Hudson Swafford wins the Corales Puntacana Club & Resort Championship:
That makes for Swafford's 2nd career victory on Tour. Unfortunately, Corales Puntacana does not have ShotLink so we cannot further dissect his victory.
***
The Tour heads to it's second 'alternate field event' with the Sanderson Farms this week:
The Sanderson Farms Championship has been a tournament on Tour, under different names, since 1994. In 2014 the event moved to the Country Club of Jackson, a John Fought design.
Fought supposedly designed the course with a Donald Ross flavor to it. Ross designs are known for usually making the golfer use every club in their bag which calls for some lay-up tee shots. But most of the stress is on approach shots and short game around the green when the greens are missed.
The course gets decent, but nonplussed reviews from Tour players I've talked to. Statistically it does stress longer approach shots and tee shots. Since they started playing the event at CC Jackson the winners have been Nick Taylor, Peter Malnati, Cody Gribble, Ryan Armour, Cameron Champ and Sebastian Munoz. So the winner's of the event haven't exactly become premier Tour players, although Champ and Munoz show a lot of promise.
The final critical hole is the 331 yard par-4 15th hole.
This is a reachable driving hole. You will get a lot more players laying up off the tee in the first two rounds than one would expect, but the the play is to go for the green and the target should be the center section of the front left part of the green.
Bryson DeChambeau won the US Open with a dominating performance on Sunday:
Here's how my picks finished at the US Open:
3JACK'S FAVORITES
Dustin Johnson +800 (t-6th)
Jon Rahm +950 (t-23rd)
Justin Thomas +1,200 (t-8th)
Collin Morikawa +1,600 (MC)
Webb Simpson +2,500 (t-8th)
Daniel Berger +2,800 (t-34th)
Patrick Cantlay +2,800 (t-43rd)
3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS
Tony Finau +3,300 (t-8th)
Tyrrell Hatton +4,000 (MC)
Brian Harman +25,000 (t-38th)
A lot has been made out of DeChambeau only hitting 41% of the fairways, but that was actually higher than the field average. So when some people discuss that Bryson 'played the math correctly' the main factor was that he not only hit the ball further, but didn't lose anything to the field in terms of accuracy off the tee.
But where the math really played out in Bryson's favor had more to do with the typical penalty for missing the fairway at Winged Foot. Unlike a TPC Sawgrass or a Harbour Town where missing the fairway could result in a shot in the trees or a shot that ends up in a hazard, the penalty for missing the fairway at Winged Foot was very deep rough. But it was deep rough for anybody who missed the fairway and the field missed the fairway the majority of the time. Combine that with a low standard deviation in hit fairway percentage (meaning that there wasn't a large variance in fairways hit throughout the field), Winged Foot could favor long hitters if they could somehow manage to find only 19 fairways for the entire week.
When they missed the fairway, they were no more likely to take a 2-shot penalty than the shorter hitters in the field. And thus the longer hitters were gaining considerable strokes on the field when they found the fairway while losing minimal amount of strokes when missing the fairway.
I had Bryson as the 12th best pick for Winged Foot. He was hurt a bit by his short game around the green play and short game around the green was a factor at Winged Foot. Even for Bryson who may have had the best performance of his career around the green. But when he was hitting it so long and still finding more fairways than the average player in the field and putted well, he was using the Power-to-Putting Principle perfectly to a tee and it provided him with a great advantage. And since Bryson's biggest weakness is from 100-150 yards (188th last year) and Winged Foot didn't feature many of those shots the course very much played into his hands because he allowed it to do so.
***
The Tour is playing an alternate field event this week with the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in the Dominican Republic. Graeme McDowell won the event last year.
Corales Puntacana is a Tom Fazio design playing to 7,600+ yards for the tournament tees. I haven't heard a lot from the pros on how they feel about the course, but usually Fazio courses are well received. The other part of Fazio's designs is that he doesn't put himself in a box in terms of what he favors unlike other designers (Nicklaus stresses approach shots, Dye stresses the tee ball, Donald Ross stresses iron play and short game, etc).
The wind will likely play a major factor here and thus the course is about keeping the ball in play off the tee, hitting quality approach shots from long and short distance and because the average GIR % to winning score is low, there are plenty of important short game shots around the green.
The last critical hole on the course is 501 yard par-4 18th hole:
Most players in the field will play the hole like this off the tee:
A Bryson DeChambeau or Cameron Champ type could play it like this:
Of course, the direction of the wind will impact everything on that tee shot which is why it's the last critical hole on the course.
The US Open comes to September and the return of Winged Foot:
The club was founded in 1921, by a group largely made up of members of The New York Athletic Club, and opened in June 1923. Winged Foot's name and logo are taken directly from a sculpture in the lobby floor of the New York Athletic Club in Manhattan.[3]
Winged Foot was designed by AW Tillinghast and is just another masterpiece in his collection of designs. The West Course will play to 7,447 yards...but at a par-70.
The feedback I've received from the players is that they respect the course and it's a great course, but they wouldn't want to play it more than once a year due to the incredible difficulty. And the course conditions are not ridiculous either.
The big thing about the course as like Bethpage Black, the fairways are very narrow. They usually run about 67-70 feet wide. A typical PGA Tour stop will have most fairways at 84-90 feet wide and on the LPGA it's closer to 90-99 feet wide. Combine that with heavy rough that makes getting from tee-to-green very difficult.
But then you have the wicked greens which they renovated back in 2017 as shown in the video above. Making the +5 over par winning score in 2006 look very optimistic.
I get into debates with golfers on what courses and what conditions favor certain types of players. Typically, dry and firm courses favor short hitters and soft courses favor the long hitters. But, as with anything in life, there's always exceptions.
For instance this year Muirfield Village was so firm and fast, but it still favored long hitters. The reason being was that many of Muirfield Village's fairways were so wide that it was still easy for a long hitter to find the fairway either with the driver or laying-up. And then they could use their ability to produce more spin with longer approach shots to their advantage.
But the other part of the equation was that there were some holes at Muirfield Village that had such a low hit fairway percentage that finding the fairway off the tee was more luck than predictable skill. And thus even short, but accurate golfers were still finding the rough and thus the advantage went more to the longer hitter.
From gathering data at Winged Foot the course is more biased towards the latter scenario. One can benefit by having superior driving skill, but much of the time the ability to find the fairway will come down more to luck, particularly if the course gets firmer. If the course gets softer, then better drivers of the ball who do it thru accuracy, will be at the advantage.
Having said that, this is a 2nd and 3rd shot course. Lots of greens are likely to be missed and those that can avoid missing greens are at an advantage, but that advantage can be taken away if they cannot get up-and-down when they do miss greens. And my theory is that this even will likely be won by a player that is better than the tour average in Strokes Gained - Putting.
Putting is the least reliable metric when it comes to projecting a winner on Tour. But the courses where putting skill tends to carry over into tournament play are places like Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines...both very undulated green complexes just like Winged Foot.
The final Critical Hole will the the 498 yard par-4 16th hole, appropriately labeled 'Hells Bells':
It's a dogleg with a fairway about 72-feet wide with a tree on the left that helps block the green. Golfers are forced to hit driver for the most part.
Michael Thompson won the 3M Open at 125/1 odds last week:
This week the Tour returns to Memphis to play the most underrated course on Tour (according to Billy Horschel).
TPC Southwind is well respected by the players. It's a course that stresses versatility in the iron play and the ability to get up-and-down when greens are missed. The field usually averages around 60% of fairways hit and about 62% of greens in regulation hit.
The 18th hole is the final 'critical' hole of the course.
18 is an interesting hole because those that can hit a driver that finds the fairway will find the green about 80% of the time. But if you miss this fairway the GIR% drops to ~35%. And there's also water on the left that comes into play on both the tee shot and approach.
The data shows that the average player in the field should utilize a target that is about 2-3 yards left of the last fairway bunker.
What was interesting about The Memorial was that normally firm courses favor the shorter, but more accurate golfers. In this case, the longer hitters prevailed. Here's a look at the top-10 finishers and their ranking in Driving Distance with the Driver (adjusted for schedule - out of 227 golfers).
Jon Rahm (21st)
Ryan Palmer (71st)
Matthew Fitzpatrick (144th)
Matt Wallace (38th)
Jason Day (74th)
Mackenzie Hughes (86th)
Henrik Norlander (143rd)
Tony Finau (6th)
Kevin Na (174th)
Luke List (17th)
Patrick Reed (81st)
Xinjun Zhang (111th)
Typically the firmer courses favor the shorter, but more accurate golfers because they can find the fairways and reduce the variance in approach shot yards to the hole because the bombers now have to lay-up off the tee more often. And because the shorter, but more accurate golfer is now in the fairway they can use that to their advantage and generate more spin on their approach shots and get the ball to hold the green in regulation.
But at Memorial it was a different story due to the more generous landing areas off the tee at Muirfield Village. When the greens are firmer, it actually favors the longer hitter because they are likely generating far more spin than the shorter golfer. But that is *if* all things else being equal. Meaning, their lie and yardage being the same or closer to the same. If they are both hitting from the rough, firm greens favor the longer hitter. The same goes if they are both hitting from the fairway or tee box. It's just that when the greens are firm, typically so are the fairways. And the average Tour fairway is about 28 yards wide and thus the shorter, but more accurate golfer can create an advantage on firm courses because they have an advantageous lie compared to the longer, but less accurate golfer.
This past week at Muirfield Village, the tee shots either ended up being 1 of 2 types:
1. Generous landing areas that made the fairways very easy to find.
or
2. Nearly impossible fairways to find and finding the fairway was more about luck than skill.
Much like the 18th hole which only saw 27% of the field find the fairway on Sunday and 34% of the field found the fairway on all 4 rounds.
Thus the approach shots were 'more equal' and the firm greens started to favor the bombers. Even a player like Matthew Fitzpatrick who does not hit the driver very long, still generates 115 mph club speed. His lack of distance with the driver is more due to his steep attack angle, but he generates good ball speed and spin rates with his irons.
***
The Tour comes to Eden Prairie, MN at TPC Twin Cities for the 3M Championship. Last year Matthew Wolff won.
Unfortunately, there's only 1 tournament of data to use for TPC Twin Cities, but it appears that the course is about versatile ballstrikers. Many strokes are gained/lost off the tee and with long approach shots and short approach shots.
Since they only played TPC Twin Cities last year, I have not heard opinions from pros on the course. It's an Arnold Palmer design with help from Tom Lehman. I always found that Mr. Palmer was probably the most underrated designer in golf which is sort of an oxymoron given his worldwide popularity. The big thing that Palmer's designs usually feature is keeping the ball below the pin on approach shots.
This leads us to the last critical hole being the 596-yard, par-4 18th hole.
The fairway is about 80 yards wide, but it's still important to not hit the tee shot too far left because the player will have too long of a distance to reach the green in two shots.
Projected Winning Score: -22
3JACK'S FAVORITES
Dustin Johnson +1,100
Brooks Koepka +1,400
Paul Casey +2,000
Matthew Wolff +2,200
Harris English +2,800
3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS
Bubba Watson +3,300
Will Gordon +6,600
Scott Stallings +8,000
Scott Piercy +12,500
Joseph Bramlett +15,000
Collin Morikawa wins the inaugural Workday Charity Open Championship.
Last week's What To Look For went over Muirfield Village and pondered how shortening the course and making the greens slower would impact the course. The course played pretty much the same as it always does in terms of it being an approach shot centric course. But more players were able to hit greens and thus short game around the green did not play much of a factor.
With the tees moved back the course should feature more long approach shots and that will translate to more missed greens and short game around the green playing a slightly larger factor.
The 18th hole should still be the most critical hole on the course as it was at the Workday Charity Open where Justin Thomas bogeyed the 72nd hole to drop into a playoff with Morikawa.
The PGA Tour will return to Muirfield Village for 2 weeks in a row, one week for the Workday Charity Open and the following week for The Memorial.
The Workday Charity Open will feature a Muirfield Village that is shorter in length with slower greens. I think this will bring shorter distance golfers that are good putters into the fold more because they can't get hurt by so much length and slower greens typically mean lower make percentages which means there's more room to gain more strokes on the green if a player putts well.
The big question in all of this is if the firmness of the greens get softer as the greens get slower. If they do, then that helps the shorter hitters even more since they usually hit the ball lower into greens. However, it will also make things easier for shots around the green which is where Muirfield Village terrorizes Tour players.
Muirfield Village is a Jack Nicklaus design and a very typical Nicklaus design feature is that it's about the approach shots. Particularly if you miss the approach then the player is often in jail and only the extremely talented short game around the green players can save par. It's wide open off the tee and the field average of hit fairway percentage is usually 70%+.
The 18th hole is typically the final Critical Hole on the golf course.
The hole actually plays from an elevated tee and then an elevated green. With the shallow, slightly angled green it makes for a high deviation in scores.
On average the drive on this hole will travel 300+ yards, but it is the most difficult fairway to find on the course (~53%). And about 4-5% of tee shots will find the water on the left.
The approach shot is about average in terms of difficulty for the given yardage. But since the average approach shot is about 190 yards, the average proximity to the hole is roughly 40-feet.
The hole is one of the most difficult short game shots around the green holes on the course due to the green being on a hill and it's an average hole in terms of putting difficulty. Thus, it's usually a par vs. bogey-double scenario type of hole.
If the hole plays shorter I would imagine that it's still a Critical Hole due to the difficulty of the drive and the elevation of the green.
Projected Winning Score: -22
3JACK'S FAVORITES
Justin Thomas +1,000
Patrick Cantlay +1,200
Hideki Matsuyama +1,600
Justin Rose +2,000
3JACK'S DARKHORSE PICKS
Jordan Spieth +4,000
Joaquin Niemann +4,000
Adam Hadwin +5,000
Byeong-Hun An +6,600
Shane Lowry +10,000
Branden Grace +12,500
Richy Werenski +20,000
