Glen Oaks Key Fantasy Stats

The Northern Trust

August 24th – 27th, 2017

Glen Oaks Club (Composite)

Old Westbury, N.Y.

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,350

Purse: $8.75 million

with $1,530,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Patrick Reed

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

For the second time this year the PGA Tour is going to a course that nobody has seen before, the Glen Oaks Club in Long Island, New York. Located 25 miles from the heart of New York City, one of the reasons this course has been chosen is it’s out of the way location in Long Island and the fact that since the Presidents Cup will be played in Liberty National in Jersey City, just a stone throw from Wall Street, this gives the Northern Trust a shot at getting some corporate sponsors for hospitality in the Long Island area. With the U.S. Open being played at Shinnecock Hills, about 40 miles east it’s a good start for some companies to see what kind of buck they will get in hospitality.

The club itself was first formed in the Roaring 20s on the Queen’s-Nassau border but which changing lifestyles and urban sprawl the club sold the property and bough land 15 miles away. They had designer Joe Finger build them a 27-hole course in Old Westbury. The course was not bad but termed “boring” and “redundant” so they hired superintendent Craig Currier away from Bethpage to work for Glen Oaks. He helped in picking a architect to do the renovation work and because he knew so much they were able to hire Joel Weiman, who in golf circles wasn’t a big name but Currier worked with him at Bethpage so he knew how good he could work with Weiman.

They lucked out when Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012 cleared out a bunch of trees which help in the renovation. They finished a couple of years ago right when the PGA Tour was looking for a site away from Liberty National. They liked what they saw and was able to cobble out a championship 18 holes out of the 27 holes, mostly to help with the infrastructure and crowd control. They were about to take holes 1 through 3 and holes 6-9 of the White Course along with the 4th and 5th holes of the Red Course to make one nine. Then they used nine holes from the Blue Nine to get a par-70, 7,344 yard course.

So now the big question, what do we know about the course? Very little. We do know that the course has only two, par 5s, the 3rd at 625 yards and the 13th at 539. Of the par 4s, 4 on the front nine and one on the back, number 18 are over 470 yards. The other par 4s range from shortest, the 323 yard 11th hole, the only one under 400 yards to six holes between 400 and 447 yards. The par 3s have two over 230 yards with two right around the 185 mark. In looking at each hole the first 7 holes could be the hardest stretch in golf.

Now I hear that Glen Oaks is a shotmakers course and since the summer has been hot, the course is very, very firm and will play fast. So you won’t call this a bombers course, on top of everything else the rough around the greens have no rough and just like Augusta National, you miss the green and we will see who the best scramblers in the game are. The course will continue to play fast as the weather for the week will be perfect, a possible touch of rain on Wednesday morning but after that there is a zero chance of any rain during the championship.  So this will open up the door for those that scramble and putt very, very well.

This course is just like Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, N.C. which held the Wells Fargo Championship. Both are iconic sites that will hold a PGA Tour, but realistically the person that it favors is the up and coming player who has never won before. As for favorites, again I can’t see any. Think the likes of a Stewart Cink, Russell Henley or a Geoff Ogilvy all good ballstrikers has just as good of a shot at the tile as key guys like Jordan Spite, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy.

So with no history to work with, we will pick four Strokes Gained category to reflect the best part of a players game and to help you make a better pick.

*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, 117 have stats on the PGA Tour for 2017.

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