The Bryson DeChambeau Transformation - By the Numbers

Bryson DeChambeau wins at Detroit Golf Club last week:



A few years ago, I postulated on the GolfWRX forums that there would be a player on Tour that would reach around 195 mph ball speeds very soon that would dominate the Tour off the tee, but possibly dominate the PGA Tour altogether. This was ridiculed as golf has a weird hangup over distances versus accuracy and precision. But my beliefs were based on the data available and the hope that a player and his team of coaches could see the benefit of what I've called in previous versions of Pro Golf Synopsis as 'The Power-to-Putting Principle.'

The Power-to-Putting Factor was actually discovered by my friend, AimPoint Golf Founder (www.aimpointgolf.com) Mark Sweeney. Mark found there was a strong correlation on the PGA Tour between distance off the tee and the length of the player's average birdie putt. Essentially, the longer a player hits the ball the more likely they will have a shorter length average birdie putt.

This explained why poor putters on Tour like Bubba Watson can have so much success on Tour. Watson is one of the longest drivers of the ball on Tour. He also rarely lays up off the tee. With that, he's more likely to give himself shorter length birdie putts on average. Since shorter putts almost always have a higher make percentage than longer putts, Watson can be an inferior skilled putter than say a shorter hitting, but superior skilled putter in Zach Johnson...but Watson can still *sink* more birdie putts than Johnson. Again, all in spite of being an inferior skilled putter.

The key advantages with long distance to get those shorter length birdie putts is not only on par-5's, but also on dogleg par-4's where the bomber can take it over the corner while the shorter hitter has to play more towards the middle of the fairway and losing even more distance to the bomber.

What I've found though is that the bomber's disadvantage tends to come when they miss the green in regulation. Whether it's a poor approach shot or a poor tee shot that flies well offline and requires a punchout, the bomber is more likely to have a longer and more difficult scrambling opportunity when they miss the green compared to the shorter, but more accurate golfer off the tee.

This also led to what I've dubbed the Power-to-Putting Factor

If a player like Bubba Watson can hit it long and have inferior skills with the putt and sink more birdie putts than a shorter hitter who is superior with the putter, then the 'honey pot' would be a player that can hit it long and is a superior putter. That's a player, almost regardless of iron play, can sink a ton of birdie putts because they are getting more makeable putts and have the skill to sink those putts at a higher rate than the average player.

I always look at John Daly's 1991 PGA Championship victory as the example of when you put a long hitter (nobody was coming close to hitting it as far as Daly at that time) who is putting great.



I mean, y'know somebody is on fire when they are walking to the hole like they made it when the ball is still 4 feet from the cup.

***

But what about the long drive competitors? There's a great myth that long drive competitors are just a bunch of meatheads that can't play worth a lick and just hit it long. However, that's vastly untrue. Most of the long drive competitors I've known are +3 or better handicaps and on more open courses can go really low

Watching Kyle Berkshire's YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE3jCX0g7xq4zRE5MS5c_mw) has allowed me to notice some more potential pitfalls that the long drivers can have on a Tour quality course.  What's interesting is that Berkshire brings his Trackman with him and utilizes on almost every swing, whether it's with a driver or with the irons.

The other interesting facet is unlike other long drive competitors that I've worked with, Berkshire gets about the same spin rate with his individual irons that the average Tour player gets.  Here's the Tour averages for spin rates according to Trackman.

In working with other long drive competitors, it's not unusual to see super high spin rates with their irons. But with Berkshire he typically keeps the spin rate, for example an 8-iron, within the 8,000-9,000 rpm spin range.

But the difference is that Berkshire is hitting his 8-iron with 155 mph ball speeds (115 Tour average) and about 215-220 yards (Tour average is 160 yards). 

And we start to see the issue...Berkshire isn't exactly spinning the ball more with his individual irons compared to the Tour average, but he's getting far more spin for the same length shot than the Tour average.

For instance, on a 215-yard shot a Tour player is spinning the ball about 4,600 rpm's because they are using a longer and more low-lofted club.  Compare that to Berkshire who is using an 8-iron and getting roughly 8,000 rpm of spin for a 215 yard shot.

Using FlightScope's Trajectory Optimizer, it shows the main issue with being able to hit an 8-iron 215 yards...slightly variations in spin and/or launch conditions have a larger impact on distance control.

For instance, using Berkshire's data, if he were to hit an 8-iron with 8,000 rpm of spin it would carry 212 yards.  But if he hit the same conditions and the spin lowered to 7,000 rpm (it's easy to lose or gain 1,000 rpm of spin) it would carry 219 yards.  And if he increases his spin rate to 9,000 rpm his carry goes to 205 yards...a total variance of 14 yards.

Compare that to the average Tour player hitting that shot with 4,600 rpm of spin which they will carry 214 yards.  If they drop to 3,600 rpm it carries 218 yards and at 5,600 rpm it carries 210 yards.  Thus a total variance of 8 yards.  And in approach shot play, distance control is a huge variable with regards to performance.

***

We've gone into the more accurate benefits of distance with The Power-to-Putting Principle and shown one of the key weaknesses of generating super-duper ball speeds, but we should address some other key roadblocks that come with super-duper ball speeds.

Strategy tends to be a problem as well.  Long hitters can lay-up too often off the tee and thus take away that advantage they have with power.  The other weakness is that they often struggle with hitting quality lay-up shots.  The 3-wood off the tee can present problems mainly because most Tour players find that to be the toughest club for them to hit.  But the other issue is finding that lay-up club that they can hit 285-315 yards comfortably in the fairway and not give up too much distance.  A former client of mine, Matt Dobyns, who generates 180 mph ball speeds found my suggestion of The Gonzo Driver (a 460cc driver head at 12-13* loft and a short shaft) to be an adequate answer to that issue.

So how has Bryson fared?

As far as the strategy goes, he only layed-up on 10 out of 56 tee shots and ended up ranking #1 in Driving Effectiveness at Detroit.  He did manage to hit 58.9% of his fairways despite hitting his average missed fairway tee shot 39 feet wide.  His misses would normally be a bit worrisome, but he made those big misses on holes and in spots where he could afford to miss big and found the fairway other times and it left him with a ton of advantageous positions off the tee.

As far as his lay-up shots at Detroit he was hitting his fairway wood roughly 292 yards on average and was able to gain an advantage off the tee versus the field despite hitting his fairway wood off the tee.

Then we get to his approach shot play.  He struggled here, particularly from the Green Zone (75-125 yards) and the Yellow Zone (125-175 yards), but he was hitting Green Zone shots when the rest of the field was hitting Yellow Zone shots and hitting Yellow Zone approach shots when the rest of the field was hitting Red Zone (175-225 yards) shots.  So even with the struggles, he was still managing to hit those approach shots closer because he had much shorter approach shots.

And on the par-3's, where Berkshire tends to struggle given the spin rate issues noted, DeChambeau played the par-3's at Detroit at +1 over par for the event. He only loss -0.432 strokes for the entire event to the field on the par-3's.  For the season, DeChambeau is ranked 4th in Adjusted Par-3 Scoring Average.

As far as his approach shots on the par-3's, he hit them to an average Fractional Remaining Length of 5.9%.  FRL = distance to the hole / length of original shot.

The Tour average on par-3's is 6%.

Meanwhile DeChambeau played the par-5's at -10 under and played the par-4's at -14 under par.

In summation, DeChambeau and his team have identified the opportunity of gaining distance and the pitfalls of what can come along with it and have accentuated those strengths and worked to modify those weaknesses.  And combined with really good putting (DeChambeau was 2nd in Putts Gained/Round last week) we may be seeing the next great top-10 player of all time.

On a side note, I do believe from watching Kyle Berkshire's data that there is room for a Tour player to probably max out at 205-210 mph ball speed and dominate the Tour off the tee,  Particularly if they can figure out the lay-up shot situation.






3JACK

What To Look For: 2020 Rocket Mortgage Classic

Dustin Johnson recorded a win last week at TPC River Highlands.



DJ surprisingly drove the ball below average at TPC River Highlands. It's a pretty wide open course, but it's rare to see somebody gain a sizable advantage off the tee. But TPC River Highlands proved once again that it's a long approach shot course and DJ was 2nd on shots from the Red Zone and was 4th in total Putts Gained.

***

This week the Tour comes back to Detroit Golf Club for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.



Here's some background on Detroit GC from Wikipedia.

The Detroit Golf Club was founded in 1899 by William R. Farrand and several of his friends. Originally the Club was limited to 100 members. They rented a 45-acre (180,000 m2) plot of farmland at 6 Mile and Woodward, and a 6-hole course layout was created. In 1900 the course added 3 holes, making it a 9-hole course. The membership was increased to 200 in 1902. At that time 135 acres (0.55 km2) of land were purchased at 6 Mile and Hamilton, and an 18-hole course was developed.

In 1906 the Club was formally opened, and membership fees were raised to $250. In 1913 additional property was bought, and Donald Ross was asked to survey the property. Ross determined that two courses of 18 holes could be built on the land. Horace Rackham paid $100,000 for the 36-hole course to be built to the DGC at a cost.

In 1916 Albert Kahn started construction on a new clubhouse, which was completed in 1918. The brother of Donald Ross, Alec Ross, became Club Professional, a position he held until 1945, a total of 31 years.

In 1922 club membership was increased to 650, and they decided to stay open year round. In 1929 the Fred Wardell Caddy House was built, at a cost around $40,000.

During World War II, Club activities were limited due to gas rationing, and in 1945, Alex Ross retired as Club Professional. Golf star Horton Smith was hired as the Club Pro, and in 1959 was elected into the Professional Golfers Association Hall of Fame. In 1963 Smith died, and Walter Burkemo was hired.

The club addded new amenities: tennis courts, a cart garage, and a crystal dining room. Burkemo was succeeded by George Bayer. The current club pro is Josh Upson. The club also contains a pool for members, and sponsors a swim team.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Golf_Club)

Ross course designs tend to stress approach shot play and putting with some occasional short game.  Detroit GC appears to be no different considering last year's data.  The top contenders gained their strokes thru versatile iron play and short game.  The only issue in the projections is that last year the field was considerably weaker than this year's field.

The final critical hole is the par-4, 455 yard 18th hole.

The average Tour player will hit driver here and should have a target of about 2-4 yards right of the left fairway bunker.  Detroit is about 600-700 feet above sea level and with a bit of a tailwind more players can take it right over the left fairway bunker.  But if it's a headwind (from the Northeast) it makes the hole entirely more difficult to play.

Projected Winning Score: -23


3JACK'S FAVORITES

Bryson DeChambeau +650
Webb Simpson +1,100
Tyrrell Hatton +1,200
Sung-Jae Im +2,000
Victor Hovland +3,300


3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS

Bubba Watson +4,000
Doc Redman +4,000
Adam Hadwin +5,000
Brian Stuard +10,000
Richy Werenski +30,000





3JACK

What To Look For: 2020 Travelers Championship

Webb Simpson wins at Harbour Town:



Simpson once again used his excellent 'iron play and in' to win at Harbour Town.  I currently have Simpson at 108th out of 216 players in Driving Effectiveness, but as Harbour Town shows the ceiling is low in terms of gaining strokes off the tee due tot he tightness of the course.  And that played right into Simpson's hands.

***

The Tour returns to Hartford for the Travelers Championship



TPC River Highlands was founded in 1928 as Middletown Golf Club and became Edgewood Country Club in 1934. In the early 1980s it was bought by the PGA Tour. The golf course was redesigned to TPC standards by golf course architect Pete Dye, and reopened as the "TPC of Connecticut" in 1984. The course underwent further remodeling in 1989, this time by Bobby Weed in consultation with tour pros Howard Twitty and Roger Maltbie, and renamed the TPC at River Highlands.

The course is fairly well received by the players.  It's not the most awe inspiring track, but it lacks quirkiness and plays pretty fair.  It's a big low scoring event as the tee shots are wide open.

Most strokes at TPC River Highlands will come from either superior mid-to-long iron play or great driving from a long hitter who can consistently leave themselves with shorter approaches to the green.

The final critical hole on the course is the par-4, 17th hole that plays to 412 to the center of the green.




This is the most difficult driving hole and approach shot hole on the course and with the water and the fairly easy putting green it explains the strong deviation in scores.

Last year the average player in the field hit their tee shots 260 yards on this hole, so it's certainly a lay-up hole.  However, the data shows if the player can get hit something closer to 285 yards off the tee their expected scores drop on this hole.  This goes along with one of the findings in previous versions of Pro Golf Synopsis; Tour players tend to lay-up about 20-30 yards too short.

Using the 65/50 Rule from the 2019 Pro Golf Synopsis, the play is to get something that can carry roughly 270 yards off the tee and the target is a tree in the distance which overlays the left center of the fairway.

The importance of hitting it at least 270 yards is clear, the fairway is just about as wide from 270 yards as it is 260 yards, but the bunkers don't come into play as much as the approach shot will obviously be shorter in distance. 

Projected Winning Score: -20


3JACK'S FAVORITES

Bryson DeChambeau +1,200
Justin Thomas +1,200
Brooks Koepka +1,600
Bubba Watson +2,500
Patrick Cantlay +2,500
Abraham Ancer +2,800

3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS

Collin Morikawa +3,300
Joaquin Niemann +5,000
Corey Conners +8,000
Dylan Fritelli +12,500




3JACK

What To Look For: 2020 RBC Heritage

Last week, Daniel Berger won the Charles Schwab Challenge at 40/1 odds.



Despite his victory, the big talk was with regards to Bryson DeChambeau who had bulked up and added substantial yardage off the tee.  DeChambeau had been discussing bulking up and adding yardage to his game for a while now.  His swing has noticeably changed and it's no longer the '1-Plane Swing'


The physique changes are noticeable as well.  He has worked with Chris Como to build up his ball speed up to 193 mph at Colonial.

I disagree with the notion of rolling back the golf ball because of DeChambeau's newly found speed.  He has specifically worked to achieve that speed and changing equipment rules every time somebody achieves new heights is a bad idea that will likely lead to too many equipment changes.  All the USGA and PGA Tour can do is give him a tip of the cap.

But the other question is if the speed is good for him.  A few years ago I posted on GolfWRX forums that I believed that there would be a player on Tour that would get up to 195 mph ball speed and use that to dominate the Tour off the tee, if not dominate the Tour as a whole.  This was widely scoffed at.  But the issue with that much speed really isn't so much accuracy off the tee as it is the ability to hit quality lay-up shots off the tee with good course management and the ability to control the launch and spin conditions with the irons. 

Also, many golfers don't realize that Long Drive competitors are often excellent golfers.  This concept that they can only hit the ball long is a great misnomer.  But if you had a player that had sound course management and was competent laying up off the tee and can control the launch and spin with their irons well there's no reason why they can't play to a 195 mph club speed.  And thus far, DeChambeau and his team have figured out those parameters.

***

The Tour returns to Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head. The course was designed by Pete Dye in 1967 with the help of Jack Nicklaus.  Sawgrass gets more headlines as a Pete Dye course, but I think Harbour Town is the superior design.

This is mostly a mid-iron approach shot course that stresses accuracy off the tee and quality bunker play.  Most of the strokes gained/lost will come from the approach shots as it's difficult to gain a lot of strokes off the tee given how narrow the course is.  The course is generally very well received by the players

The final critical hole on the course is the 18th hole.  A 462 yard par-4. 

Most of the players will hit their tee shot 270-300 yards off the tee (last year the average driving distance on the hole was 292.4 yards).  The real treacherous part of the hole is the approach shot which hugs the hazard on the left and a difficult greenside bunker in front of the green.  The field will find the fairway ~85% of the time off, the tee and it's the 2nd easiest driving hole on the course...only to have the 3rd lowest GIR percentage.  The hole ends with the toughest green to putt on the course.

I expect the winning scores to get lower as I think they are giving the players a break with some of the conditions since they've been gone from the quarantine.

Projected Winning Score: -15

3JACK'S FAVORITES

Bryson DeChambeau +1,400
Justin Thomas +1,400
Xander Schauffele +1,400
Hideki Matsuyama +2,500
Justin Rose +2,800
Jordan Spieth +3,300
Daniel Berger +3,300

3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS

Sung-Jae Im +5,000
JT Poston +6,600
Joel Dahmen +6,600





3JACK

What To Look For: 2020 Charles Schwab Challenge

After the delay in the Tour's schedule due to COVID-19, the Tour returns and is playing the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club.



As I announced on Twitter, due to the quarantine I will not be publishing a 2020 Pro Golf Synopsis at the end of the year. Not only has the Tour's schedule been messed up by the quarantine, I have been unable to conduct research for Pro Golf Synopsis due to the quarantine and being currently furloughed has forced me to conserve my expenses. And when I do come back to work, it's likely that I will be putting in extra hours to help get back on track and will not have time to make 2020 Pro Golf Synopsis.

Having said that, I am pleased to announce that when my regular work schedule returns I plan on creating a Web site with some great features for people to use as we head into re-starting 2021 Pro Golf Synopsis. This Web site will include DFS access, a podcast and a YouTube channel for all of your statistical analysis and thoughts on the PGA Tour and the game of golf.

***

Colonial Country Club was built in 1936 by Marvin Leonard and designed by John Bredemus and Perry Maxwell. It's still one of the longest lasting stops on the PGA Tour and is most notably known as 'Hogan's Alley' after Ben Hogan won the tournament five times and was later known a Mr. Hogan's tournament.

One of the main features of the course is the bent grass greens in an area where bent grass is not native to the area. Having grown up on bentgrass greens and then spending the second half of my golfing life on mostly bermuda grasses I find that there's still a lot of fallacies and mistruths with regards to the grasses.

Today there are numerous different strands of bermuda grass greens and some of them roll just as well as bentgrass greens.  The main difference is that the amount of care and resources it takes to maintain bermuda grass at that level is far greater than what it takes for bentgrass greens to grow well.  In the areas of the country where bentgrass is a native grass, you'd be amazed at how fast and smooth the greens can be on rinky dink courses that are severely under-funded.

The Red Stick Golf Club in Vero Beach, Florida was insistent on having bent grass greens in Florida years ago thinking that they could just throw money and resources and have bentgrass greens years ago.  In the end they found that it was an impossible venture when they could simply take less money and resources and get the best bermuda grass surfaces and have incredible greens.

Either way, the make %'s on Colonial's greens are high and the deviation in putting make % tends to be low.  That's due to Colonial's greens being rather flat in order to keep the bentgrass in reasonable enough condition.

Instead, Colonial Country Club is a ballstriker's course.  It's very narrow, but many players get intot he habit of laying up a little too often off the tee.  As Jamie Sadlowski and Jon Rahm have shown in recent years you can hit driver and hit it long off the tee and be very effective off the tee at Colonial.

But Colonial CC is a very heavy long approach shot course.  Particularly since it has smaller greens and with the elevations to some of the greens, a missed green in regulation can present some serious issues at converting the scrambling opportunity.

The big question here is which players are trending up or trending down.  In terms of projecting future performance, recency rules the roost on Tour.  The vast majority of winners on Tour did not miss the cut in the prior week's event and if they did play in the prior week there is a trend that they usually played pretty well (i.e. top-25 finish).  Since we have been off and don't have prior week's play to look at, we don't know who is trending up and who is trending down.


LAST CRITICAL HOLE ON THE COURSE

The last critical hole at Colonial CC over the past 5 years has been the par-4 9th hole.  The scorecard says it plays to 407 yards, but to the middle of the green it plays to roughly 398 yards.

The hole is usually the most difficult or second most difficult tee shot on the course as the average tee shot only goes about 260 yards and the field will find the fairway 46% of the time on average.  And about 12-15% of tee shots will find one of the fairway bunker.  This makes it one of the most difficult tee shots on any course on Tour.

Find the fairway is imperative here because the GIR % is usually around 75% on shots from the fairway.  From the left side of the fairway the GIR % is closer to 70% while the right side of the fairway that % jumps to 80%.  From the rough and fairway bunkers the green in regulation percentage drops to 40%.

The 9th is also one of the most difficult holes on the course around the green and with the putter.  About 7-9% of approach shots end up in the water and thus the critical nature of the hole stems from the top performers being able to make par and the rest of the field making bogey or double bogey on the hole.


PROJECTED WINNING SCORE: -14


3JACK"S FAVORITES

Jon Rahm +1,200
Justin Thomas +1,600
Bryson DeChambeau +2,200
Xander Schauffele +2,800
Rickie Fowler +2,800
Sung-Jae Im +2,800


3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS

Hideki Matsuyama +3,300*
Collin Morikawa +4,000
Marc Leishman +4,000
Joel Dahmen +8,000
Tom Hoge +15,000

*Matsuyama was listed on Bovada sports as starting the event, but was found to not be starting the event and was replaced by Sung-Jae Im.



3JACK

What To Look For: 2020 The PLAYERS Championship

Tyrell Hatton won the Arnold Palmer Invitational:


The past couple of weeks have seen high scores on Tour and it made me think of the issues the USGA and the PGA Championship have had over the past few years whether it be super low scores or the 3rd round debacle at Shinnecock.

By looking at these courses and the data it's pretty simple to see...scores rise when the course is firm and there is an ample supply of rough.  But in order to not make the course a debacle like Shinnecock and Chambers Bay were, there's an issue...particularly with the USGA...in getting the course to play firm, but fair.

Usually what occurs in the US Open is that the course plays way too firm and then almost nothing holds the greens, even quality strikes from the fairway or tee box.  The other issue with the US Open is that since it is a big field, firm greens tend to get very bumpy due to the foot traffic.  I think in this case the USGA may be better served narrowing the fairways, lengthening the rough and firming up the fairways while keeping some softness of the greens.

***

This week the Tour plays their largest purse event of the year, The PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass.


I was just at TPC Sawgrass today.  As a fan (and golf statistician), I tend to prefer the experience at the Arnold Palmer Invitational as that is the ultimate in fan-friendly tournaments outside of The Masters.  API is a very casual experience where you can get right close to the players and can easily walk to different holes and watch tee shots and incoming approach shots.  It's sorta like going to Wrigley Field and Sawgrass is more like going to Dodgers Stadium.

The best thing that happened to The PLAYERS Championship was moving it from May to March.  Moving it to March means more ideal weather where it can easily get into the 90's in May.  The course is more difficult to keep in tip-top shape in May (many of the greens get killed by the heat) and it's unlikely that there will be significant rainfall in March whereas May is when those infamous summer Florida storms of the century tend to occur.

The course is in immaculate condition.  It's playing much softer than Bay Hill and PGA National.  I'm sure that people will give the Tour flak for 'softening up the course', but with some rain the past couple of days and then the humidity being at 70-80% and the winds under 12 mph there's not much that could be done.

TPC Sawgrass is a unique design because almost every tee shot is a dogleg and they have an equal amount of dogleg rights as they have dogleg lefts.  I'm not a big fan of players trying to actively work the ball both ways on their shots and in reality it does not occur that often.  But the doglegs both right and left mean that the players have to hit it very straight.  This is not a course for the Bubba Watson's and Brendon de Jonge's of the world that hit large curving tee shots.

The other unique part of the design is that the front nine is very driving oriented with difficult drives on #2, #4, #5, #6, #7 and #9.  But the back nine is more approach shot oriented with difficult approaches on #11, #13, #14, #17 and #18.  To win at Sawgrass, the player is going to have to drive it effectively and do it more with accuracy than power and be able to hit long approach shots well and make some putts and save themselves from disaster.

The final critical hole on the course is the 18th, but everybody wants to talk about the famous 17th hole.

What's interesting about 17 is that it has the closest proximity to the cut on any par-4 or par-3 on the course. But it's the most difficult approach on the course in terms of strokes lost due to the high frequency of shots that end up in the water. typically, about 10% of the shots for the event will end up in the water. However, I did get to witness Tommy Fleetwood have ace the 17th today.

Projected Winning Score: -11


3JACK'S FAVORITES

Rory McIlroy +750
Jon Rahm +1,200
Bryson DeChambeau +2,000
Tommy Fleetwood +2,200
Patrick Cantlay +2,200
Sung-Jae Im +2,500


3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS

Tyrrell Hatton +4,000
Daniel Berger +6,000
Billy Horschel +8,000
Shane Lowry +9,000




3JACK

What To Look For: 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational

Sung-Jae Im gets his first Tour victory at the Honda Classic:



Im was the #4 player on my rankings to win and was one of my favorites to win at 28/1 odds.  He played more events than anybody on Tour last season and continues to play a heavy schedule.  it's probably not a bad move for him given that he's young and he can determine what courses suit his game and eye the best, but he should want to cut back his schedule a bit in the near future.

***

This week the Tour comes back to the homeland...the Arnold Palmer Invitation at Bay Hill.


The predecessor to the API was the Citrus Open and that used to be held at Rio Pinar Country Club.  I was a former member at Rio Pinar.  They moved the event to Bay Hill and Mr. Palmer re-designed the course while Rio Pinar became frozen in time and now the Rio Pinar area has fallen on hard times while Bay Hill is in the trendy Dr. Phillips neighborhood of Orlando.

This is still a popular stop with Tour players as they generally like the course and so many players either live in Orlando (or used to live in Orlando) or they live in Jupiter which is about a little over two hours away.  Now that the event is the week prior to Sawgrass and has a fairly large purse ($9.3 million) it's kind of a no-brainer to play the event.

The weather and conditions can dramatically change the course.  If it's soft, it plays really soft because much of the course sits in a bowl.  And when that happens it greatly fits bombers because the course is fairly long and they can keep more tee shots in the fairway.  But, if it's crusty the course starts to sway more towards shorter and more accurate players.

Last year the course played moderately soft until the last day where it became very firm and Francesco Molinari, a shorter but accurate driver of the ball who greatly improved his short game put up a stellar final round to win the event.


At its heart, Bay Hill is still a fairly long iron course and the 3-wood certainly comes into play quite often.

This week it is supposed to get breezy and the course is already playing a bit firm to begin with.  So I expect scores to rise and more shorter hitters to get into contention. 

ON a side note, I always recommend people that have never been to a Tour event or had a bad experience going to a Tour event to give Bay Hill a try as outside of the majors and Sawgrass, it's arguably the best even to go to on Tour from a fan-friendly experience.  Scottsdale has its own carzy experience and that looks incredible.  But from a fan friendly experience Bay Hill is as good as it gets with easy parking during practice rounds, the bleachers and chair seating right behind the driving range, the practice green so close that you can almost touch the players, the great merchandise booths and the course is quite easy to walk thru and go to different holes.

The final critical hole on the course is the par-4 18th. 

It plays to 460 yards.  The fairway is pretty wide (35 yards wide) which is a smart design with form following function because not only is the approach shot difficult, but the tee shot is blind and it's often difficult to get a good target to aim at thus the wider fairway suits the hole nicely.  Missing the fairway to the right can be death about 50% of the time.  Missing it left and there are still a lot of shots available.

It has led to a lot of incredible winning shots over the years from Robert Gamez's eagle, to all of the crazy putts Tiger has made on the hole over the years to Matt Every's big putt in 2015, Rory's big putt in 2018 and Molinari's monster putt last year.

Projected Winning Score: -8


3JACK'S FAVORITES
Rory McIlroy +500
Tommy Fleetwood +1,400
Bryson DeChambeau +1,800
Hideki Matsuyama +2,200
Sung-Jae Im +2,800
Jason Day +2,800


3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS
Collin Morikawa +5,000
Billy Horschel +6,600
Kevin Kisner +8,000
Joel Dahmen +10,000





3JACK