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: Wilmington Country Club
- Location: Wilmington, Delaware
- Designer: Robert Trent Jones (1959), Keith Foster renovation (2008)
- Length: Par 71; 7,534 yards
- Hazards: Water comes into play on four holes
- Fairways: 007 Bent-grass
- Rough: Tall fescue/Bluegrass 4”
- Greens: Tyee Bentgrass .100″, measuring 8,100 square feet on average
The BMW Championship is the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. It was introduced in 2007, and the field is comprised of the top-70 players in the FedEx Cup standings at the conclusion of the FedEx St. Jude’s Championship. The tournament is a no cut event, and the top-30 in ties in the standings at the end of the week will advance to the Tour Championship at East Lake.
This tournament has been held at a number of different golf courses over the years, often in the Chicago area. Cog Hill, Medinah, Conway Farms, and Olympia Fields are all greater area of Chicago courses that have previously hosted. It’s also moved around to Cherry Hills, Crooked Stick, Aronomink, and Caves Valley over the last couple of years, but this will be our first look at Wilmington Country Club. Running through the former winners, this event is usually won by an elite player, as it is no cut with one of the best fields in golf. Last year, Patrick Cantlay took down Bryson DeChambeau in a playoff, and the prior year, Jon Rahm defeated Dustin Johnson in heroic fashion. Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, and Rory McIlroy have also claimed victory in the last decade. Keegan Bradley was a surprise winner at 140/1, but he remains the real outlier in terms of pre-tournament long-shots. There has not however been a defining through-line with the way the host courses are set-up. Last year, Patrick Cantlay won at 27 under in extremely easy scoring conditions, but the prior year, Jon Rahm only needed four under par to claim victory at the extremely challenging Olympia Fields. It will be interesting to see what direction that tournament organizers go this week, and if there will be any over-correction to the birdie-fest we saw last year at Caves Valley.
As far as the course goes, Wilmington Country Club has never seen professional competition. The club actually has two courses, a North course, and a South Course. The North Course was designed by Dick Wilson, and the South Course was designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. I would imagine that we see more of the South Course given that it measures 7,468 yards, while the North course only tips out to a shade over 6,300 yards. It’s certainly possible that organizers use some composite version of the two, although I would imagine the vast majority of holes will be coming from the South Course. As I write this on Friday evening, my belief is that the routing will be different than the South Course scorecard that can be accessed online. Looking at the course map on the BMW Championship website, the second hole is a par three, although the scorecard has the second as a 428 yard par four. It’s fairly common for tournament golf to feature a different routing than what members play every day. I went through hole by hole of the course map and compared it to the holes on the South Course, and I’m fairly confident that this tournament will be held on some re-routed version of the South Course, with potentially one or two (at most) odd holes from the North Course.
Running through hole by hole of scorecard used for tournament play, I would imagine that we see a more difficult test than last year at Caves Valley. Of the four par threes, three of them measure over 200 yards. The par fours really aren’t that menacing though, as only three of them measure over 450 yards. Those three, however, are behemoths, measuring 490, 496, and 495 yards respectively. The vast majority of the par fours however are in that 390-450 yardage range, and most of the yardage on this course comes from the par fives, which measure 634, 582, and 649 yards on the scorecard. Mapping out the most likely approach distances, I would imagine that similar to what we saw last week at TPC Southwind, a large plurality of approach shots will come from that 125-200 yard range.
Based on everything that I’ve read, Wilmington Country Club very much appears to be our standard tree-lined, parklands, Northeastern Bent-grass course. It’s actually set on a really nice piece of land, and viewers will notice a great deal of elevation changes. There appear to be a lot of downhill tee shots mixed with uphill approach shots to elevated greens. Since we are dealing with Robert Trent Jones, Wilmington Country Club features a TON of bunkers, both green side and also in the fairway. From what I can tell, the greens are rather large and do feature a fair amount of undulation, another Jones staple. While we have zero data on this course, Robert Trent Jones has designed a fair amount of courses for PGA Tour competition that bear a striking resemblance to Wilmington Country Club. My college course and current home course in Los Angeles are both Robert Trent Jones’ as well, so I have a pretty strong understanding of what questions his courses tend to ask, and I believe we can use that to our advantage when handicapping this week.
Robert Trent Jones Deep Dive
I want to start this discussion on Robert Trent Jones by reading a quote online from a course rater on Wilmington Country Club: “The best thing I can say about the Robert Trent Jones layout is that the South Course is simply dull. The architecture style Jones used is more of the same he carried out at so many other courses during his long career. Immense greens with big bunkers dotting the landscape. The issue is simple. That style of architecture is simply a thing of the past. The South succeeds in creating an impenetrable mindless fog bank. The holes blend together to the point where it’s simply Jones following his predictable, formulaic style.” Hang it in the Louvre!
Unfortunately, this is all really well said and accurate. Robert Trent Jones has an extremely homogenous, contrived, visually aesthetic yet strategically hollow way of designing courses. His tracks are essentially asking the players the same question over and over again: Can you hit the ball here? That’s it. I’ve basically laid out Jones’ entire strategic design philosophy in one sentence. I’ve spent a lot of time playing RTJ courses. My college course, the Washington Duke, is an RTJ. My home course in Los Angeles, El Cabarello, is also an RTJ. I know exactly what to expect when I tee it up on an RTJ course, and I will be handicapping this course based on the assumption that Wilmington Country Club fits the exact same mold of all of his work. Unfortunately, the PGA Tour is no stranger to Robert Trent Jones, so we do have some data on how pros have responded to his extremely bland architecture. Here are all the ones from the past decade:
- Baltusrol, host of the 2016 PGA Championship
- Bellerive, host of the 2018 PGA Championship
- Congressional, host of the 2011 U.S. Open; 2014 and 2016 Quicken Loans National, 2012 & 2013 AT & T National
- Firestone (South), host of WGC Bridgestone Invitational (2006-2018)
- Hazeltine, host of the 2009 PGA Championship, 2016 Ryder Cup
- Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, host of the 2015 Quicken Loans
- Spyglass Hill, in the rotation for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am since 1967
- Grand National, Robert Trent Jones Trail: Barbasol Championship 2015-2017
- Oak Hill (heavy re-design work): 2013 PGA Championship
- Valderamma, host of the Andalucia Masters 2017-present
It’s should not come as a surprise that Baltusrol, Congressional, and Oak Hill have all received massive recent makeovers to undo the Jones stink. Don’t get me started on Rees Jones either. The whole family is completely incapable of challenging themselves from a strategic design standpoint.
The three courses that I really want to focus on are Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, Firestone, Grand National, and Congressional, as those were set up to host PGA Tour events, not major championships. All three of those courses feature very similar agronomy and moderate scoring conditions. Let’s run through how they have played to see if we can find any commonalities:
- Robert Trent Jones Golf Club
- 25th out of 38 courses in scoring average
- 33rd out of 38 courses in off the tee difficulty
- 35th out of 38 courses in approach difficulty
- 8th out of 38 courses in around the green difficulty
- 12th out of 38 courses in putting difficulty
- 28th out of 38 courses in missed fairway penalty
- 13th most narrow fairways on Tour
- 7th highest greens in regulation percentage on Tour
- 8th out of 38 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers
- 10th out of 38 courses in putting difficulty from 15 feet plus
- Firestone
- 7th out of 37 courses in scoring average
- 28th out of 37 courses in off the tee difficulty
- 23rd out of 37 courses in approach difficulty
- 14th out of 37 courses in around the green difficulty
- 14th out of 37 courses in putting difficulty
- 13th out of 37 courses in missed fairway penalty
- Most narrow fairways on Tour
- 8th lowest greens in regulation percentage on Tour
- 20th out of 37 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers
- 12th out of 37 courses in putting difficulty from 15 feet plus
- Congressional
- 19th out of 37 courses in scoring average
- 28th out of 37 courses in off the tee difficulty
- 31st out of 37 courses in approach difficulty
- 28th out of 37 courses in around the green difficulty
- 9th out of 37 courses in putting difficulty
- 28th out of 37 courses in missed fairway penalty
- 4th most narrow fairways on Tour
- 12th highest greens in regulation percentage on Tour
- 25th out of 37 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers
- 14th out of 37 courses in putting difficulty from 15 feet plus
- Grand National
- Easiest course on the PGA Tour
- 35th out of 37 courses in off the tee difficulty
- 36th out of 37 courses in approach difficulty
- 30th out of 37 courses in around the green difficulty
- 11th out of 37 courses in putting difficulty
- 16th out 37 courses in missed fairway penalty
- 4th most wide fairways on Tour
- 2nd highest greens in regulation percentage on Tour
- 37th out of 37 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers
- 8th out of 37 courses in putting difficulty from 15 feet plus
While there are certainly some differences to these courses, as Firestone typically played as one of the hardest courses on Tour, and Grand National played as one of the easiest, there were a few commonalities that stood out to me. Throughout all four courses, the challenge of chipping and putting was greater than the challenge presented off the tee and on approach. As previously alluded to, RTJ courses ask a fairly straightforward tee to green. If you can stay out of the fairway bunkers off the tee, and hit the correct quadrant of the green, you’re golden. Some of his courses, particularly Firestone, feature extremely narrow fairways, but the penalty for missing the fairway is never severe. Most players will bomb away aimlessly off the tee with driver. Firestone featured the most narrow fairways on Tour, but ranked middle of the pack in terms of missed fairway penalty, which is very similar to what we see at courses such as Torrey Pines and Bay Hill, where distance is essential.
There’s very little strategic value off the tee at most of his courses. Distance will certainly help, but is not a pre-requisite. Iron play is also more important than off the tee at RTJ courses because with very little penalty for wayward driving, the emphasis falls squarely on the second shot. In his victory on Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, Troy Merritt was neutral off the tee and gained over 10 strokes on approach. In his victory at Congressional, Billy Hurley was neutral off the tee and gained over 10 strokes on approach. 39% of strokes gained at Congressional have come on approach, compared to 11.8% off the tee. 40.8% of strokes of strokes gained at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club came on approach, compared to 12.2% off the tee. That’s not a coincidence.
The final piece that stood out to me is that RTJ courses tend to be challenging lag putting courses. Even Grand National, which featured very mild scoring conditions, ranked inside the top-10 in putting difficulty from 15 feet plus. RTJ courses tend to feature large greens, and elite lag putters are often able to make up for sub-standard tee to green play.
The key takeaway with RTJ courses is that they tend to ask players the same very straightforward questions from tee to green, but provide some challenge from green-side bunkers and once on the putting surface. This does not mean that tournaments held on his golf courses often result in putting contests. His golf courses are about pure execution. All of his golf courses are completely out in front of you, which is why we have tended to see strong ball-strikers such as Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Keegan Bradley, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, and Shane Lowry, have so much success on his courses. Troy Merritt and Billy Hurley needed career iron weeks to succeed, as a hot putter is generally not enough. Ultimately, the formula is pretty simple: I will be looking for elite middle iron players in good ball-striking form that raise their baseline on Bent-grass, and are not a liability out of the sand.
Let’s dive into the stats.
Stats
- Off the Tee
- I’m pretty confident that players will attack this course with driver aggressively. I imagine that the rough will be on thicker side, but remember, Wilmington C.C. is a lot shorter than a Firestone, Congressional, or Baltusrol. Only three par fours measure over 450 yards. Even if players miss their fare share of fairways, they should be able to hack wedges out of the rough. I do not believe that elite accuracy off the tee is required. At Congressional in 2016, seven of the top 12 on the leaderboard lost to the field in Good Drive Percentage, and four of the top 12 lost to the field in Driving Accuracy Percentage.
- While there has never been some massive correlation between distance off the tee and success at RTJ courses, I did notice while mapping out the holes that on this specific course (more-so than some of his other courses), players can cut the corners on doglegs. There are a large amount of downhill tee shots and some speed slots in the fairways as well, which leads me to believe that while far from a pre-requisite, distance will certainly help at Wilmington C.C. The longest players in this field off the tee have been Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, Jon Rahm, Taylor Pendrith, Cameron Young, Trey Mullinax, Kurt Kitayama, Luke List, Justin Thomas, and Keith Mitchell.
- Approach
- As I’ve alluded to, RTJ courses always place a much greater emphasis on the second shot than the first. There is generally little resistance provided off the tee, but often the greens on RTJ courses features a great deal of undulation and sub-sectioning. Again, it is no coincidence that Billy Hurley III and Troy Merritt both gained over 10 strokes on approach en route to victories at Congressional and Robert Trent Jones Golf Club.
- Wilmington C.C. is not a long golf course, and when running through hole by hole, I feel pretty comfortable suggesting that the largest plurality of approach shots will come from between 125 and 175 yards. Being elite from this range will be absolutely crucial this week. The best long-term short to middle iron players in this field have been Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama, Russell Henley, Emiliano Grillo, Lee Hodges, Cameron Smith, Tony Finau, Viktor Hovland, and Scottie Scheffler.
- Around the Green
- RTJ courses tend to be somewhat tricky around the greens, but I have a hard time believing that an elite short game will be necessary this week on a track that I expect to feature a rather high greens in regulation percentage. Some of the greens at Wilmington C.C. are massive, and elite lag putting will be more important than elite chipping this week. With that being said, I will always look at bunker play on RTJ courses. The best long-term bunker players in this field have been Matt Kuchar, Lucas Herbert, Xander Schauffele, Brian Harman, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Justin Thomas, Denny McCarthy, Rory McIlroy, and Troy Merritt.
- Putting
- While plenty of non-elite putters have won at RTJ courses, the same can also be said about Augusta National, which also features large, undulating, Bent-grass greens. Lag putting will undeniably be crucial this week at Wilmington C.C. The best long-term approach putters in this field have been Xander Schauffele, Tyrrell Hatton, Cameron Smith, Justin Thomas, Keegan Bradley, Max Homa, Denny McCarthy, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Lucas Herbert, and Cameron Davis.
- I will also be looking to identify players that raise their baseline on Bent-grass greens. The best long-term Bent-grass putters in this field have been Patrick Cantlay, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Rory McIlroy, Troy Merritt, Keith Mitchell, Sam Burns, Mackenzie Hughes, Cameron Davis, Cameron Smith, and Taylor Pendrith.
- Scoring Stats
- My prediction is that Wilmington C.C. will yield middling scores. I do not believe that it will play challenging enough for us to want to identify players that raise their baseline in difficult scoring conditions. On the contrary, I am not expecting a birdie-fest either. Instead, I will turn my attention to identifying players that raise their baseline on tree-lined, parkland, Bent-grass courses with moderate to thicker rough. Examples of this include Detroit Golf Club, TPC Potomac, St. George’s, Muirfield Village, and Caves Valley, just to name a few. This is a style of golf course that is prevalent in the Northeast, and there are certain players that always seem to answer the bell on these style of tests. The long-term best tee-to-green players on these style of courses have been Tony Finau, Russell Henley, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Mito Pereira, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Cantlay, and Collin Morikawa.
- Comp Courses
- I’ve already alluded to the RTJ courses that we want to be looking at here. In my opinion, the strongest comps are Robert Trent Jones Golf Club and Congressional, as both are tree-lined, Bent-grass courses that yielded middling scores.
- The players in this field that finished top-40 in the 2015 Quicken Loans at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club were Troy Merritt, Justin Thomas, Cameron Tringale, Adam Hadwin, and Brendan Steele.
- The best players in this field at Congressional have been Jon Rahm, Adam Scott, Chez Reavie, Jordan Spieth, Harold Varner III, Marc Leishman, Justin Thomas, and Brendan Steele.
- Secondary comps would include Firestone (host of the WGC – Bridgestone) and Grand National on the Robert Trent Jones Trail (former host of the Barbasol Championship). Wilmington C.C. will likely split the difference in terms of difficulty between these two courses.
- The best players in this field at Firestone have been Keegan Bradley, Rory McIlroy, Matt Kuchar, Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Hadwin, Aaron Wise, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, and Shane Lowry.
- The best players in this field at Grand National have been Sam Burns, Cameron Tringale, Emiliano Grillo, Si Woo Kim, Scott Stallings, Brian Harman, Tom Hoge, Troy Merritt, Seamus Power, and Keegan Bradley.
- Tertiary comps include Baltusrol (host of the 2016 PGA), and Bellerive (host of the 2018 PGA). Wilmington C.C. will not be set up like a PGA Championship, but neither of 2016 or 2018 PGA (especially 2018) played overwhelmingly difficult. From an aesthetics and design standpoint, both of these courses bears a striking resemblance to Wilmington C.C.
- The players in this field that finished top-25 at the 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol were Hideki Matsuyama, Tyrrell Hatton, Jordan Spieth, Emiliano Grillo, Adam Scott, Kevin Kisner, and Russell Henley.
- The players in this field that finished top-25 at the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive were Adam Scott, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Tyrrell Hatton, Chez Reavie, Kevin Kisner, Jordan Spieth, and Shane Lowry.
- Overall, taking the average strokes gained per round (minimum eight rounds), the best players in this field on Robert Trent Jones courses have been Adam Scott, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton, Kevin Kisner, Chez Reavie, Troy Merritt, Cameron Tringale, Adam Hadwin, and Brendan Steele.
Model Inputs
- Off the Tee (10%)
- Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (5%)
- Driving Distance (5%)
- Approach (36%)
- Strokes Gained: Approach (20%)
- Long-term Proximity 125-150 yards (8%)
- Long-term Proximity 150-175 yards (8%)
- Around the Green (11%)
- Strokes Gained: Around the Green (5%)
- Sand Saves (6%)
- Putting (18%)
- Strokes Gained Putting: Bent-grass (11%)
- Approach Putting (7%)
- Scoring Stats (7%)
- Strokes Gained Tee to Green: “Tree-lined Parklands” (7%)
- Comp Courses (18%)
- Robert Trent Jones Golf Club (4%)
- Congressional (4%)
- RTJ (Grand National) (3%)
- Firestone (3%)
- Baltusrol (2%)
- Bellerive (2%)
Top 20
- Justin Thomas
- Tony Finau
- Rory McIlroy
- Xander Schauffele
- Cameron Smith
- Scottie Scheffler
- Cameron Davis
- Sam Burns
- Jordan Spieth
- Shane Lowry
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Patrick Cantlay
- Max Homa
- Joaquin Niemann
- Harold Varner III
- Russell Henley
- Viktor Hovland
- Will Zalatoris
- Scott Stallings
- Mito Pereira
Most over-valued based on expected price: Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im, Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tom Kim
Most under-valued based on expected price: Cameron Davis, Hideki Matsuyama, Harold Varner III, Russell Henley, Scott Stallings, Mito Pereira
