The most recent high-profile teacher switch in golf has come from Brandt Snedeker, who moved from long-time coach Todd Anderson to Butch Harmon. Here is a look at Snedeker’s performance over the past few seasons.

As we can see, Snedeker is on pace to have his worst season since 2009 with only two top 10’s in the 2013-2014 PGA Tour season. In this article, I’ll take a look at Snedeker’s 2012 and 2013 seasons since they were his best seasons on Tour and compare those seasons to his play this year.

A player of Snedeker’s caliber has to be frustrated in his inability to pull off a victory at a major championship as well, so I will also focus on what he has to do in order to win his first major.

First, let’s examine the scoring data over the past three years.

The most important metric in the table above is the Total Adjusted Scoring Average. It has the strongest correlation to earnings on the Money List. Currently, Snedeker is ranked 72^nd on the Money List but is ranked 113^th in Total Adjusted Scoring Average.

The reason for the discrepancy is that Snedeker has played in large purse events due to his success and victories in previous years. If he continues to perform at this rate, he might not be able to play in such large purse events and his ranking on the Money List will start to match his Total Adjusted Scoring Average ranking.

Here is the list of the other metrics, in order, of strongest correlation to success on Tour.

1. Adjusted Par-4 Scoring Average
2. Bogey Rate
3. Adjusted Par-5 Scoring Average
4. Birdie Rate
5. Adjusted Par-3 Scoring Average

While Snedeker’s performance in these metrics has dropped noticeably this year, I feel there are some other telling metrics about Snedeker’s game.

We have to understand that Snedeker is not a long ball hitter. He currently ranks 151^st in club head speed (109.8 mph average). He was about 0.5 mph faster in 2012 and 2013, but that is not enough of a difference to explain his regression.

Despite being a short hitter off the tee, Snedeker has a high birdie rate and plays the par-5’s very well. Even this year his Birdie Rate is better than his Bogey Rate and he has performed best on the par-5’s. This usually does not occur with shorter hitters because the par-5’s are too long for them to make a lot of birdies. Typically, shorter hitters who are successful on Tour do a great job of avoiding bogeys. With Snedeker’s high birdie rate and quality play on the par-5’s, this tells me when he is playing well that he is likely a very good iron player from 150-to-200 yards and a good putter. And he is likely very good with his irons from 100-to-150 yards in order to play the par-5’s well.

Here are Snedeker’s rankings in the key ball striking metrics the past 3 years:

Snedeker’s great seasons still feature average-to-slightly-below-average driving. He struggled badly from the Red Zone in 2012. His Red Zone play has been an issue for him in his career and in 2013 he finally started to get it down and that is why he had the best season of his career.

Snedeker will need to get his longer approach shots from roughly 150-to-225 yards back in order to reach his old form, but in order to take his game to that next level, he will need to improve his driving and figure out his Red Zone play for good.

I decided to delve a bit further into Snedeker’s driving and I noticed an interesting change in his ball flight when looking at his radar metrics:

1. It is progressively getting lower.
2. He went from a slight right miss bias to a heavy left miss bias.

I think it is obvious that Snedeker did not like his ball flight and his miss to the left and that was part of the reason for seeking out new instruction.

Recently, Snedeker also switched from his trusty Odyssey White Hot XG putter to a Bridgestone True Balance TD0-02 with a steel shaft. Was his putting and short game play giving him problems?

While there is a regression in his putting and Short Game, it is very slight and he is still excellent around and on the putting green.

Therefore, I expect that for Snedeker to regain his old form he will have to improve his mid-length approach shots (125-to-175 yards) and figure out what is causing him to hit the ball lower and miss left. From there, he will need to figure out his long approach shots (175-to-225 yards) and his driving if he plans on taking the next step of contending in major championships.