BlogThe CJ Cup at Summit Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Four weeks in and amazing all four winners have previously won on the PGA Tour.  This is becoming more of a trend, experience coming over winning for the first time.  Still, the fields have been better, of the four events that have been held, all of them except for Sanderson Farms had deep fields.  The same with this week, we are seeing the best field of the fall this week as five of the top ten off the world rankings are in attendance.  Now seven of those in the top ten at Zozo last week are in attendance this week, including last week’s winner Keegan Bradley.  Also playing in South Carolina are last week’s runner-ups, Rickie Fowler and Andrew Putnam.  Now frankly, I don’t give these players much chance this week, it’s a  grueling week for those playing last week and this.  The time change is 13 hours, but the flight from Tokyo to Atlanta is 13 hours, and with the little travel to South Carolina, it’s at best 17 or 18 hours.  So with the whiplash of finally getting use to Tokyo time, it’s another jolt to the body to find themselves 7,000 miles away.  So I would say it’s best to favor players that didn’t play last week.

Another major change for this event.  After three successful years playing the Club at Nine Bridges, the pandemic made it impossible to play again in Korea.  For 2021 the event was moved to Las Vegas and played at Shadow Creek Golf Course.  Last year it stayed in Vegas and was played at the Summit Club.  Now it moves across the country to Congaree Golf Club in South Carolina.  Many thought the event would return to South Korea this year but didn’t.  Who knows, with the Tour going to play some special fall events for those in the top 50, maybe this event will move back to South Korea and be one of those elite events.

Over the course of the last couple of years, the PGA Tour has been able to make a tough decision that is very profitable for them.  For the last 20 years, a couple dozen very exclusive clubs have been built with championship courses, and the developers want a way to showcase them.  Last year the Summit Club was one of them, this year, they play at Congaree, which will receive a lot of notoriety with the PGA Tour returning.

A good cheat sheet is this list of odds from the top bookmakers in England.

Another cheat sheet is this list of odds from the top bookmaker in Las Vegas.

Course information:

• Congaree Golf Club
• Ridgeland, South Carolina
• 7,655 yards     Par 36-35–71

This is a rare course that doesn’t have a slope rating or course rating.  But have to remember that there is really only one member/owner.  But there is no argument, the course has a lot of character like Pine Valley, Pinehurst, or Royal Melbourne.  Those who played it last year during the Palmetto Championship said nothing but great things about it.  This could be one of the first courses on the PGA Tour that doesn’t have rough.  Instead, it has bunkers, water, and native areas.  So those players that come here are tickled pink that the course has no rough.  But what the course does have do help bring out the best in those playing it.

One of the things players have to get used to is bumping shots into the greens.  That is the way Fazio built it, with that in mind.

There are several other little items that we are used to that you won’t find at Congaree.  There are no cart paths, as the course is meant to be walked.  There are also no tees.  While the scorecard has tees measured off, each group is free to tee up where they would like.  Guess what happens to a course with one member, the owner.

If you miss a green, expect for the ball to roll into a collection area.  From there, you will be presented with the way you try and get it up and down.  Some will fly it to the pin, while others will bump and run it up.  If you fly it to the pin, you’re bound not to get it right and have more problems.  So most of the time, you will see a player bump it onto the green and close to the hole.

So is the course hard enough so that a marquee player has the advantage of winning?

Possibly, when the Palmetto Championship at Congaree was played in June of 2021 of the 13 players that finished in the top ten, their average World Golf Ranking was 177 going into the week.  At the time #1 Dustin Johnson finished T-10th, but the winner Garrick Higgo was 54 the week of the tournament.  Runner-ups Bo Van Pelt was 620, Chesson Hadley was 320, Hudson Swafford was 199, Jhonattan Vegas was 172, Doc Redmond was 156, and Tyrrell Hatton was 11th.  Only 16 of the top 100 in the rankings played, but we can’t say the cream rose to the top.  So does that mean we should eliminate Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, or Matt Fitzpatrick?  No.  We have to keep an open mind while making our picks, it will be hard for the top players to find success on a course that really has no comparison to other courses played on the PGA Tour.

Keys to winning at Congaree:

The biggest thing to remember is that Congaree will be a totally different course than it was in June of 2021.  Weather will be the biggest key.  Normally the course is closed due to heat and humidity from June to October.  It will be cooler with less humidity, and the course should be longer than it was last time.  But that won’t be the case, in the days before the Palmetto Championship, they had 8 inches of rain which made the course play soft.  That won’t’ be the case this year, as the course has seen very little rain since Hurricane Ian went through it two weeks ago.  This week of the tournament will see sunny skies each day, with temperatures of 70 on Thursday and Friday, warming up to 77 over the weekend.  Winds will be very mild and under 8 mph, so that won’t play a factor.  But with dry conditions, the course will play firm with lots of roll.  With that look for the course to play like it was intended to play, like a links course in which you have to bump shots into the greens instead of flying them in.  So fairways and greens will keep balls moving on the ground while also bringing in the danger of the sand that guards the fairways. An errant tee shot can run quickly through the side of the fairway and get caught in the bunker like a gutter ball in bowling. Limited rough on the course provides a limited amount of bailout between the fairways, greens, and bunkers.

Let’s take a look at vital stats that are important for those playing at Congaree Golf Club.

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.

Here is a link back so that you can see the stats of all the players in the field.

DraftKings tips

First, let’s look at the field and the top 25 who have the best average Draftkings earnings since the start of the 2022 season (must have 5 or more events)

88.4 points per event – Scottie Scheffler in 25 events – Cost $10,400

88.2 points per event – Rory McIlroy in 16 events – Cost $11,100

85.2 points per event – Justin Thomas in 21 events – Cost $10,200

84.6 points per event – Taylor Montgomery in 5 events – Cost $8,200

83.3 points per event – Tom Kim in 13 events – Cost $8,900

81.9 points per event – Byeong Hun An in 5 events – Cost $6,500

81.2 points per event – Jon Rahm in 19 events – Cost $10,900

78.9 points per event – Sungjae Im in 28 events – Cost $9,600

77.6 points per event – Viktor Hovland in 22 events – Cost $9,200

76.7 points per event – Max Homa in 26 events – Cost $9,100

76.1 points per event – Sam Burns in 25 events – Cost $9,300

71.8 points per event – Hideki Matsuyama in 23 events – Cost $8,700

71.7 points per event – Matt Fitzpatrick in 20 events – Cost $9,800

71.4 points per event – Billy Horschel in 22 events – Cost $8,000

70.8 points per event – Corey Conners in 27 events – Cost $8,000

70.8 points per event – Shane Lowry in 18 events – Cost $8,300

70.7 points per event – Collin Morikawa in 20 events – Cost $9,000

70.5 points per event – Tyrrell Hatton in 20 events – Cost $8,500

70.4 points per event – Aaron Wise in 25 events – Cost $7,800

70.1 points per event – Cameron Young in 26 events – Cost $8,600

69.5 points per event – Russell Henley in 23 events – Cost $7,300

69.3 points per event – Keegan Bradley in 27 events – Cost $8,400

69.1 points per event – Jordan Spieth in 22 events – Cost $8,800

68.9 points per event – Maverick McNealy in 31 events – Cost $7,900

67.3 points per event – Sahith Theegala in 35 events – Cost $8,100

So if we were to go off of this list and pick six players, which would be winners?

Remember, with a $50,000 salary cap that means we have to average $8,333 per player

• Rory McIlroy – $11,100
• Tyrrell Hatton – $8,500
• Taylor Montgomery – $8,200
• Bill Horschel – $8,000
• *Tom Hoge – $7,000
• Byeong Hun An – $6,500*

*I cheated by taking Hoge, who averaged 62.7 points per 35 events.  The reason to pick him is in his last four events, he won 94.0 points at the Tour Championship, 70.5 points at the Fortinet, 129.5 points at the Shriners and 79.5 points at the Zozo Championship.

*Here are the guys that cost the most on DraftKings this week:

• Rory McIlroy – $11,100
• Jon Rahm – $10,900
• Scottie Scheffler – $10,400
• Justin Thomas – $10,200
• Matt Fitzpatrick – $9,800
• Sungjae Im – $9,600
• Sam Burns – $9,300
• Viktor Hovland – $9,200
• Max Homa – $9.100
• Collin Morikawa – $9,000

For the second event in a row, a 72-hole event with just 78 players. The good news is there is no cut to miss, the bad news is there are more players over the $9,000 mark, and it will be hard finding players under that figure.  No surprise seeing Rory McIlroy at $11,100 yes, a lot of money, but he has been playing well of late, he always gets a lot of DraftKings points, averaging 88.2 points per event, and that doesn’t include the BMW PGA Championship on the DP Tour were he got 98 points, the Italian Open where he got 104 points, and the Dunhill Links where he also got 104 points.  You just know he will do well and earn a lot of points.  Jon Rahm at $10,900 as also played well in the last month on the DP Tour, winning the Spanish Open and finishing T-2nd at the BMW PGA Championship is no slouch either in earning DraftKings Points, he averaged 81.2 points per event, at the BMW PGA earned 103 Points and at the Spanish Open earned 152 points.  We know he can play links courses, so he is also a great pick.  Scottie Scheffler at $10,400 is one I have to say no to, just don’t think he has played enough of late and will be rusty.  The same with Justin Thomas at $10,200, he didn’t have a great summer and has only played at the Presidents Cup, and even though he won four points, he did lose his singles match.  Matt Fitzpatrick at $9,800 is a tough go, he has struggled of late, missing the cut at the Andalucia Masters and finishing T-22nd at the Dunhill Links, but he was 2nd at the Italian Open and finished T-10th in the 2021 Palmetto Championship at Congaree.  Sungjae Im at $9,600 is a big nut for him to crack, and since he is coming from Japan, I say no.  On the other side of the coin, he may have finished T-29th at the Zozo Championship, but in his previous six starts was in the top 15 and was runner-up three times.  Sam Burns at $9,300 is a no, he hasn’t played well since winning the Charles Schwab and finishing T-4th at the Canadian Open.  Viktor Hovland at $9,200 has had mixed results all summer, did have a T-5th at the Zozo Championship and T-5th at the BMW PGA, I say no because he is coming from Japan.  Max Homa at $9,100 is a player to consider, he won the Fortinet and was good at the Tour Championship but if you look he makes a lot of DraftKings Points averaging 76.7 per event.  Collin Morikawa at $9,000 is a big no for me, other than the U.S. Open, and FedEx St. Jude has played terribly and doesn’t seem to be able to contend anymore.  We know he will break that slump, but it’s not coming this week.

*Players in that $7,500 to $8,900 price range, which ones are worth the money?:

Many will pick up on Tom Kim at $8,900 but I say lay off him for a bit, he struggled in Japan, finishing T-25th, and has gone from winning Las Vegas to Japan and now South Carolina in two weeks he has to be beaten and tired.  The same with Jordan Spieth at $8,800,  many will think that this course is tailor-made for his game, but he hasn’t played since the Presidents Cup, and I feel he may struggle.  I do like Tyrrell Hatton at $8,500, even though I said it’s dangerous taking someone coming from Japan.  I like that he makes a lot of Draftkings points, and in 2021 he was T-2nd at the Palmetto Championship.  Also, Shane Lowry at $8,300 is a great choice, has played well over on the DP Tour, winning the BMW PGA.  Taylor Montgomery at $8,200 is also a good choice, he has played great in 2023 with a 3rd, T-9th, and T-15th.  Talking about playing well on the DP World Tour, Billy Horschel at $8,000 was T-10th at the Dunhill Links and T-9th at the BMW PGA Championship.  Also, like Tom Hoge at $7,700 he has played well of late, including T-9th at the Zozo Championship, T-4th at the Shriners, and T-12th at the Fortinet.

*Some of the “bargains” this week at the CJ Cup

Despite coming from Japan, Andrew Putnam at $7,400 was runner-up at the Zozo.  The same with Rickie Fowler at $7,400 he also was runner-up at the Zozo. Seamus Power at $7,000 is worth the risk, he has had his moments of good play in the last six months, but like that he played well at Congaree in 2021, finishing T-19th.  Kevin Kisner at $6,900 is also one to watch, he has probably played more rounds at Congaree than anyone else in the field, but it didn’t do any good in 2021 when he missed the cut but feel things could be different this year.  Also, Byeong Hun An at $6,500 is worth it, makes a ton of birdies so for Draftkings he is great for the price.  Also shot 67-73-76-68 at Congaree in 2021, so knows how to go low.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the CJ Cup:

The key stat for the winner:

Of the field of 78 players, only a handful have seen the course.  So for each player, learning the course will be a new adventure. So lots of patience in learning the course also will take a lot of patience in which birdies are rare, and pars are great.  This doesn’t happen much on the PGA Tour.

Another key:

• The ability to hit it long and straight that could be the way to winning this event, even though we think short, straight hitters have the advantage.
• The greens are very demanding, and with them being hard (it hasn’t rained in two weeks) they will bounce off the greens and give players challenging pitches in which they either have to bump and run them to the pin, or fly it to the pin.
• Last we have to talk about the weather.  The course hasn’t seen any rain in two weeks now, so it’s going to be hard and firm.  During the week the weather will be great and sunny skies.
• One last thing, look for players that have done well of late.