Liberty National Key Fantasy Stats

The Northern Trust

August 19th – 22nd, 2021

Liberty National G.C.

Jersey City, New Jersey

Par: 71 / Yardage: 7,410

Purse: $9.5 million

with $1,710,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Dustin Johnson

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

For the fourth time, Liberty National is hosting the Northern Trust. It previously held the 2009, 2013, and 2019 events, plus it was the home of the Presidents Cup in 2017. Located on the western shores of New York Harbor, just 1,000 yards from the Statue of Liberty, Liberty National, opened in 2006. Built at the cost of $250 million, it sits on a formerly contaminated site on the Jersey City waterfront with spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. The course and high-end golf club, which has an initiation fee of $450,000 to join, were developed by former Reebok CEO Paul Fireman and his son Dan. Three million cubic yards of earth were brought in during course construction because there could be no digging on the site and everything had to be built up. The resulting course is still relatively flat, with many holes having the feel of a Florida layout, with water hazards, and others of a links course, with fescue grasses. Its course rating of 77.7 and slope of 155 are among the highest in the New York metropolitan area.
The first year the course was used was in 2009 for the Northern Trust, the players panned it. The worst came from Tiger Woods, who was runner-up. The course owners took in the criticism and, after consulting players and architects and the following year, went through a significant renovation making extensive changes to 15 of the 18 holes. Greens were rebuilt, and the high rough was shaved back, and when the tour returned in 2013, many of the players liked the changes. When the Presidents Cup was played in 2017, the course received excellent reviews as the players said the course was more playable and fairer as a test. Because of its location in New York City, which means lots of hospitality money, it was important for the PGA Tour that the players liked Liberty National.

So who does the course favor?
Since it’s not used regularly, it’s hard to judge this course and who to bet on. Some say it favors those that hit it long. Yes, many long hitters finished in the top five in 2009, 2013, and 2019. Of the three winners, Health Slocum, Adam Scott, and Patrick Reed, Slocum and Reed were not long hitters. As a matter of fact, Slocum was in the lower 20% of hitters on the PGA Tour, Slocum’s longest year on the PGA Tour was in 2009 when he ranked T-97th. As for Reed, he ranked T-97th for the year in 2019. But Scott has always been considered long hitters. At the same time, short hitters like Steve Stricker, plus medium short hitters like Padraig Harrington and Abraham Ancer, were runner-ups. We can say if a long hitter can have his most wonderful week of ball control (are you listening to this, Bryson?), he has a significant advantage. But as Gary Woodland, who finished runner-up in 2013, and Jon Rahm, who finished T-3rd in 2019, said, it’s best to throttle back and not hit drivers on half the holes. It’s the combination of rough, trees, and ten of the holes you can drive into water that comes into play if you don’t hit the fairway. So with that said, this course is on a pretty even playing field with all players and gives no advantage to long hitters unless they are willing to gamble on missing the fairway. So here are a few keys to playing Liberty National this week:
* Emphasis must be put on ball placement in the fairway to get the appropriate angle to the green.
* One thing that does stick out, when Heath Slocum won in 2009, he was T-6th in greens hit, when Adam Scott won in 2013, he was T-4th in greens hit, and in 2019 when Patrick Reed won he was T-5th in greens hit, this gives us a hint of what it will take to win this week.
* Another key for the past winners, two of them played the par 5s in 8 under and Patrick Reed in 2019 was 6 under on par 5s, but 8 underplaying the par 4s, so we can see two ways that players can do well on the course.
* The course is located on the Upper New York Bay and has no protection from the elements, especially wind. For the week, each day will produce wind speeds of 7 mph which is exaggerated when there is no real protection, plus look for Thunderstorms in the afternoon each of the four days, both of these will create a concern for players.

So with minimal history to work with, we will pick four Strokes Gained categories to reflect the best part of a player’s 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 putting: So who saves the most strokes on the greens,

*Par Breakers: A look at the percentage of eagles and birdies are made by the players

Of the 124 players in the field, 123 have stats on the PGA Tour for 2021 (Garrick Higgo doesn’t have enough rounds to qualify).

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