BlogTour Championship Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Hard to believe that this is the last week of the 2015 season.  We have had a great year between Jordan Spieth and Jason Day, the emergence of Rickie Fowler and the good play of Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson.  When Spieth won the U.S. Open everyone put his name on the Player of the Year race, but with Jason Day playing so well, there will be a debate if he wins the Tour Championship and the FedExCup.  The question will be, is two majors and two regular PGA Tour events better than a major, two wins during the playoffs and winning the FedExCup.  Have to think that Day’s season would be better, but he still has to win at East Lake.

One who may not play this week is Jim Furyk, who has a bone contsion in his left wrist.  He will make that decision as early as Tuesday.

Also have to weigh in on Tiger Woods.  Very surprised that he had to get surgery on his back, he never said it was a problem and we didn’t see him in any pain.  It doesn’t look like he will be playing before the Farmers in February, another long layoff for him.  At the end of the year he turns 40 and he will still be four back of Nicklaus 18 majors.  I just can’t see him winning those, Nicklaus won three after turning 40 but for Tiger it’s not going to happen.  The next question will be, can Tiger win three more event to tie Sam Snead’s 82 mark?  I don’t think he can even do this, what a shame after his great first 13 years.

Tournament information: This is the 29th Tour Championship. Originally founded as the Nabisco Championship, it switched to the Tour Championship in 1991. In 2001, Coca-Cola became a title sponsor for the event, which still bears its name.

Through 2006, the top 30 players on the money list up to the Tour Championship qualified for the event. With a limited field, the event doesn’t have a cut.  2007 was the first year in which the top-30 of the FedEx Cup point list got in as it became the last leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs.

Since 2004, the Tour Championship has been held at East Lake Golf Club outside of  Atlanta, Ga. Back then it was in November but with the advent of the new FedEx Cup, the Tour Championship was moved to mid-September. The event now is the final leg of the “Chase for the FedEx Cup.”   For most of the marquee players, this is the last PGA Tour event of the year as most of the top players won’t play in any of the eight fall events that are coming up.

This year just like the year before the scheme for the FedEx Cup hasn’t changed. After the BMW, points were redone thus giving the top-five leaders a chance at winning the FedEx Cup if they win the Tour Championship.  So even though Jason Day is the leader, if either Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson or Bubba Watson were to win this week, they would displace Day and win the FedEx Cup.

Mathematically every player has a chance at winning the FedEx Cup, but for those higher than tenth they have a very slim chance.  Now that is easy to say but in 2010 Jim Furyk came to East Lake 11th in the rankings, and his victory at East Lake worked out into a win in the FedEx Cup. More drastic in 2011 Bill Haas was 25th in the rankings, but his victory and some poor play by the leaders in the rankings rose Haas into winning the series.  In 2012 Brandt Snedeker was 5th and won, the same for Henrik Stenson while last year Billy Horschel was 2nd so the last five winners of the Tour Championship also won the FedEx Cup playoffs.

The PGA Tour has put together a great “cheat sheet” in helping you figure out the scenarios to win of all the players.

Course information: East Lake was designed by Tom Bendelow around 1905 and in 1913 Donald Ross completely reworked the course and even though the layout is the same today, it was altered by George Cobb before the 1963 Ryder Cup matches.

East Lake has had a rather tumultuous existence. From its inception until the early 1960s, East Lake was one of the top courses in the entire country. It was Bobby Jones’s home golf course. The Ryder Cup was held at East Lake in 1963. However, problems began to arise at the Atlanta country club as the area got seedy, and higher income people began emigrating to the suburbs, leaving only lower-income households to inhabit the area surrounding the once storied Country Club. In the ’60s, the membership decided to abandon the site and move to what is presently Atlanta Athletic Club, with East Lake becoming a public course.

For the next 30 years, the golf course, along with the community itself, floundered, as the area became the most dangerous part of Atlanta. Police often referred to the area in the 70s & 80s surrounding East Lake as “Little Vietnam.”

In 1993, Tom Cousins, an esteemed real-estate developer and East Lake resident, joined with a charitable foundation in an effort to restore the East Lake Golf Club and the surrounding community to its previously leviathan stature. The two-phase plan included restoration on all housing and an overhaul of the dilapidated golf course. Rees Jones was hired to do the restoration in 1994.

Jones revamped the grass, changed many tees, and completely changed the landscaping. Unfortunately, when Jones did all of the work, it wasn’t thought that the event would be played in September, weeks after the hot summer season.  Everyone was caught by surprise in 2007 when the greens were stressed by a combination of drought and 28 days in August of heat over 90 degrees.  With these conditions, there was not enough time for the bentgrass greens to adequately recover from Atlanta’s hottest summer on record in the midst of a drought. And it was determined that in the best interest that the Crenshaw creep bent grass would be replaced with Bermudagrass.  In making the changes to the greens, Jones also changed some of the contours of the greens and created some roll-off areas on greens.

In addition, the green on No. 7 was changed and pushed back 43 yards, extending the par-4 hole to 394 yards. The fairway and green on No. 17 were repositioned left, closer to East Lake’s shoreline, and new tees were added on No. 13, 15 and 16. New fairways bunkers were added on the left side of No. 3, 7 and 16, and to the right side of No. 15. Bunkers were reconfigured on the green at No. 16 and expanded on the right side of the green on No. 14, as well as the left side of No. 4 green. New hole locations were created on various greens and low-cut, roll-off areas were installed off of greens on No. 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10 and 17.

Now the course was in great shape before the weekend, the rough was high and the fairways and greens were hard and fast.

Today, the course plays as a 7,307 yard, par 70. It features Meyer Zoysia grass on both the tees and fairways while the rough is 419 Bermuda Grass.  The greens are also Bermudagrass, thus it can tolerate the hot days of August and be in great shape for this week.

The signature hole at East Lake is the Par 3, 6th. The hole plays at around 209 yards, but the downhill shot eliminates some of the distance. The tee was expanded and if officials want, they can stretch the hole to 225 yards.  The challenge of the hole is provided by the green itself. Golfers must attack a peninsula green with water left, right and in front of the green, as well as part of the backside. Adding to the difficulty, is a small bunker on the front left and the green, effectively making this an island green.  One other change, the tee at 17 was expanded, and the hole can play to 470 yards even though the “official” yardage on the hole is 455.

Last year the course played to a 70.259 average, a quarter shot over par.  It was the 20th hardest course.

Here are some of the secrets to playing well at East Lake:

Key stat for the winner:

• As was proven in past Tour Championships played at East Lake it favors those that hit lots of greens.  Just look at the 12 winners of previous Tour Championships at East Lake. Hal Sutton in 1998 was 1st while in 2000 Phil Mickelson was T4th in greens hit, Vijay Singh was T8th in 2002, Retief Goosen was first in 2004 and Bart Bryant first in 2005, Adam Scott was T6th in 2006 while in 2007 Tiger Woods led, in 2008 Camilo Villegas was T3rd while in 2009 Phil Mickelson was T8th.  in 2010 Jim Furyk led the greens hit, but Bill Haas slacked off to T-11th in ’11, Brandt Snedeker was T-7th in 2012. In 2013 Henrik Stenson proved the importance of hitting greens as he led that stat, the same in 2014 with Billy Horschel. So we can see that hitting greens are important because if you miss a green at East Lake it will be very difficult to get up and down for par.
• Another key is holding the lead going into the final round.  Since 1987, the player who either led or had a share of the lead through 54 holes has gone on to win 17 out of 27 times – Tom Watson (1987), Curtis Strange (’88), Jodie Mudd (’90), Craig Stadler (’91), Paul Azinger (’92), Billy Mayfair (’95), Tom Lehman (’96), David Duval (’97), Tiger Woods (’99), Vijay Singh (2002), Chad Campbell in 2003, Bart Bryant in 2005, Adam Scott in 2006, Tiger Woods in 2007, Jim Furyk in 2010, Brandt Snedeker in 2012, Henrik Stenson in 2013 and Billy Horschel last year.  So check it out at GolfStats.Com.
• Experience and having a good year especially coming into the event is also a factor. Just look at the winners over the years.  Henrik Stenson in 2013, Brandt Snedker in 2012, Jim Furyk in 2010, Phil Mickelson the year before, Tiger Woods in 2007, Adam Scott the year before that.  Bart Bryant in 2005 and Retief Goosen in 2004 were examples of this. Scott finished either 2nd or 3rd six times going into the event, Bryant had won the Memorial early in the year while Goosen won the U.S. Open and then capped off with the Tour Championship.  All of them won capping off great years so I really feel that this year’s victor will be one of top-five, Day, Spieth, Fowler, Stenson and Watson.
• One last thing to look for. Yes, the course is demanding, but as it goes into the year being played for the 15th time and the 12th year in a row as the host course, the pros are starting to learn it better and shoot lower scores.  Yes, it’s going to take four rounds in the 60s to win, but other than Bart Bryant’s brilliant 17 under par performance in 2005 and Tiger Woods 23 under performance in 2007 it’s rarely been taken apart.  Look for that trend to continue this year even with the course playing fast.
• Lastly, the weather in Atlanta.  We have been very lucky on the PGA Tour and had on the hole great weather.  But there is a 50% chance of rain for the first three days and Sunday will be mostly cloudy with some showers.  It will also get cooler as the week goes on, so it looks like the players better be packing the rain gear.