TPC Potomac Key Fantasy Stats

Quick Loans National

June 29th – July 2nd, 2017

TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm

Potomac, MD

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,139

Purse: $7.1 million

with $1,242,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Billy Hurley III

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

So we have another course change for the Quicken Loans, in it’s 11th year TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm and it will be the fourth different course used. A bit unfortunate is the fact that Congressional members don’t want this event on a regular basis which is very understandable. It’s not just the week that the pros are on the ground, it’s the four weeks before in putting up tents, stands and TV towers. People also don’t realize that for two to three weeks after the touranment the tents, stands and TV towers will be coming down and the rough will have been trapled. So it’s understandable for members not willing to give up six weeks in the heart of the golf season to hold a tournament.
So for this year it’s off to TPC Potomac, which held the old Booz Allen (Kemper Open) between 1987 and 2004, then again in 2006. The Champions Tour and the Web.Com Tour held events there and frankly it wasn’t a well loved course. When the course was built in 1985 it was built with the purpose of holding the Kemper Open. Event organizers didn’t want to pay the high fees for Congressional and at the time the thought of it being the permanent home of the tournament was intriguing. But players hated the course, it has drainage problems and the course was never in that great a shape. One of the reasons the Booz Allen ended was because of the course. The changes the Tour promised to the course never happened so Booz Allen dropped their sponsorship. After the last Booz Allen in 2006 the course had a massive renovation with every hole being worked on making it more pleasing to not only the members, but touring pros. Both the Champions Tour and the Web.Com Tour held events and the players gave it positive reviews. So with that Quicken Loans officials gave it a one year test, so we will see what the reaction is. For now the event will go back to Congressional next year, but if the experiment works this year, look for the course to hold the Quicken Loans in further years.

In looking at the stats of the old course from 2006, it ranked 47th in driving accuracy, 46th in greens hit, T-38th in birdie average, 14th in Scrambling and 27th in putting average. As for past winners, they did have some major winners with Tom Kite, Mark Brooks, Lee Janzen, Justin Leonard, Rich Beem and Adam Scott winning. But the course was famous for producing a lot of surprise winners as Frank Lickleter, Steve Stricker, Rich Beem and Tom Scherrer claimed there first PGA Tour wins at TPC Potomac. If these names aren’t non-marquee enough, here are some more winners at TPC Potomac, Morris Hataksky, Tom Byrum, Grant Waite and Ben Curtis, guys that hardly moved the merit in marquee value. Of all the champions at TPC Potomac, Bob Estes had the most victories at the time of their win with four. So you can see the trend of the course, winners that would be hard to promote the following years.

So what has happened to make this a better course? Numerous competitive and aesthetic changes were made to the golf course to make it more challenging for tournament play. This included significant modifications, re-shaping and enhancements to all 18 holes, featuring a complete re-design of holes 10, 11 and 13; lengthening of the course to 7,139 yards, with a new par-70 design; a new state-of-the-art irrigation system; an aesthetic and competitive design solution to storm water management issues on holes 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12.

During the renovations, all the greens, tees and fairways were rebuilt with Bentgrass and a new irrigation and drainage system. The greens were re-orientated and re-contoured, and all bunkers were re-positioned and re-shaped giving it more of a Scottish feel, along with adding tall fescue grasses to some. All holes were re-graded and had their fairways reduced to approximately 30 to 35 yards. Accent features like stone walls and eight timber bridges create an older feel and charm. Along with all of these changes an expansive new practice facility and short game area was built.

So who does the course favor? In past years the winners hit lot’s of greens and putting well, so this will be something that we will think about. Still we have to judge this as a brand new course in which we really don’t know who the course favors. In picking our four categories we are going to pick four strokes gained stats which will help us chose who’s game is the sharpest going into this event.

*Strokes Gained Off-the-tee: Able to translate in shots gained off of those that hit it far and straight off the tee

*Strokes Gained approach-the green: Perfect stat to see who picks up the most strokes by hitting the green and getting it close

*Strokes Gained around the green: Of course players are going to miss greens, this stat help figure out who gets it up and down when they miss greens.

*Strokes Gained putting: So who saves the most strokes on the greens

Of the 120 players in the field, 112 have stats on the PGA Tour for 2017.

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.