By Andy Lack

Greetings, and welcome to a brand new 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: The Country Club at Brookline
• Location: Brookline, Massachusetts
• Designer: Willie Campbell (1895), William Flynn (1927) with a Rees Jones restoration, & a Gil Hanse restoration
• Length: Par 70 (7,264 yards)
• Hazards: Water comes into play on four holes
• Fairways: Bent-grass
• Rough: Kentucky Blue-grass, Perennial Rye-grass, and Poa Annua
• Greens: Poa Annua, measuring 4,388 square feet on average

 

The Country Club at Brookline is steeped in tradition as one of the founding charter clubs of the USGA, along with Shinnecock Hills, Chicago Golf Club, Newport Country Club, and St. Andrews. The Country Club has a long history of hosting championships. This will be its fourth U.S. Open. It has hosted the U.S. Amateur six times, as well as the Ryder Cup in 1999. Yet this is the first time we will be getting a glimpse of the course since the 2013 U.S. Amateur, which was won by Matthew Fitzpatrick. Corey Conners, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and Bryson DeChambeau were amongst other notables who made it to the match play stage in 2013. Before we get to the actual course and what players it should favor, let’s backtrack and set the stage for this historic week.

Brookline was truly one of the first American country clubs. It was founded back in the 1880s, but as a horseback riding and shooting club. It’s first golf course was designed in 1895 by Willie Campbell, which was originally only six holes. Over the next two decades, the course was lengthened and expanded. By the 1913 U.S. Open, it had a full 18 holes and was site of arguably the most famous major championship in golf history. Amateur Francis Ouimet beat Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff. Along with Bobby Jones, Jerome Travers, Charles Evans, and John Goodman, Ouimet remains one of only five amateurs to ever win this prestigious title. Ouimet’s historic victory led to an even greater boom in American golf.

The course was expanded to 27 holes in 1927, when William Flynn added the Primrose nine. Flynn was one of the most important and iconic architects of his time, as he has also played a hand in the design of Shinnecock Hills, Cherry Hills, Kittansett, and a number of Golden Age courses in the greater Philadelphia area. Ultimately, Brookline has been touched by a number of different architects, and the course has changed a great deal over time, while still never compromising its architectural integrity.

Rees Jones did some restorative work in the 1980s, bringing back its aesthetic features, but he did not spend much time removing trees or expanding greens. In a way, Brookline was really where the entire restoration movement began. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw made some small changes after the 1989 Ryder Cup, but it was not until Gil Hanse entered the equation in 1989 where the course we see today really took shape. Hanse has been gradually woking on Brookline for over a decade. He wasn’t brought on to make wholesale architectural changes, but rather tasked with what he does best: allowing a classical golf course to stand up to modern technology while still sustaining the original architect’s vision.

Routing 

Let’s quickly run through the routing, as the course we will see next week is not the one that is rated by Golf Digest, or that members see every day. The members course is the Clyde/Squirrel, but the U.S. Open gets played on what is called the composite course, as it also consists of holes from the Primrose nine. This year’s composite course will be different from the one we saw at the 1989 U.S. Open. Essentially, the fourth, eighth, and ninth holes are skipped on the Clyde/Squirrel, and replaced by the first, second, and eighth holes from the Primrose. Competitors will play the first three holes on Clyde/Squirrel, and then skip the fourth, which is where we see the first Primrose hole, number nine. Then we go back to the original routing, before we get to eleven, a short par three which will be featured in the composite course for the first time. Then players will travel to Primrose eight, which is a big and dramatic par five, which will bring them right back to 15 tee of the Clyde/Squirrel, where the course concludes with the original routing.

Brookline will punch players in the mouth early, as the course opens with a 488 yard par four, a 215 yard par three, a 499 yard par four, and a 493 yard par four. The first time that players get a chance to breathe is on the drivable par four fifth, one of the weaker holes on the property, in my opinion. Expect nearly all players in the field to go for the green on five. There isn’t much benefit in laying back.

The back nine kicks off with a bang as well, as the 10th hole would be my pick to play as the hardest hole of the championship. It’s a 499 yard par four with a narrow driving corridor and a perched, elevated green. The 12th hole looks almost as brutal: A 473 yard par four with the smallest green on the course. The 13th hole features a completely blind tee shot. 14 is an absolutely awesome long par five. If players do not drive the ball in the fairway, they will not be able to reach the second tier where the green is. We’ll be getting to watch pros have blind, long iron third shots into a par five, which we absolutely never see on Tour. If that’s not enough, it’s got a really cool punch-bowl inspired green. While the other par five (number eight) will definitely play easier, neither of these par fives are birdie holes. I wouldn’t be shocked if both holes played right around even par. The 14th might play over par. What’s cool about these par fives is that players must hit the fairway to have a good chance at birdie. The eighth hole has a massive false front, where balls that do not make it to the second tier will roll 50 yards back to the player’s feet.

The 11th hole is going to be really fun too. It’s barely a full shot for professionals, but players who do not hit the microscopic target will be faced with an incredibly challenging up and down from one of the surrounding bunkers. Long is absolutely dead too. The 17th is a really interesting hole architecturally. Players may attempt to cut the corner of the dogleg and get up close to the green. For the second major championship in a row, we will get a short par four 17th. The green here is a double plateau, and the top tier is only 675 square feet.

As one can probably gather by now, the defining feature of Brookline is its small greens. They are the second smallest set of major championship greens to only Pebble Beach, and they have far more undulation to them than Pebble. Hanse did expand them by about 10-20%, but only so the USGA could access more hole locations.

Brookline has an extremely rustic feel to it. The course looks old. There’s still a wide array of grasses, it’s rugged, but that what makes it beautiful. Rock outcroppings and chocolate drop mounds perfectly color its New England aesthetic. Players will be faced with uneven lies, elevation changes, and blind shots on every turn. It’s quirky and claustrophobic. Only three holes on the property run in a straight line from tee to green, a far cry from what we saw last year at Torrey Pines.

Finally, here’s what we need to remember about USGA setups. There has always been a traditional U.S. Open setup characterized by narrow fairways and extremely thick rough. It’s the one major most concerned with execution. The USGA tried something different between 2015-2018 with a Chambers Bay, Erin Hills, and Shinnecock. All three courses featured wide fairways and incredibly firm greens. Players hated it, and the USGA responded over the last four years by returning to its roots. Ultimately, set-up becomes more influential than architecture at U.S. Opens. I’ve even heard rumblings that they will narrowing the fairways at Los Angeles Country Club next year. The Country Club will not play like the Country Club, it will play like a U.S. Open. Long and straight is the name of the game. With that in mind, let’s run through some U.S. Open trends.

Trends 

Dave Tindall puts out a really incredible trends article for every major. Usually I’m not a huge trends guy, but here are a few that I still wanted to highlight.

• Every single one of the last ten winners of the U.S. Open was ranked inside the Top-30 in the Official World Golf Rankings. The U.S. Open does a better job than any other tournament on the planet in weeding out the best players from the worst players, so it should not come as a surprise that it is won nearly every year by an elite. I would argue that the U.S. Open is the hardest major to win for a mid-tier player.
• Seven of the last 10 winners have been American. All of the last 10 winners were between the ages of 21 and 35. Sorry, DJ.
• All of the last 10 winners have posted a previous Top-25 in a U.S. Open. This makes a ton sense, as we want to find players that have at least had some success before on USGA setups. It’s a good week for the event history truthers. Each of the last nine winners have also played in at least 3 U.S. Opens. 
• This one also makes a ton of sense. Eight of the last 10 winners have posted a Top-10 in at least one of their previous two majors. 
• As is always the case, it’s essential to be coming in with good form. Seven of the last 10 winners have posted a Top-15 in one or both of their previous two starts. 
• Seven of the last 10 winners did not actually play the week directly prior to the U.S. Open. Toronto to Brookline is nothing, but I’m not sure how I feel about those competing in London on the LIV tour this week.

 

Without further ado, let’s dig into what I’m looking for this week.

 

Stats 

• Off the Tee 
  • The way that the USGA sets up these courses now, driving the ball long and straight is absolutely essential. Our last five champions (Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Gary Woodland, Brooks Koepka, and Dustin Johnson) have all been able to check this critical box. Eight of the last 10 U.S. Open champions have been Top-15 in driving distance. The longest players in the field this week are Bryson DeChambeau, Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, Jon Rahm, Cameron Young, Luke List, Min Woo Lee, Kurt Kitayama, Callum Tarren, and Justin Thomas. 
  • Now, Brookline is a much shorter course than a typical U.S. Open venue. It measures a full 500 yards shorter than last year’s venue, Torrey Pines. Accuracy off the tee is also important at U.S. Opens, as eight of the last 10 winners were Top-30 in driving accuracy, and I believe it will be especially crucial at Brookline. The most accurate drivers in the field this week are Brian Stuard, Abraham Ancer, Satoshi Kodaira, Joel Dahmen, Billy Horschel, Joohyung Kim, Daniel Berger, Collin Morikawa, Si Woo Kim, and Brian Harman. 
  • So which is more important, distance or accuracy? At the last two U.S. Open venues, Torrey Pines and Winged Foot, the answer was simple: distance. Brookline requires a more nuanced answer. Gil Hanse also did the restoration for Winged Foot, and he has been very open about the fact that Bryson’s bomb and gauge strategy was not something he thought would be possible when working on that course. He kept this in mind when putting the final touches on Brookline, and acknowledged that he completely underestimated the success of such an aggressive strategy. The reason why I don’t believe that Brookline can be bomb and gauged is because the rough isn’t consistent. At Winged Foot, the rough five yards off the fairway was completely the same as the rough 20 yards off the fairway. Yet the rough 20 yards off the fairway at Brookline is fescue, so players cannot just wail off the tee aimlessly. The other aspect to consider is that Winged Foot had huge greens that were largely open in front. Many of them also sloped from back to front, making it extremely easy to hack a wedge out of the rough and run it up. Brookline, on the other hand, has absolutely microscopic greens and a lot of them are guarded in front by bunkers or rough, so its a lot harder to bounce balls onto them. Thus, an emphasis is suddenly placed on playing from the fairway. There are a few holes where if you are not in the fairway, it will be extremely hard to make par. From everything I’ve heard, this rough is going to be extremely thick. We’re talking double fertilizer type stuff. By the way, these fairways are basically like ribbons, so even the most accurate drivers of the ball will miss on occasion. Worst case scenario is short and in the rough. That’s a recipe for an early exit this week. Overall, I feel that distance and accuracy are of near equal importance this week. I believe that you need to be borderline dominant off the tee to win on a current USGA set-up. While length is not the defining feature of Brookline like a Torrey Pines or Erin Hills, it’s far from a short course. Moral of the story, players who are not great total drivers of the ball are easy cross offs for me. The best long-term total drivers in this field are Jon Rahm, Cameron Young, Bryson DeChambeau, Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, Luke List, Corey Conners, Will Zalatoris, Sungjae Im, and Matthew Fitzpatrick. 

 

• Approach
  • I know I harp on this a lot, but we can’t just look at the overall scorecard yardage and call a course short or long. It’s imperative to run through the holes to figure out where players will be hitting their approach shots from. Southern Hills is a longer golf course than Brookline, but players are going to be faced with a far greater percentage of long iron approaches at Brookline. On at least 50% of the holes, there’s a very good chance that players will have an approach shot of over 200 yards. Seven par fours measure over 450 yards, and four of them measure over 485 yards. If there’s a proximity bucket to look at, it’s 200 yards plus. The best long-term players in this field from 200 yards plus are Bryson DeChambeau, Will Zalatoris, Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Viktor Hovland, Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, Gary Woodland, Sebastian Munoz, and Dustin Johnson. 
  • Despite this being one of the shorter courses on the U.S. Open rotation with a defining feature that is not length, USGA modern setups will always test long iron play. These greens are absolutely tiny, and I am expecting an extremely low greens in regulation percentage this week, which almost leads me more down the short game round. I still have a pretty hefty weight on overall iron play, with a specific emphasis on proximity from 200 yards plus.

 

• Around the Green 
  • Matt Fitzpatrick spoke about how the key to his U.S. Amateur victory here in 2013 was short game. “Made it on short game. I hit it good off the tee, but I felt like I struggled into the green. But I think my short game was probably the best of my life today.”  My guess is that Brookline will produce the lowest greens in regulation percentage of the season and even the best iron players in the world will struggle to find the putting surface. The best long term players in this field around the greens are Talor Gooch, Sungjae Im, Kevin Na, Harold Varner III, Cameron Smith, Jordan Spieth, Tyrrell Hatton, Billy Horschel, Louis Oosthuizen, and Justin Thomas. 
  • The shots that players will tasked with at Brookline are far different however from those at Southern Hills and Augusta National. The name of the game at the first two major championship of the year were “shaved” areas. Brookline still features some shaved areas, but there will be a lot more shots out of thick rough. The best players around the green on courses with thick rough are Talor Gooch, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Reed, Tony Finau, Kevin Na, Brian Stuard, Webb Simpson, Matt Fitzpatrick, Cameron Smith, and Jordan Spieth. 

 

• Putting 
  • Brookline is also very different than Augusta National and Southern Hills in the sense that its greens rarely feature much pocketing. These greens are just flat out small, and they tend to tilt in the opposite direction of the way that the hole is bending. The greens feature a pure “East Coast” Poa, which is far different from the splotchy Poa we are used to at Pebble Beach, Riviera, and Torrey Pines. “East Coast” Poa, especially when not blended with Bent, is far more uncommon on the PGA Tour, so I chose to look more closely at putting simply on fast greens. I would imagine that these are running close to 13 on the stimp-meter, and there is enough undulation that even short putts will certainly have some break. The best long-term putters in this field on fast greens are Mackenzie Hughes, Alex Noren, Beau Hossler, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Sam Burns, Matt Fitzpatrick, Seamus Power, Billy Horschel, and Adam Scott. 
  • Players have said this over and over again, but the U.S. Open will be won by the player that makes the most five to ten footers for par. The best long-term players in this field from five to ten feet are Lucas Herbert, Beau Hossler, Tyrrell Hatton, Cameron Smith, Matthew NeSmith, Billy Horschel, Bryson DeChambeau, Mackenzie Hughes, Marc Leishman, and Max Homa. 

 

• Scoring Stats 
  • Brookline is a golf course that is going to prohibit scoring. It’s a golf course where if players make a mistake, they will be really forced to play defensively and take their medicine. It is not a golf course that is going to enable a lot of birdies. The range of possible outcomes will be somewhat concentrated this week. For this reason, identifying players that can mitigate disaster will be crucial. The best long-term players in this field in bogey avoidance are Shane Lowry, Sungjae Im, Matt Fitzpatrick, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Seamus Power, Corey Conners, Justin Thomas, and Mito Pereira. 
  • As is always the case with U.S. Open we also want to identify players that raise their baseline in difficult scoring conditions. The best long term players in this field in difficult scoring conditions are Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Will Zalatoris, Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele, Louis Oosthuizen, and Cameron Smith. 

 

• Comp Courses 
  • To be honest, I don’t see a whole lot of value in comparing this course to anything other than previous USGA set-ups. As previously mentioned, when it comes to U.S. Opens, set-up always outweighs architecture. TPC Boston, which is another Gil Hanse course in the greater Boston area is the obvious comparison, Sure, there are some aesthetic similarities there with the rugged feel and chocolate drop mounds, but Dustin Johnson also shot 30-under par there. It was the site of our most recent 59, and 10 under par didn’t even crack the Top-25.
  • The next comparison that many will make is Winged Foot, which I also think is short-sighted. The topography at Brookline is incredibly different, as is the strategy that must be deployed. Winged Foot’s greens are massive with open front where there is a runway to bounce the ball on. Torrey Pines does not provide enough penalty for wayward driving either. Instead, the three U.S. Open venues that I will primarily be looking at are Merion, Pebble Beach, and The Olympic Club.
  • Merion is an awesome comp. It’s even shorter than Brookline, but zero players finished the tournament under par. Distance is deemed irrelevant by interesting architecture, and this was a U.S. Open that produced a leaderboard with the likes of Justin Rose, Jason Dufner, Billy Horschel, Luke Donald, and Steve Stricker. Phil Mickelson was also able to thrive on a course where creativity is key. Phil is often labeled a bomber, but I’ve always thought of him as someone whose been at his best on quirky courses with small and difficult green complexes because of his short game creatively. The best players in this field at Merion were Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson, Billy Horschel, Hideki Matsuyama, Webb Simpson, Kevin Chappell, Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, and Scott Stallings. 
  • Pebble Beach, host of the 2019 U.S. Open, is another shorter venue with microscopic greens. My guess is that Brookline plays a bit harder than Pebble, but I would not be shocked to see a similar leaderboard. The best players in this field at U.S. Opens hosted at Pebble Beach have been Gary Woodland, Brooks Koepka, Justin Rose, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, and Matt Fitzpatrick. 
  • The Olympic Club, host of the 2012 U.S. Open, checks many of the same boxes. Both Brookline and Olympic have reverse camber fairways (the hole is moving in one direction, but the fairway is sloping in the other direction), and produced a leaderboard of accurate plodders. The best players in this field at Olympic Club were Webb Simpson, Jim Furyk, Kevin Chappell, Adam Scott, Martin Kaymer, Justin Rose, Jordan Spieth, Francesco Molinari, Beau Hossler, and Kevin Na. 
  • Finally, Oak Hill, Olympia Fields, Oakmont, and Bethpage certainly share some characteristics with Brookline, both aesthetically, agronomically, and in terms of required skill-set. Bethpage is probably my favorite of those for its small Poa greens that are heavily surrounded by thick rough and complex bunkering. Bethpage has hosted the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens, the 2012 and 2016 Barclays, and the 2019 PGA Championship. The best players in this field at Bethpage Black have been Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Cantlay, Jason Kokrak, Gary Woodland, Shane Lowry, Erik Van Rooyen, Brooks Koepka, Adam Scott, and Patrick Reed. 
  • The only four players in this field to gain strokes at Merion, Pebble Beach, Olympic Club, and Bethpage are Adam Scott, Webb Simpson, Sergio Garcia, and Justin Rose. 

 

Model Inputs 

• Off the Tee (24%)
  • Strokes Gained Off the Tee (12%)
  • Fairways Gained (6%)
  • Driving Distance (6%)
• Approach (25%)
  • Strokes Gained Approach (18%)
  • Long-term Proximity 200 yards plus (7%)
• Around the Green (17%)
  • Strokes Gained Around the Green (12%)
  • Strokes Gained Around the Green on Courses with Thick Rough (5%)
• Putting (11%)
  • Strokes Gained Putting on Fast Greens (6%)
  • Long-term Putting from 5-10 Feet (5%)
• Scoring Stats (13%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Difficult Scoring Conditions (8%)
  • Bogey Avoidance (5%)
• Comp Courses (10%)
  • Merion (4%)
  • Pebble Beach (U.S. Open) (2%)
  • Olympic Club (2%)
  • Bethpage Black (2%)

 

Top 20 

1. Rory McIlroy
2. Justin Thomas
3. Scottie Scheffler
4. Sungjae Im
5. Jon Rahm
6. Patrick Cantlay
7. Xander Schauffele
8. Cameron Young
9. Daniel Berger
10. Sam Burns
11. Shane Lowry
12. Matt Fitzpatrick
13. Viktor Hovland
14. Cameron Smith
15. Louis Oosthuizen
16. Jordan Spieth
17. Will Zalatoris
18. Hideki Matsuyama
19. Joaquin Niemann
20. Talor Gooch

 

Most over-valued based on price: Dustin Johnson (28th), Collin Morikawa (36th), Billy Horschel (35th), Abraham Ancer (53rd), Brooks Koepka (59th)

Most under-valued based on price: Sungjae Im (4th), Cameron Young (8th), Sam Burns (10th), Louis Oosthuizen (15th), Talor Gooch (20th), Luke List (29th), Adri Arnaus (30th)

Best of luck this week – AL