the 20 points needed to get his Tour card.  Congrats Luke...on the Drivvy and the phenomenal year.

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