BMW Championship Key Fantasy Stats

BMW Championship

August 22nd – 25th, 2024

Castle Pines Golf Club

Castle Rock, Co.

Par: 72 / Yardage: 8,130

Purse: $20 million

with $4 million to the winner

Defending Champion:
Viktor Hovland

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most important stats for Castle Pines, piecing it together from a course that used to hold a PGA Tour event but has yet to have one in 18 years. We will try to figure all of this out and use data from all the players in the field with stats from 2024

As I say, each year on the eve of the BMW Championship, the PGA Tour and BMW have gotten it right in moving this event to some of the great courses we have yet to hear much of and showcase the course. For example, last year, they went to Olympia Fields Country Club and had a great tournament in which Viktor Hovland won. Still, on Sunday, a long list of the greatest players, Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick, Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, and Brian Harman, could have won the tournament. The same year before, held at Wilmington Country Club, Patrick Cantlay won again; he had won the year before at Caves Valley, and Patrick Cantlay won on both courses. In 2020, Olympia Fields held the BMW, and Jon Rahm beat Dustin Johnson in a playoff. The great thing about BMW is that they find a great course each year to play. In 2019, they went to Medinah, the site of the U.S. Opens, the PGA Championships, and the Ryder Cup. In 2018, they went to Aronimink, a course outside of Philadelphia, where they saw a PGA Championship play. The event has also been to Crooked Stick and Cherry Hills, which held a major championship. The point is that there have been a lot of great courses that have hosted the BMW Championship.
This week, the PGA Tour returns to Castle Pines Golf Club, one of those incredible gems. The course is about 45 minutes south of Denver. As many remember, it was the home of The International, a Stableford event between 1986 and 2006. Of those who were champions, eleven of them won a major championship. The cream of the time, players like Phil Mickelson, Greg Norman, Vijay Singh, Jose Maria Olazabal, Lee Janzen, Retief Goosen, and Ernie Els all won at Castle Pines.
The course is considered the modern-day Augusta National. It has an elite membership that does everything right, no matter how much it costs. The course has the Rocky Mountains as its backdrop, which meanders through tall pine trees, making it look like you’re driving down Park Avenue in New York through its majestic skyscrapers. Players will have to drive it long and straight and be able to hit crisp iron shots to very undulating greens. Putting is always a key; you can only make a lot of birdies with some decent putting. Patience is a virtue; Colorado’s weather in August is volatile, especially in the afternoon. Thunder is to be expected and comes more time than the club would like. In the 21 years that the International was played, the lighting record for this tournament was perfect, with at least one delay during the week of every International.
Judging yardage is critical; hitting the right club is always a challenge. A 230-yard shot to the ninth green at Castle Pines is a bit of an adventure compared to a 230-yard shot at, say, the ninth hole at TPC Southwind. With the high altitude, a 230-yard shot could be an 8-iron at Castle Pines, while the same shot at TPC Southwind could be a six or five-iron.
Even though Castle Pines held 21 PGA Tour events on it, we need more data since the tournament used the Stableford system. The format made it play differently than it will play this week. So, with very little data to base our conclusions, it’s a guessing contest to match a player’s game with the course. The things to watch for are accuracy, Which will be the key to winning at Castle Pines, not only in driving accuracy but also in precious iron play into the greens. This course demands a great shotmaker, and when you miss a green, you will have to show the skill of handling both sand play and pitch shots from harsh conditions around the green. A poor putter won’t cut it on this course if that isn’t enough. The greens have a lot of undulations and mounds; the greens aren’t big, averaging 5,600 square feet, so good lag putting is required along with the nerves to make most of those nasty five and six-footers. Now, weather will play an important role; rain will soften it up and make the course play much more manageable.

So this is based on the most important stats for Castle Pines, based on what I feel is essential based on what happened during the 21 years the course held the International and all the changes made since. Weather plays a factor in scoring, and the prediction is for afternoon thunderstorms between Wednesday and Friday.
The scoring could be low because the course is wet, the temperature is high, and the conditions are soft. But I see very little rain in the forecast, more thunder than heavy patches of rain so that the course will dry out each day. It could be substantial by the weekend, and the greens very quickly. But there has been some rain leading up to this week, so expect the rough to be even harder to manage.
It’s crucial to keep it in the fairway and drive it far. I use a stat that is a bit old and not used much, but I feel it is essential to Total Driving, which adds up the ranks of Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy to create a total rank. This will determine which players will hit it long and straight, two items very important for the week.
Our second category is Greens in Regulation, the number of greens hit from the fairway. To score well in this course, hitting greens is critical.
Our third category is Strokes Gained Around the Green. This category combines all skills in getting up and down from the short grass and the bunkers around the greens, which have close to 50 of them.
Our last category is Strokes Gained Putting. This is a great way to determine a player’s performance on the greens since putting is vital to winning this week at Castle Pines.
So, as we can see, the player who plays well at Castle Pines drives it far and straight, hits many greens, and makes his share of putts.

*Total Driving: The total rank is calculated by adding up the Driving Distance and Accuracy scores. This rank will determine which players hit it long and straight, two very important items for the week.

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

*Strokes Gained Around the Green: This combines all skills in getting it up and down from the short grass and the bunkers around the greens.

*Strokes Gained Putting: This is a great way to determine a player’s overall performance 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 50 players from this year’s field with stats from 2024:

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