BMW Championship Key Fantasy Stats

BMW Championship

August 18th – 21st, 2022

Wilmington Country Club

Wilmington, De.

Par: 71 / Yardage: 7,534

Purse: $15 million

with $2,700,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Patrick Cantlay

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

As we said last year before the BMW Championship at Caves Valley, there are about a dozen great golf courses in this country that could hold a PGA Tour event. Last year the world got to experience Caves Valley and got a grand championship, with Patrick Cantlay winning a six-hole playoff over Bryson DeChambeau.
This week the PGA Tour is going to another great gem that has never seen a professional event. The South Course at Wilmington Country Club, a private course 8 miles northwest of downtown Wilmington, will hold the BMW Championship.
The club’s history goes back 120 years when a nine-hole course was first opened. The course expanded and held the 1913 U.S. Women’s Amateur. In the 1950s, the club bought a new piece of land to expand to 36 holes. They got the preeminent architect at the time, Robert Trent Jones, to build them a course, and in 1959 the South Course was opened, followed a year later by a shorter version which became the North Course, designed by Dick Wilson. Over the years, the course has held several USGA events, including the 1965 and 1978 U.S. Junior Amateur, 1971 U.S. Amateur, 1978 U.S. Girls’ Junior and the 2003 U.S. Mid-Amateur. In 2013 the club hosted the Palmer Cup, a match that pitted amateurs from the United States against Europe. The American team had Justin Thomas, who did win the 2019 BMW Championship and is probably the only pro in the field with competitive experience at Wilmington CC. Before that event, the South Course went through a significant alteration in both 2008 and 2013, and afterward, its members decided they wanted to hold a professional event. They spent most of 2020 thinking about what alterations they needed in order to make the course PGA Tour worthy. They looked at having Keith Foster, who did the 2008 renovations, to make the changes. But on August 10, 2020, things changed when the course was in the line of an EF-1 tornado. The high winds and rain downed 300 trees and destroyed every bunker on both courses. This changed the renovations that were about to be done, and a new plan was implemented. Architect Andrew Green was renovating Oak Hill, which will hold next year’s PGA Championship, along with renovations at Congressional, Inverness, and Scioto Country Club. Green quickly assessed what needed to be done and was hired. Based on his plans in November 2020, the club was awarded the BMW Championship.
Green didn’t change the routing of the holes but made drastic changes to holes 3, 5 and 14 (holes used for BMW) to help protect the strategic integrity. Six new tees were built with 250,000 square feet of construction, and close to 300 yards were added. He changed fairways bunkers to make them come into play for PGA Tour professionals, along with bunkers around the greens. With his changes, the course will play to a par of 71 and 7,534 yards.

It will be a new adventure for the 68 players in the field. Wilmington isn’t a spot that most of the pros go to. Justin Thomas, however, did go 3-0-1 in his four matches here in the 2013 Palmer Cup. The good news is the weather is going to be perfect Monday through Wednesday.  So players and caddies will have plenty of time to prep. Historically when a new course comes to the PGA Tour, the winner is a person you least expect to win. That didn’t happen last year at Caves Valley as Patrick Cantlay won. But there are a lot of examples of this happening. In June of last year, Garrick Higgo won the Palmetto Championship, and a month prior, K.H. Lee won the AT&T Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch. Even back in 2020 and the C.J. Cup at Shadow Creek, Jason Kokrak collected his first PGA Tour victory. This is not a given rule; Collin Morikawa won the WGC-Workday Concession in February, and he was a proven winner. The point is anybody can win this week. As for the course itself, the South Course rating is 75.9, with a slope rating of 142. So what does all of this mean?
We feel that the South Course will be set up for scoring opportunities. Two of the 11 par 4s are under 400 yards and five are under 430. There will be three holes 490 yards and longer, so the par 4s will be accessible. The par 5s will be hard. Two of the three will be 634 yards (12) and 649 yards (14). The last one, No. 3, will play at 582 yards, so birdies will be difficult. As for the par 3s, three will play over 205 yards, with the 13th the shortest at 170 yards. The fairways will be generous, but rough does come into play along with 32 fairway bunkers. As for the rough, the weather has been dry the last month, so we don’t expect high, tough rough on the combination of tall fescue and bluegrass rough. In looking at the configuration of the holes, there are only four severe doglegs (1, 3, 11 and 18), so this may turn out to be a long-hitter haven for those who don’t have to worry about keeping it the fairway or running through the fairways. Six lakes spread around the course with water coming into play on 5 (second shot to 5, third shot to 12, tee shot on 13, tee shot on 15 and tee shot at 18) holes.
Now the greens will be a different story. They are classic Robert Trent Jones big greens, they average 8,100 square feet. So hitting the greens will be easier, but getting it close will be the key. So there is a possibility of putts in the 50 to 70-foot range. So look for the players to have second putts in the 5 to 8-foot range, mainly for parts.

Since we have no data to base our conclusions on for our four categories, we will take an educated guess on which stats are needed to succeed this week. The first will be accuracy and length off the tee. Will the course put any fear of the players off the tee? I doubt it. zif players can hit it far and straight, they will have an advantage. Driving it on the South Course will be much like last week at TPC Southwind. So our first category is strokes gained/tee-to-green. Now, if players can take advantage of length off the tee, hitting greens will be easier. So hitting greens in regulation won’t be that important, but proximity to the hole is essential for those that hit it in the fairway. Those that get it close to the pin will have an advantage. Yes, hitting greens is a chore, but getting them close to the pin is another battle on good iron play. I feel getting it close this week and having the best birdie tries will be very important.
Of course, when you miss a green, you will have to scramble to make your par. All 18 greens are well guarded with 50 bunkers, and you know that mistakes will be made, which puts many skills in getting it up and down from just off the greens. So our third category is strokes gained/around the green. This combination of all skills in getting it up and down from the short grass and bunkers around the greens will be complex.
Our last category is strokes gained/putting. Remember, the greens are big with some undulations, so they will be tricky in a different way. So good putters will have a fun week. So strokes gained/putting is an excellent way of determining how a player does overall on the greens, and putting will be a key to winning at Wilmington. I don’t see any stat better to end this stat look with.

*Strokes gained/tee-to-green: Looks at the combination of length off the tee and accuracy, then getting the ball on the green, so it determines who is best at all of these items.

*Proximity to hole: Those that hit the fairway and hit it the closest to the hole.

*Strokes gained/around the green: This is a combination of all skills in getting it up and down from the short grass and the bunkers around the greens.

*Strokes gained/putting: This is an excellent way of determining how a player does overall on the greens by determining the length of the putt, calculating the percentage the player should make the putt, and coming up with a stroke figure.

The 67 of the 68 players from this year’s field with stats from 2022 (no stats for Joohyung Kim).

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

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