Truist Championship Key Fantasy Stats

Truist Championship

May 8th – 11th, 2025

The Philadelphia Cricket Club (Wissahickon Course)

Philadelphia Pa.

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,119

Purse: $20 million

with $3,600,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Rory McIlroy

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

One of the great things about the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open is that they travel and play the great gems of golf. However, in the last couple of years, the same can be said about the PGA Tour. They have gone to gems like Medinah C.C., Olympia Fields, Caves Valley, Wilmington Country Club, and Castle Pines, to name a few. This week, they are going to the Philadelphia Cricket Club, one of the rarest gems in golf, which not many people know about. Designed by A.W. Tillinghast, considered the best golf course architect in the Golden Era of golf. Tillinghast had his hands on building some of the greatest courses built 100 years ago. Quaker Ridge, Baltusrol, Bethpage Black, San Francisco Golf Club, and Winged Foot. He was one of golf’s most prolific builders of courses, with more than 265 different courses. He also helped others; one of the best courses that Tillinghast consulted on was Pine Valley Golf Club, which is considered one of the best courses ever built.

One of the best of his courses was one that most golfers aren’t familiar with, the Wissahickon course at Philadelphia Cricket Club. The club is the oldest country club in America. It was founded in 1854 by a group of men from England to play cricket. In 1895, they built a nine-hole course, which grew to 18 holes in 1897. The course held the 1987 and 1910 U.S. Open, and in both of them, A.W. Tillinghast was a competitor, finishing 25th in 1910. Tillinghast had a love for the Philadelphia area and was a member. In 2015, the club sold the course and realized the problem of not owning its property. So in 1920, the club commissioned one of their members, Tillinghast, to help them find a new home. Tillinghast found a piece of land 6 miles away in Flourtown, PA, and had Tillinghast design and build the new course. Opened in 1922, the Wissahickon course is one of the few remaining courses designed by Tillinghast that has had minimal changes over the past 80 years. Tillinghast loved the course and once lived in a home on the course. He also lived in Beverly Hills, but Tillinghast fell victim to the great depression, and a series of failed investments left him bankrupt, forcing him to live his final years with his daughter in Toledo, Ohio. He died in 1942, and rumor was that some of his ashes had been returned and spread into the river that crosses the 18th hole at the Wissahickon course.

What made the Wissahickon Course so good was the great routing of the course, which had no blind shots. Each fairway is a challenge to hit as all of them are guarded by bunkers, making it a challenge to get the ball onto the fairway. There are a total of 118 bunkers guarding the fairways and greens, each of which is a challenge to get out of. The greens are also hard to hit; they are just a notch under 5,800 square feet and guarded by 60 bunkers. The dramatic greenside bunkering is just the start, as the greens are undulating, and you have to be in the right place to make putts. But by 2010, the course had lost a lot of its teeth. With the heavily overgrown trees, along with bunkers that were allowed to become grass bunkers. A big example of the course changing over the years was the par 5, 7th hole (Hole 15 this week). When built, Tillinghast put a great hazard of bunkers and waste area in the mid-fairway. At the 14th hole (hole 7 this week), he had a cluster of nine bunkers, and over time, both of these hazards were covered with grass. So, in 2012, the club hired Keith Foster to restore the course to its 1922 opening. According to PGA Tour.Com, the layout’s original strategic width had been lost to narrow holes threaded through dense overhanging tree corridors. An aging irrigation system needed replacement. Thick, dense, rough, not tightly mowed short grass surrounded the putting surfaces, such that greenside recovery was reduced to a lob wedge rather than allowing players to pitch, bump, or put back to the hole. The restoration entailed extensive tree management, a complete rebuild of all greens, enhanced drainage, more consistently manageable bentgrass on tees and fairways, and most of all, meticulous attention to Tillinghast’s original scheme for bunkering. Instead of simply playing golf down the middle, golfers now had to tack their way around the offset placement of hazards.

On paper, the course is not brutally long, at just 7,119 yards. But with only two par 5s and four tough par 3s, the key to playing well is hitting fairways and greens and being able to make putts. Scrambling is going to be important, and players who are best from bunkers have an advantage. The par 4s are very fair, with only three over 450 yards. One of the big problems with holding a tournament on the course was the clubhouse area. There was no room for bleachers and hospitality suites, so the PGA Tour created a course rerouting. For this week, the 8th hole is the first, and move to another short par four on the 9th. Then they’ll play 10 through 18 before moving to 1 and 2. The par-3 3rd, measuring only 122 yards, will be their 14th hole. Then they’ll take on the Great Hazard for an exciting risk-reward par-5 7th hole. The final three holes—the 215-yard, par-3 5th, 498-yard, par-4 6th and 517-yard, par 4 4th will end the routing.

It will be a new adventure for the 72 players in the field. The Wissahickon Course isn’t a spot that most of the pros have played. According to the club, not one player came out to play the course, so everyone was in the same boat and had no course experience.
Adding to the problem is the fact that there will be rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, which means players won’t be able to learn about the course, so yes, they will be flying blind.
The rain extends to Thursday and Friday, with mostly cloudy skies over the weekend. So this is the one week that everyone will be at the same disadvantage. Historically, when a new course comes to the PGA Tour, the winner is someone you least expect to win.

Since we have no data on which stats to base our conclusions for our four categories, we will take an educated guess on which stats are needed to succeed this week at the Philadelphia Cricket Club. The first will be accuracy and length of the tee. Will the course put any fear in the players ‘ minds off the tee? They will have an advantage if players can hit it far and straight. Driving it on the Wissahickon Course will be much like it was for players at Quail Hollow in past years. So, our first category is Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green.
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 who hit it in the fairway. Just like it is at Augusta National, getting it close to the pin will have an advantage. But just like the Masters, hitting greens is a chore, but getting them close to the pin and having the right putt is another battle on good iron play. So that is why Proximity to Hole is our second category. It will be essential to get it close this week and have the best birdie tries.
Of course, when you miss a green, you will have to scramble to make your par. All 18 greens are well guarded with 60 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 an average size of 5,800 square feet, but all of them are very well undulated, so they will be tricky in a different way. So, good putters will have a fun week. 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 the Philadelphia Cricket Club. I don’t see any stat better to end this stat look with.

*Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green: This measure looks at the combination of length off the tee and accuracy, then gets the ball on the green to determine who is best at all of these items.

*Proximity to Hole: Those that hit the fairway and hit it 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 to determine a player’s overall performance on the greens. The length of the putt, the percentage the player should make the putt, and the stroke figure are calculated.

70 of the 72 players from this year’s field have stats from 2025.

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