Olympia Fields Key Fantasy Stats

BMW Championship

August 27th – 30th, 2020

Olympia Fields C.C. (North)

Olympia Fields, Il.

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,366

Purse: $9.5 million

with $1,710,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Justin Thomas

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

So for the first time this year and the first time since the Accordia Golf Narashino C.C. was played last October for the Zozo Championship a new course is being used. Olympia Fields Country Club, which is located about 35 minutes south of Chicago will be the venue this week of the BMW Championship. Now the North Course of Olympia Fields has held its share of championships, including the 1928 and 2003 U.S. Open, the 1925 and 1961 PGA Championship, and five Western Opens, the last in 1971 won by Bruce Crampton. The course is a gem, laid out in 1916 when hickory clubs were the norm. The course is of the tradition of most courses built in the 1920s, parkland courses on rolling terrain with a stream roaming through. The course is tree-lined and very well bunkered and has rough, so driving the ball is important. You have to find the fairways because the greens are small targets to hit, with sand guarding the front part of them. The greens are 6,000 square feet in size with a lot of undulation and will be hard to putt. Making things even tougher, if you miss the green it’s like any course of the region, hard to get up and down to save par.

The course is a gem and has not been a part of the PGA Tour since it held the U.S. Open in 2003. Unfortunately, because the course was soft the first two days of play, scores were low which the USGA didn’t appreciate. So in making the course tougher, of course, conditions dried up and made the final round super hard. Since then the course has not played into the USGA’s future plans, but the PGA Tour in a search to find courses in the Chicago area is giving the course a try. Unfortunately, they won’t get to see how it plays with crowds, but if the course seems to hold up to the challenge, the players like it the odds will be that it comes back again sometime in the future.

Since we have very little data to base our conclusions on our four categories, we will take an educated guess on which stats will be needed to succeed this week at the BMW Championship. The things to watch for, Accuracy will be the key to winning at Olympia Fields, not only in driving accuracy but precious iron play into the greens. This is a course that will demand great shotmaker and when you miss a green you will have to show the skill of being able to handle both sand play and pitch shots from gnarly rough around the green. If that isn’t enough, a poor putter won’t cut it on this course. The greens have a lot of undulations and mounds, so good lag putting is required along with the nerves to be able to make most of those nasty five and six-footers. When Olympia Fields held the 2003 U.S. Open it played to a 72.38 scoring average with was the 6th hardest course on tour in 2003. The final round was played at 73.03 which shows how hard the course could play if the greens get baked and are sped up. I don’t expect that to happen, still an average of close to par would be just fine for the week.

So this is based on the most important stats for the Olympia Fields, based on what I feel is important and using data from all the players in this week’s field with stats from 2020. Of course, weather plays a factor in scoring and with the course being a bit wet, the temperature high and conditions soft, the scoring could be low. But I see very little rain in the forecast so the course will dry out each day and by the weekend it could be very firm and the greens very quick.
Since it’s important to not only keep it in the fairway but also drive it far I use a stat that is a bit old and not used much but I feel important Total Driving which adds up the rank of Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy to come up with a total rank. This will determine which players will hit it long and straight, two items very important for the week. In 2003 Jim Furyk won the U.S. Open and he did it with his ball-striking skills from tee to green. He was the 25th longest driver of the week and was 2nd in Driving Accuracy so a total of 27 ranked T-3rd for the week.
Our second category is Greens in Regulation, which is the number of greens hit from the fairway. In order to score and score well on this course, hitting greens is key. Jim Furyk showed that as a key in his victory as he hit 53 of the 72 greens and led that stat for the week.
Our third category is Strokes Gained Around the Green. This is a combination of all skills in getting it up and down from not only the short grass but from the bunkers around the greens which have close to 50 of them around them. Those stats weren’t available in 2003 but Furyk was 16th in scrambling and T-1st in Sand Save Percentage.
Our last category is strokes Gained Putting. This is a great way in determining how a player does overall on the greens and since putting is a key to winning at Olympia Fields I don’t see any stat better to end this stat look with.

*Total Driving: It adds up the rank of Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy to come up with a total rank. This will determine which players will hit it long and straight, two items very important for the week.

*Greens in Regulation: Number of greens hit from the fairway or rough.

*Strokes Gained Around the Green: This is a combination of all skills in getting it up and down from not only the short grass but from the bunkers around the greens.

*Strokes Gained Putting: This is a great way in determining how a player does overall on the greens by determining the length of the putt and calculating the percentage the player should make the putt and coming up with stroke figure.

The 69 of the 70 players from this year’s field with stats from 2020 (Tiger Woods hasn’t played enough rounds for official stats):

(Also Webb Simpson has withdrawn due to exhaustion.  Says he will be ready for next week and the Tour Championship)

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