The Same, But Different

Ben and Collin Johns beating Riley Newman and Thomas Wilson to win the Men’s Doubles gold medals at the PPA Finals in December and again at the Masters in January was the same, but different. In both gold medal matches, the Johns brothers won in four games, losing the second game both times. However, there was one startling statistical difference that jumped off the page.

Collin Johns hit 32 third shot drives in their Masters match.

At the PPA Finals match last month, he hit just seven third-shot drives, which is very close to the 6.3 he averaged in his 27 gold medal matches (with Ben) in 2022 and 2023. This total of 32 also eclipsed his previous high of 20 in those 27 matches.

In the PPA Finals and the Masters gold medal matches, the brothers chose third shot drop close to 40% of the time, (41% at the Finals and 39% at the Masters), but how they got there was vastly different. At the PPA Finals, Ben hit 64% of his team’s third shots and drove 78% of those thirds. At the Masters, Collin hit 70% of his team’s third shots and drove 58% of those thirds.  

Credit to Newman and Wilson for trying something different. Collin had hit more third shots than Ben only two times in those 27 finals the past two years. Collin flipped that strategy by hitting more drives than drops for just the fourth time in those 28 gold medal matches, maxing out with this new high-water mark of 32.