Erin Hills Key Fantasy Stats

U.S. Open

June 15th – 18th, 2017

Erin Hills

Erin, Wi

Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,741

Purse: $12 million

with $2,160,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Dustin Johnson

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

The U.S. Open is going to Erin Hills, a course that has never held a professional tournament. It did hold the U.S. Amateur in 2011, but the course will be an adventure for most of the field of 156.
Now in this piece we try to put past stats together with present day stats and we will do the best to accomplish this. I spent a day at Erin Hills in 2009, I played it and found the course to be very challenging and natural. It’s funny because the USGA ten years ago went out on a limb to let both Erin Hills and Chamber Bay hold U.S. Opens in their first decade of existence. This is something that you don’t see much of. I played Chambers Bay in 2008 about seven years before they held the U.S. Open and found it to be a very scenic place with some really challenging holes, but the course seemed to be contrived and even though it was suppose to be like a links course, you can tell that mother nature had very little to do with the course and they moved a hell of a lot of dirt to make the course. I had a sneaking suspicion that the course would be too unnatural and that it would be a course that didn’t cater to the 25,000 spectators that came out to watch. My suspicion was dead on, Chambers Bay is probably one of the biggest disappointments and may never hold another tournament again. But we can’t say the same for Erin Hills.

Mother nature is the true architect of the course as the land was carved out many eons ago by moving glaciers that carved the land up. I would also say that Erin Hills 652 acres is probably three times the size of Chamber Bay and will be a delight for the 35,000 that will watch the action. One of the unique aspects of the course is that not much dirt was moved to make the layout, the architectures routed the course on the way the land was. The course will be very long but the fairways are more abundant than courses like last year’s Oakmont. The course will play to 7,741 but could be stretched to just about 8,000 and will be the first par 72 course at the U.S. Open

The course is very special. As Chambers Bay was a mangle of congestion since it was on a small track of land, Erin Hills is very expansive and you won’t find any congestion. Were Chambers Bay was totally artificial in which many tons of sand and dirt was used to build up the course, Erin Hills is very natural, glaciers, not bulldozers created the course. Erin Hills was the complete opposite from Chamber Bay as the holes at Erin Hills were created based on the natural landforms. The fairways will be very generous for a U.S. Open, but if you venture off your in big trouble. In some places the fescue rough will be impossible to even hack the ball back to the fairway, in a way I haven’t seen rough like this since the Open was played at Muirfield in Scotland. The greens are average size at 6,650 and are well bunkered. As I said the fairways are generous in size, but you don’t want to drive it into a fairway bunker because they are deep and the player will have trouble getting it onto the green.
For the average player the course is really hard, it’s rated at 78.4 with a slope of 147. One unique item, water comes into play on the 1st hole and if you hit a terrible teeshot right on the par 3 ninth hole, you could get wet but that is it. Even though the elevation difference is only 54 feet, the course is very hilly and a tough walk.

So with that said, how can we judge this course? First we are going to do something different in picking our four key stats, we are going to use strictly strokes gained stats. Our first is Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee because driving will be important. With wider fairways and the course being played over 7,700 yards yes this is a bombers course. Guys that hit it short like Jim Furyk, Graeme McDowell and Steve Stricker will have a tough time at Erin Hills. Guys that hit is long and straight like Dustin Johnson or Bubba Watson will have a big advantage so look for our first key being Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee.
Our next stat is Strokes Gained Approach-the-Green because hitting greens are important and you have to make sure to hit the greens. Our third stat is Strokes Gained Around-the-Green because players will miss greens and to win they will have to get it up and down. Last is Strokes Gained Putting because that is going to be very important for players this week.

Of the 156 players in the field, only 82 have stats on the PGA Tour.  So marquee guys like Rory McIlroy, Alex Noren, Lee Westwood, Bernd Wiesberger and Henrik Stenson don’t have stats for 2017 because they haven’t played enough rounds.

One last thing, because of some travel problems to Milwaukee, the Preview will be a bit late and come out on Tuesday afternoon, sorry.

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