By Andy Lack

Greetings, and welcome to a weekly feature on RickRunGood.com. My name is Andy Lack, I host the Inside Golf Podcast, a twice weekly golf betting and DraftKings show, as well as the Scramble with Rick, every Tuesdays and Fridays on the RickRunGood YouTube page and 300 Yards to Unknown Podcast Feed. I am incredibly excited to provide an in-depth course breakdown for each weekly PGA Tour stop. I’ve been able to find my lane by looking at golf courses from a deeper lens, via architecture, agronomy, and so much more. Every single Monday, I will break down absolutely everything you need to know about the weekly PGA Tour venue before you make your bets and DraftKings lineups. So without further ago, let’s dive in!

The Basics 

• Course: St. Andrew’s
• Location: St. Andrew’s, Scotland
• Designer: Old Tom Morris (1895)
• Length: Par 72; 7,313 yards
• Hazards: Water comes into play on two holes
• Fairways: Fescue and Bent-grass
• Rough: Bent-grass, Sweet Vernal Grass, Crested Dogstail 1’65”
• Greens: Fescue (50%), Brown Top Bent-grass (25%), Poa Annua (10%), Other (15%)

 

The 150th Open Championship will be returning the home of the golf, and one of the most iconic and celebrated golf courses on the planet, St. Andrew’s. The Old Course has hosted the Open Championship a record 29 times, most recently in 2015. Here’s how it’s played out the last five times we’ve gone to the Old Course.

• 2015: Zach Johnson (-15) over Marc Leishman, Louis Oosthuizen (-15) (Playoff)
• 2010: Louis Oosthuizen (-16) over Lee Westwood (-9)
• 2005: Tiger Woods (-14) over Collin Montgomerie (-9)
• 2000: Tiger Woods (-19) over Thomas Bjorn, Ernie Els (-11)
• 1995: John Daly (-6) over Constantino Rocca (-6) (Playoff)

 

While romantic in all aspects, St. Andrew’s is characterized by massive fairways, large, undulating greens, and its exposure to swirling winds. If forced to boil it down, the Old Course is really all about placement. Just because there is tons of room off the tee, that doesn’t necessarily mean that players can just bomb away aimlessly. It’s imperative to hit the ball in the right spots, and players will be faced with what I would describe as “anti-driving range shots.” There are loads of awkward little 60 yard wedge shots and 100 foot putts. Scrambling, lag putting, a general sense of creativity inside 100 yards will be absolutely essential this week. Here are a few quotes about St. Andrew’s that really stood out to me:

Danny Willett: “I believe it suits a fader. You kind of hit it middle of the golf course and kind of fade it back down your fairway helps around here. Ball flight control, you can hit different shots and kind of cut it against the wind or draw it against it to kind of make your distance play a little bit easier.”

Graeme McDowell: “The bunkers are starting to become, a lot of them are not in play anymore, when you see the type of power that these guys are kind of using and putting on the golf ball, you start to see an old test like this one and start wondering what they can do with it to keep it up to modern times. The bunkers are just not really in play enough. The greens are its protection, and unfortunately driving the ball is too easy this week. I’m hitting driver nearly 14, 15 times out there. There’s just no deterrent out there to keep driver in the bag.”

McDowell touches on the predominant narrative that will be on everyone’s mind this week: How will St. Andrew’s stand up to modern technology? Six of the last seven winners at St. Andrew’s have shot 14-under or par or better and not all of those tournaments even came in benign conditions. Ultimately, it’s too early to make a judgement call on this, but I cannot emphasize enough how much the weather is going to determine how difficult this course plays. The dichotomy between how truly straightforward this course can be in calm conditions versus how challenging it can be in windy conditions is stark. There’s no better example of this than the 2010 Open, where Rory McIlroy shot an opening round 63 in benign conditions in round one, only to follow it up with an 80 the next day when the wind picked up.

Just like any Open Championship, it’s all going to come down to the wind. Last year, many people (including myself) handicapped Royal St. George’s with the assumption that there would be a ton of wind. That did not come to fruition and the course played far differently than we all expected. It’s a fool’s errand to predict the wind this early in the week, but as it stands now, the forecast looks *relatively* benign, thus, much of my breakdown on the course will be based off the presumption that the winds will be mild to moderate.

We’ve seen the Old Course in mild to moderate winds often. There have been occasions at the Alfred Dunhill Links when players threatened 59, and it’s not like the Royal and Ancient isn’t aware of this potential predicament either. Martin Slumbers, the CEO of the R & A, has spoken at length before about the challenge the Old Course has faced in keeping up with modern technology. After a certain point, there’s only so much to be done. The 17th tee is now in a random field right of the 16th fairway, and there are some tees that are over 1,000 yards away from the previous green. Even with these changes, the course hasn’t gotten a whole lot harder. Is it even worth compromising the integrity of the original layout so the winning score can be -7 instead of -15? Many were already debating the challenge of St. Andrew’s, or lack thereof, in 2015. Now fast forward seven years later, and the average driving distance has increased by another eight yards. That may not sound like a lot, but it is. I talked earlier this year about how I’m fairly confident that players would not be able to overpower Southern Hills or the Country Club, but I’m not sure that I can definitively say that with confidence about the Old Course.

Like all major championships, I want to highlight some of the key trends to be aware of before we dive into the stats.

• Nine of the last 10 winners had at least one prior Top-10 in an Open. Louis Oosthuizen in 2010 and Collin Morikawa in 2021 were really the only outliers in terms of not having much Open Championship or links form.
• Across the past 10 winners, each had appeared in 10 Open Championships on average prior to winning. Morikawa on debut, and Spieth (4th appearance) were the outliers. Spieth and Morikawa, however, are both generational talents, which can often overcome experience!
• Like all major championships, it’s very challenging for a non-elite player to win. Nine of the last 10 Open Championship winners have ranked Top-40 in the OWGR. With that being said, compared to the Masters and U.S. Open at least, the Open Championship has lended itself to the occasional surprise winner. In 2010, Louis Oosthuizen was ranked 54th in the World. In 2011, Darren Clarke was ranked 111th. Dating back even further, Stewart Cink in 2009 was a relative long-shot, Todd Hamilton in 2004 was a long-shot, and Ben Curtis in 2003 was a massive long-shot. To contrast what we had at the U.S. Open where only a very, very specific player profile can win, I think we can be a little more liberal taking some chances farther down the board this week. Add in the fact that a weather draw can take out half the field, and suddenly the Open becomes a much easier tournament to win.
• Still, major form is always worth monitoring, and this is something I’ve highlighted in all of the first three majors. Eight of the past 10 Open winners have posted a Top-20 in one of their previous two majors, and every single one of the past 10 winners have posted a win or a runner-up at a major at some point in their career. 
• Strong recent form is absolutely essential as well. With how deep the current talent pool is now, it is seemingly becoming harder and harder to win one of these tournaments if not in absolutely peak form. Eight of the last 10 Open Championship winners had posted a Top-10 in at least one of their previous three starts. Outside of an uncharacteristic 71st at the Scottish Open, Morikawa was in the midst of an excellent season (fourth at the U.S. Open, playoff loss at the Memorial, eighth at the PGA Championship, and seventh at the Heritage in his five prior starts). In 2019, Shane Lowry was coming off a third at the PGA Championship, eighth at the Heritage, and a second at the Canadian Open. Francesco Molinari had just won on the DP World Tour, and he also won earlier that season in a runaway at the Quicken Loans National. Even Zach Johnson was coming off a T2 at the John Deere and a sixth at the Travelers in his two prior starts. Jordan Spieth had just won the Travelers, Phil Mickelson had won the week before, almost won the U.S. Open, and won in Phoenix. Rory was playing great, Stenson had just won, the list goes on! Here’s one from the great Steve Bamford: 15 of the last 21 Open Champions (71%) had won a tournament already that season! 
• Last one: eight of the last 10 Open winners played the week before, which is another trend we have talked about in the previous three majors. It appears to be increasingly popular for players to tee it up the week before a major, and playing well in that prior start has proven to be important. This has culminated in the Scottish Open having one of the best fields of the season. It’s hard to call these events a tune-up or a scrimmage anymore, as history has shown us the importance of entering majors in peak ball-striking form.

Let’s dive into the stats that we should be looking for this week.

 

Stats 

• Off the Tee 
  • The Old Course has some of the widest fairways out of any course on the planet. Still, it’s imperative to attack holes from the correct angle. I spoke earlier this year about how Southern Hills and the Country Club weren’t necessarily driver heavy courses. I can’t say the same thing about St. Andrew’s. In theory, you could hit driver on 16 holes at St. Andrew’s.
  • Every single one of the past four champions at the Old Course have hit over 73% of their fairways. Zach Johnson and Louis Oosthuizen both hit 86% of their fairways!
  • With how long and forgiving the modern driver is, there is a realistic possibility (depending on wind), that six of the par fours at St. Andrew’s could be drivable. I’m hesitant to suggest that St. Andrew’s can be bomb and gauged aimlessly, as it still features very nuanced ground contours, but it’s also hard to argue that distance won’t be a huge advantage here. The longest players in this field off the tee are Bryson DeChambeau, Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, Jon Rahm, Cameron Young, Min Woo Lee, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Will Zalatoris, and Keith Mitchell. 
  • A powerful driver is still not the only way to find success at St. Andrew’s (just look at Zach Johnson), but you’d better be awesome inside 125 yards. There are undoubtedly par fours that will be driver – putter holes for the longest players, so shorter players will need to be dialed with their wedges to keep up.

 

• Approach
  • As far as the actual layout is concerned, St. Andrew’s is incredibly unique in the sense that it only has two par fives and two par threes, to go along with 14 (!) par fours. Of those 14 par fours, only five of them measure over 450 yards. There are nearly double the amount of par fours under 400 yards as there are over 450 yards. I went hole by hole to try and figure out where players would be hitting their approach shots from, which is a much more challenging exercise on a wind exposed course like St. Andrew’s. I still believe that players will have a minimum of nine (50%) approach shots under 125 yards. There are a lot of options off the tee, so this will vary from player to player, but I feel pretty comfortable suggesting that the proximity bucket we should be looking at is 75-125 yards. The best long-term players from 75-125 yards in this field are Russell Henley, Sam Burns, Max Homa, Justin Thomas, Cameron Smith, Tommy Fleetwood, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Richard Bland, and Victor Perez. 
  • Proximity buckets are a flawed stat to begin with, and they are completely useless in a small sample size, but hopefully we can identify players that are really strong over a large sample size on those awkward little wedge shots. What really stood out to me is how few legitimate middle to long iron shots players will have this week. Obviously iron play is huge every single week, but I do believe that if there is any course where being a really solid middle to long iron player is de-valued at least somewhat, it’s St. Andrew’s. So for me, I’m actually a lot lower than I usually am on just pure approach metrics. In a vacuum, the Old Course is really about positioning off the tee, creativity inside 125 yards, scrambling and lag putting. 

 

• Around the Green 
  • The Old Course has 112 bunkers and most of them are quite deep. On most American courses, bunkers are no longer hazards, especially for professionals, but that is not the case at St. Andrew’s. Driving it in a bunker at St. Andrew’s is a real penalty. If you trickle into certain pot bunkers, you are absolutely dead, which in my opinion, is how golf was intended to be played! In America, players will often say to their ball in the air, “Get in the bunker!” which is hilarious to me, because bunkers are supposed to be hazards! We luckily return to this antiquated concept at the Open for one week every year. Tom Doak also spoke about the difference between American and Scottish bunkering. In America, most architects are too focused on making bunkers visual objects, whereas in Scotland, they aren’t even in visual scale.
  • The bunkers at St. Andrew’s are small, but they actually play a lot longer larger because of the surrounding ground contours. The best long-term bunker players in this field have been Lucas Herbert, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Patrick Reed, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Fitzpatrick, Talor Gooch, Shane Lowry, and Ian Poulter. 

 

• Putting 
  • Tiger Woods has spoken before about how lag putting is one of the biggest keys to success at the Old Course. Lag putting is an extremely tricky skill to actually measure statistically. However, three putt avoidance is likely the best measure of lag putting we have. The best long-term players in three putt avoidance have been Tyrrell Hatton, Talor Gooch, Cameron Smith, Xander Schauffele, Zach Johnson, Patrick Reed, Keegan Bradley, Justin Thomas, Jason Kokrak, and Lucas Herbert. 
  • It will also be important to identify players that raise their baseline on slower greens. There will be an extremely high greens in regulation percentage at St. Andrew’s this week, and players can also putt from off the green as well. The best long-term putters in this field on moderate to slow greens have been Tyrrell Hatton, Patrick Reed, Matt Fitzpatrick, Webb Simpson, Marc Leishman, Justin Harding, Billy Horschel, Sam Burns, Cameron Smith, and Tommy Fleetwood. 

 

• Scoring Stats 
  • Dave Tindall does a great job in his article of highlighting how scrambling is such an essential stat at the Old Course. Seven of the last eight Open winners at St. Andrew’s have ranked inside the top-7 in scrambling. Last time we went to St. Andrew’s, the three best scramblers on the week finished fourth, second, and first. In 2010, three of the top-five in scrambling finished in the top-six on the leaderboard, and Tiger was in the top-10 in scrambling in both his 2005 and 2000 victories.
  • This makes sense in theory as well, as St. Andrew’s has a lot of “Can you get up and down from 60 yards?” situations. The reason why scrambling makes more sense to me as a key stat than around the green, is that the Old Course gives you options. On these 60 yard shots, you can putt it, chip it, bring it in high or low, it doesn’t matter. It’s just about finding a way to get the ball in the hole. The best long-term scramblers in this field have been Matt Fitzpatrick, Harris English, Shane Lowry, Cameron Young, J.T. Poston, Keith Mitchell, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Dylan Frittelli, Jordan Spieth, and Seamus Power. 

 

• Comp Courses/Course History 
  • I’ve already heard the Augusta comparison thrown around a bit, and there’s definitely some merit to it. Nine of the last 10 winners at St. Andrew’s had previously posted a top-three in the Masters. Shoutout Dave Tindall again for that one. At an extremely elementary level, why was Zach Johnson able to find success at both places? Well, Augusta and St. Andrew’s are very similar in the sense that even if you do not possess above average distance, you will be rewarded if you are elite from inside 125 yards. Zach Johnson famously won the Masters laying up on every single par five, a strategy that worked because he was incredible at getting up and down from 125 yards in. That same formula can (and will) be applied at St. Andrew’s to an event greater extent, as the Old Course has even more short par fours. Watching the final round from 2015, it was a lot of Zach Johnson getting up and down from 80 yards, 30 yards, 50 yards, etc. Both courses allow you to be creative from those distances as well. ZJ knew when to putt and he knew when to chip. He knew when to take it in high and he knew when to bring it in low.
  • There are still many obvious differences between Augusta and St. Andrew’s. The Old Course has really slow greens, and Augusta has the fastest greens players will see all year. There’s a huge emphasis on par five scoring at Augusta, whereas that statistic is nearly deemed irrelevant at St. Andrew’s. Yet in terms of the expansive fairways that still reward placement if on the correct side of the holes, massive, undulating greens, and rolling ground contours that create uneven lies, you would be hard pressed to find two courses that share such a similar ethos. The best players in this field at Augusta National have been Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, Cameron Smith, Scottie Scheffler  Jordan Spieth, and Will Zalatoris. 
  • The other comp course that will not be as commonly referenced, but has still been compared to Augusta before, is Kapalua, the host of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Kapalua is another course with expansive fairways, big, undulating greens, uneven lies, awkward wedge distances, and even more similar to St. Andrew’s, slow greens! If we look at the players who have been really good at Augusta and Kapalua, there’s unsurprisingly a huge overlap: Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott have all experienced loads of success at both Augusta and Kapalua. Even second tier players like Sungjae Im and Patrick Reed have consistently popped up at both courses. The best players in this field at Kapalua have been Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Joaquin Niemann, Xander Schauffele, Webb Simpson, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, and Cameron Smith. 
  • The only players to rank top-10 in both strokes gained total at Augusta and strokes gained total at Kapalua are Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Cameron Smith, and Jordan Spieth. 
  • Finally, players who competed at St. Andrews in 2004, 2010, or 2015, certainly deserve a bump. Back to the Augusta comparison for a second: Augusta has the number one most predictive course history out of any course on the PGA Tour. It’s why you see Fred Couples finish top-20 in his fifties, Jack Nicklaus win at 46 years old, and Tiger win in 2019 on sheer will power. The reason for this is that a course like Augusta or St. Andrew’s is in the top one percent in terms of nuance. What do I mean by that? Well, both Augusta and St. Andrew’s highly, highly reward course knowledge. Tom Doak has spoken before about how St. Andrew’s is a very complicated golf course in the sense that the hazards aren’t in obvious spots, and most of them cannot be seen off the tee. The first time you play St. Andrew’s, you often look back on a hole and think about how differently you would have played it had you known the full extent of the green and its surrounding bunkers. Anecdotally, everyone seems to talk about how St. Andrew’s is the type of golf course that rewards even more upon your second visit. It can be hard to understand on your first visit, and you don’t really get it until visit number two or three. St. Andrew’s is not a driving range golf course. It’s not a trackman golf course. The types of shots that players will be forced to hit require a lot of creativity and vision.
  • Scanning through the leaderboards the last three times an Open has been held at St. Andrew’s, a couple names popped out to me
    • Tiger Woods has won here twice. He’s still got the course history belt, sorry Louis.
    • Speaking of Louis Oosthuizen, he did win here in 2010 and lost in a playoff in 2015. One would imagine he’s a fairly obvious play for the course history truthers.
    • Lee Westwood finished second in 2010, made the cut in 2015.
    • Paul Casey finished second in 2010, made the cut in 2015.
    • Rickie Fowler and Adam Scott finished top-30 in both 2010 and 2015.
    • Sergio Garcia finished top-15 in both 2010 and 2015.
    • Dustin Johnson, Charl Schwartzel, Matt Kuchar, Kevin Na, Jason Day, Marc Leishman, and Zach Johnson made the cut both years. Johnson won in 2015, Leishman lost in a playoff in 2015. Jason Day finished fourth that year.

 

Model

• Off the Tee (10%)
  • Driving Distance (10%)
• Approach (25%)
  • Strokes Gained Approach (15%)
  • Long-term Proximity 75-100 yards (6%)
  • Long-term Proximity 100-125 yards (4%)
• Around the Green (7%)
  • Sand Saves (7%)
• Putting (19%)
  • Strokes Gained Putting: Moderate to Slow Greens (12%)
  • Three-putt Avoidance (7%)
• Scoring Stats (19%)
  • Scrambling (11%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Moderate to Windy Conditions (8%)
• Comp Courses/Course History (20%)
  • St. Andrew’s (8%)
  • Augusta National (6%)
  • Plantation Course at Kapalua (6%)

Top 20 

1. Justin Thomas
2. Xander Schauffele
3. Cameron Smith
4. Sam Burns
5. Rory McIlroy
6. Jordan Spieth
7. Matt Fitzpatrick
8. Scottie Scheffler
9. Patrick Cantlay
10. Tommy Fleetwood
11. Marc Leishman
12. Shane Lowry
13. Harold Varner III
14. Sungjae Im
15. Jon Rahm
16. Seamus Power
17. Webb Simpson
18. Mito Pereira
19. Max Homa
20. Adam Scott

 

Most over-valued based on price: Jon Rahm (15th; $10,800), Collin Morikawa (34th; $10,300), Will Zalatoris (28th, $9,600), Viktor Hovland (58th, $9,000), Louis Oosthuizen (38th; $8,800), Brooks Koepka (52nd; $8,500), Bryson DeChambeau (92nd; $8,100), Robert MacIntyre (84th; 7,800)

Most under-valued based on price: Sam Burns (4th; $8,900), Marc Leishman (11th; $7,700), Harold Varner (13th; $7,200), Seamus Power (16th; $7,400), Webb Simpson (17th; $7,600), Mito Pereira (18th; $7,300); Gary Woodland (21st; $7,100), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (23rd; $7,300)

Best of luck this week – AL