What To Look For: 2017 Sanderson Farms Championship

As the Tour plays the WGC – HSBC Championship in Sheshan, the US gets back into the swing of things with the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi being played at the Country Club of Jackson.

The Sanderson Farms Championship has been a part of the PGA Tour schedule, under one name or another, since 1968.  In 2014 they moved the event to the CC of Jackson. 

I haven’t heard a lot about CC of Jackson from the pros likely due to it being basically an alternate field event so many of the pros do not get to play there every year.  The successful Tour players won’t play there because they are either playing the HSBC or they are taking time off as it’s a small purse event.  And the players that do play here are usually struggling to keep their card and may not be exempt to play here each year.

This means that there will be big-time amateurs that just turned pro in the event like Derek Bard (New Hartford, NY boy..from my neck of the woods), Ross Bell and Sam Burns.  It’s also the event that the winner of the Club Pro Championship (Omar Uresti) is exempt in. 

Uresti received a lot of criticism for being allowed to play in the Club Pro Championship since he is just removed from the Tour while many of the other participants are working 40-80 hour weeks either on the driving range or in the shop (or both).  While I see the point, the bigger issue in this is that the status of golfer’s has been a faulty process with glaring holes in the status in all of golf.

I’ve played amateur events with fellow amateurs who actually teach golf on a full time basis.  And any big-time Mid-Amateur event will likely consist of former Tour or Mini-Tour players that decided to get their amateur status back and work jobs where they basically play golf for a living.  Then there’s David Eger who couldn’t compete on Tour anymore and got his amateur status back so he could compete on the amateur level and then eventually got his pro status back so he could play on the Champions Tour.  If Uresti is legitimately working full-time at a club then his situation is far less egregious than others golfers gaming the system.

Anyway, CC of Jackson may have a weaker field, but it’s a big boy course where ballstriking from long distance plays a big role.  The final ‘critical hole’ of the event will be the drivable par-4, 15^th hole which plays 330 yards long. 

PROJECTED WINNING SCORE: -18

3JACK’S FAVORITES

Chesson Hadley +1,400

Jason Kokrak +2,200

William McGirt +2,500

Kevin Streelman +2,800

Andrew Landry +3,300

Ben Martin +3,300

3JACK’S DARK HORSE PICKS

Robert Garrigus +4,000

Brandon Hagy +4,500

Jonathan Randolph +10,000

Rick Lamb +12,500

3JACK