Key Fantasy Stats Congressional

Quicken Loans National

June 23rd – 26th, 2016

Congressional C.C.

Bethesda, Md.

Par: 71 / Yardage: 7,569

Purse: $6.9 million

with $1,242,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Troy Merritt

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats for the Congressional Country Club, based on data from the 2014 Quicken Loans and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016.
Congressional is a great course, it has held three U.S. Opens and a PGA Championship. It held the Booz Allen for eight years and when the Quicken Loans came into existence in 2007 one of the selling points was that Congressional would hold the event. It was played in 2007, ’08 & ’09 before it moved temporally to Philadelphia because the U.S. Open would be held at Congressional in 2011. The Quicken Loans went back to Congressional in 2012, ’13 and ’14 before moving for a year to Robert Trent Jones.

The course plays almost as tough as Oakmont did last week. In 2014 it played to a 72.55 average, ranked 5th hardest on tour that year for it’s one and a half shots over par performance. The key to the course is from tee to green, the fairways are hard to drive as most of the holes are tree-lined (difference from last week at Oakmont) along with some nasty rough. Congressional Blue can be described as having a fair amount of bunkers in almost unfair places. Unlike most courses, the 102 bunkers that line Congressional are placed in the vicinity of where golfers are aiming. No hole better exemplifies this than the par 3 2nd. The 211-yard hole has six bunkers (front, left, and right) that guard the large, undulating green.

The Washington area has had a fair amount of rain in May and June, so the rough, which is a combination of fescue, rye and Blue grass will be very hard to get out and control the ball. The good news is that after some light rain on Thursday, it will be hot and dry the rest of the week.

Every phase of the game will be examined at Congressional. First you have to hit it straight off the tee because the fairways are lined with strategy placed bunkers that are tough to get out of, along with rough that is 2 to 4 inches. Once you hit the fairway, hitting it into the greens is an adventure, they are hard to hold and with lots of undulations, you have to place the shot on the right side to have a putt at birdie. Just like at Congressional the winner needs to hit it long and straight; just look at the last three winners at Congressional, Justin Rose, Bill Haas and Tiger Woods, they all hit it long and straight.

So in looking at our four categories, our first is driving accuray. This is going to be the an important item, in 2014 the course ranked 14th in driving accuracy while winner Justin Rose was T-11th. New is greens in regulation, in 2014 Congressional ranked 17th on tour while winner Rose was T-13th. In 2014 Congressional was 3rd in scrambling, showing the importance of this stat when you consider how many players do miss greens. In 2014 Rose was T-27th in that stat. Last is par-breakers, it’s hard making birdies and pars at Congressional the course ranked 5th on tour (6th in Birdie average, 2nd in eagles per hole) while Rose was T-5th in par-breakers.

So you can see Congressional will set up a very interesting challenge for the players. In looking at past champions all six from Congressional are past PGA Tour winners so you need to have that talent of knowing how to win:
*Fairway Accuracy: percentage of times a drive is in the fairway

*Greens in Regulation: Stat is great barometer on how good players manage their games around Congressional. Every year the players that hit lot’s of greens do well.

*Scrambling: The percent of time a player misses the green in regulation, but still makes par or better.

*Par Breakers: The course allows a lot of birdies and eagles to be made, so parbreakers is the percent of time scores are under par.

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2016:

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