The CJ Cup in South Carolina Key Fantasy Stats

The CJ Cup in South Carolina

October 20th – 23rd, 2022

Congaree Golf Club

Ridgeland, S.C.

Par: 71 / Yardage: 7,655

Purse: $10.5 million

with $1,890,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Rory McIlroy

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

In 2021, when it was announced that the country of Canada couldn’t accommodate the RBC Canadian Open, the PGA Tour went into action to find a replacement course. The Tour announced the Palmetto Championship at Congaree would be played for one week, and the course, Congaree Golf Club in rural South Carolina would be used. The course is “officially” located in Ridgeland, South Carolina. The town is in Jasper and Beaufort Counties, with a population of 4,036. But in reality, the course is about 9 miles up the Grays Highway just outside the unincorporated community of Gillisonville, South Carolina, which was nearly obliterated by the order of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman during the Civil War. The course is 50 miles north of Savannah and 40 miles north of Hilton Head.
At the time, the course was considered a gem that the golfing world knew very little about. Congaree Golf Club was the vision of its two owners, Dan Friedkin and the late Bob McNair. They had a philanthropy image of the course on a natural site. They brought in renowned architect Tom Fazio who transported gigantic oak trees and created hills, ridges, and lakes that appear to have been there for hundreds of years and routed a superb design around those features. Friedkin and McNair paid the price tag that was reported at least $45 million for the course.
When the coursed opened in 2017, it was voted Golf Digest’s “best new private course.” The course has the look and feel of two courses, the first Shadow Creek, the course Fazio built 30 years ago in Las Vegas. The other course it looks like is Pine Valley in New Jersey, one of the most famous courses in the world in which the fairways are like ribbons of grass placed between natural wastelands of sand and sagebrush. One other course that people say Congaree reminds them of is Augusta National.
The course was a special treat for the players, who gave it rave reviews. Maybe that is the reason when the PGA Tour needed another replacement course for the CJ Cup that they pegged the course for this year’s event.
That is why we will use the stats from the 2021 Palmetto Championship to find out some of the secrets of the course for this week’s CJ Cup. We will compare the data from the Palmetto Championship with the stats for the players in the field from 2023. One thing to look at is those players who did well at Congaree in 2021 and playing this week. Here is the list of those that made the cut and how they finished:Tyrrell Hatton – T-2nd
Matt Fitzpatrick – T-10th
Harris English – T-14th
Chez Reavie – T-14th
Seamus Power – T-19th
Tommy Fleetwood – T-35th
Sungjae Im – T-35th
Byeong Hun An – T-52nd
Andrew Putnam – 67th

Here is the list of those that played but missed the cut:
Alex Noren, Kevin Kisner, Keith Mitchell, Luke List, John Huh, Scott Stallings, J.T. Poston, Sepp Straka, Lucas Glover, and J.J. Spaun.

So of the 78 in the field this week, 59 have no prior knowledge of the course and how hard it will play. The course will be at 7,655 yards and to a par of 71. So the course is long this time of year. Congaree should be very firm, which means the ball will go a long way. In looking at the stats from the 2021 Palmetto, all of the holes averaged 302.1 yards per drive, and for the year, only three other courses saw longer driving averages, so yes, the length will help. So is Congaree a bombers course? The answer is no if you look at the stats from the 2021 event. Of those in the top nine, only one player was in the top 15 in driving distance, and that was Jhonattan Vegas. The winner in 2021 Garrick Higgo, averaged 217.1 yards per drive and ranked 23rd. Even one of the runner-ups, Bo Van Pelt ranked T-37th, so length is not a key to winning. Now driving is not that important. Sure, in pictures of Congaree, you think that the course is pretty tight, and if you miss the fairway, you’re in trouble. But that wasn’t the case in 2021. The course averaged the players hitting 69.38% of the fairways, which ranked it the 40th most demanding fairways to hit out of 51 courses. Looking at the 2021 winner Garrick Higgo (who isn’t playing this week), he hit 36 of the 54 fairways, and he ranked T-53rd, which we can see meant that driving it long and straight wasn’t that important. Again of those top nine on top of the leaderboard, only one player was in the top 13. Sure, in looking at the fairways if you miss the fairways, you will probably be on the sand since there are not many trees that come into play. Six lakes on the course will come into play on 10 holes. The greens are 6,150 square feet and have some undulation in them, so hitting greens will be essential. On top of looking like Shadow Creek, Pine Valley, and Augusta, course architect Fazio and the two owners envisioned a curse that plays firm and fast, similar to the sandbelt courses in Australia.
So in drawing some conclusions on what is needed to play well, we will take another educated guess based mainly on what happened in 2021. The two things that stick out from 2021 are how players who hit greens and were able to scramble well on greens missed is essential.
So our first category is Greens in Regulation, at the 2021 Palmetto, the course ranked 17th on tour, and winner Higgo ranked 3rd. Along with hitting greens, missing greens and what you do is essential. The greens have lots of mounds and changes in elevation and will be challenging but won’t break any players because they are impossible. All 18 greens are well guarded, and mistakes will be made, which puts many skills in getting it up and down from just off the greens necessary. So our second category is Strokes Gained Around the Green. This combination of all skills in getting it up and down from the short grass and the bunkers around the greens, which have sand and waste areas all around them. In 2021 the course ranked 18th in scrambling, as only 55.73% were able to get it up and down when they missed the greens. 2021 winner Higgo wasn’t that great in that stat, finishing 40th as he was T-51st in scrambling. Still, it’s an important element to playing well this week.
Our third category is Strokes Gained Putting. Remember, the greens are very tricky. In 2021, many pros went crazy with the severe nature of the greens. So Strokes Gained Putting is an excellent way to determine how a player does overall on the greens, and since putting will be a key to winning at Congaree, I don’t see any stat better than this. In 2021 the winner Garrick Higgo was 15th in Strokes Gained putting. In looking at those nine players to finish the best, five of them were in the top ten in putts per round, so yes, putting is important.
Our last category is par breakers, the combination of birdies and eagles made during the round. Making lots of birdies and eagles is always essential. In 2021 at the Palmetto, 1,425 birdies were made and 37 eagles. The course was 14th in Par Breakers. 2021 winner Garrick Higgo made 19 birdies (19th) and one eagle and was T-4th in Par Breakers.
The field is great, the course is challenging, and looks great on TV, so this will be the best event on the fall schedule.

*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 the short grass and the bunkers around the greens. (for those without SG Around the Green due to Japan, substituted scrambling rank)

*Strokes Gained Putting: This is an excellent way to determine 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. (for those without SG Putting due to Japan, substituted putting average rank)

*Par Breakers: Combination of birdies and eagles to get a percentage of holes played under par

60 of the 78 players from this year’s field with stats from 2023:

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