BlogBMW PGA Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

This is the most prestige event on the European Tour.  It’s played on a classic old course Wentworth, about 20 miles west of London.  Over the years it’s had a tough time getting a top-notch field as some European Tour members took passes to play on the PGA Tour instead of it’s tours premiere events. This year it’s missing it’s biggest draw, Rory McIlroy who is resting his ribs.  But the biggest missing star is Sergio Garcia who is playing at Colonial this week.  Sergio is not keen on playing in England, he has never liked the tax structure so has avoided the country.

Now the course has gone through another change with Ernie Els design and European Golf Design.  The difference they had Thomas Bjorn and Paul McGinley advise them with feedback and what they thought the players wanted to see.  One of the biggest problems that the players had was the condition of the greens which has been addressed with all 18 greens being reseeded and re-turfed.  Four greens were completely rebuilt, (8th, 11th, 14th & 16th) while five others (3rd, 4th, 5th, 12 & 15th) were partially redone.  The biggest change to the greens is that a SubAir system has been installed under all the greens which will help control the greens more.

Another problem that needs to be address is the weak schedule after Dubai the first week in February. The tour has had ten European Tour events, two World Golf Championships and the Masters.  But of the ten European events hitting Malaysia, Australia, South Africa, India, China, Morocco, Portugal and Sicily, Italy none of them could be considered “big” events.  Most of them had low purses and lot’s of travel, something that you wouldn’t see a Rory Mcilory doing.  Then you look at the standings of the Race to Dubai.  Sergio Garcia is leading and he has played in a “true” European Tour event once, at Dubai.  Jon Rahm is 3rd and still hasn’t played in a “true” European Tour event.  Justin Rose is 4th and still hasn’t played on the European Tour this year. #8 Thomas Pieters and #13 Hideto Tanihara have both played just one “true” European event.  So how has have they achieve such lofty heights as being so high on the Race To Dubai?  Because the two World Golf Championships and the Masters are included on the European Tour and those three events offer a lot of dollars (which is what Race to Dubai points are).  So if you don’t get to play in these events, you are way behind and have a big disadvantage.  If you look at those at the top of the Race to Dubai rankings you have to go down to the 11th player, Alexander Levy to find your first player at the top without playing in the Masters or WGC events.

The New European Tour website

After playing around with it for two days I frankly can’t find anything good about it.  Yes it’s more “flashy” with big pictures and meaningless charts, but most of the information that true golf fans got from it in the past is gone.  It’s also more limited in information, hard to maneuver and something that I can’t come close to giving a thumbs up on.  For fantasy golf players it’s completely useless, you can get player results but that is it.  No stats other than the Race to Dubai standings and that’s hard to get to, player bios have been replaced with a big picture of a player over his flag, his age, Race to Dubai standings and world rankings.  On Kiradech Aphibarnrat’s page there is a a three paragraph story on him that if you read carefully you can find out the three times in Europe he has won, but doesn’t tell you about his other wins outside of the European Tour.  Check out Sergio Garcia, again very limited information if you want to find out his 13 European Tour wins you better go to Wikipedia (or find it here on Golfstats) but the point I am trying to make is that you shouldn’t have to go off the European Tour website to find simple things like were he was born, year turned pro or anything else about Sergio.

Sorry to say this is what consultants, people that probably have never played golf, have told them is the best way to get more eyeballs.  Instead of being the website of record for the European Tour, it’s nothing more than a site trying to attract younger viewers, a real shame.  I know that the European Tour has been great with me, helping us out a lot with things to make Golfstats better, so I am pained in telling you this news.  I want nothing more but more and easier access for people to get out of the site, but it’s just not there.

With all of these problems Golfstats will do more previews from the European Tour and try to get the kind of information you need. The problem, it’s now hard for me to get stuff even to the point of getting a field list together is a challenge. Know that a lot of you are from England and have said you want more European Tour coverage.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the BMW PGA Championship.

Key stat for the winner:

• Wentworth is a classic shotmaker course, that is why those that hit lot’s of greens like Luke Donald have done well at Wentworth.  Having a short game is also important because for those that miss the greens, getting it up and down is tough as there are a lot of bumps and knolls around these greens.  But the key to playing well is to hit lot’s of greens like last year’s winner Chris Wood who was T-4th in greens hit.  Even better is what Byeong-Hun An did in 2015, he only missed 11 greens all week leading the field in greens hit.  To show how important it is to hit greens, going back to 2009 all of champions but Rory McIlroy were in the top-ten of greens hit.
• Since major work was done on Wentworth in 2011, the par 4s are really tough, some of the hardest on the European Tour with five of the 12 playing over 449 yards.  In the last four years, 98% of those that made the cut have played the par 4s in 5.8 over par so you can see how Luke Donald won in 2012 when he played the 4s in 3 under, Matteo Manassero was 1 over in his ’13 win, Rory McIlroy played the par 4s in 1 under in 2014, Byeong-Hun An was 3 under on the par 4s in 2015 and Chris Wood was 2 under on them last year..
• On top of new greens a lot of other things have been done to Wentworth.  29 bunkers were completely removed as ever bunker on the course was redesigned and rebuilt.  So now it’s going to be a lot tougher if you hit it into one of them.  Hopefully with these changes and the ones a couple of years ago it will be more appealing to the players.
• Weather will be good for everyday with temperatures between 77 and 80 degrees.  Winds will be light and it should be a great week for golf.