By Andy Lack

2023 Ryder Cup Course Breakdown: Marco Simone 

The Basics 

• Course: Marco Simone
• Location: Guidonia, Italy
• Designer: Jim Fazio (1991), renewal by Tom Fazio II (2018) & European Golf Design
• Length: Par 72; 7,255 yards
• Hazards: Water comes into play on six holes
• Fairways: Pure Dynasty Paspalum
• Rough: Tall Fescue
• Greens: Pure Distinction Bent-grass

We’ve finally made it. For the first time since 2018, before the word “COVID” had even entered the lexicon, the Ryder Cup returns to European soil. Much will be made about the 2018 massacre at Le Golf National, and the fact that the United States haven’t won outside of their territory in over 30 years, but a new guard provides optimism. Gone are the teams of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, and a team led by Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, and Patrick Cantlay, among others, hope to re-write a troubling history across the pond.

The stage will be set this year at Marco Simone Golf Club, in beautiful Italian farmland just outside of Rome, a venue we have never before seen host a Ryder Cup. Marco Simone was designed in 1991 by Jim Fazio (brother of Tom), with a complete renewal in 2018 by Tom Fazio II, Jim’s son. Tom Fazio II is not the son of Tom Fazio. He’s the son of Tom’s brother Jim, an accomplished architect in his own right. TFII worked on Marco Simone while attending Mississippi State, and along with Trump Westchester, it was one of his first projects. Many of the design qualities can be placed in context given the lack of experience from its leading architect, but whether Marco Simone is an architecturally sound golf course is of little relevance when assessing a Ryder Cup venue.

What TFII produced was a completely new routing from what was originally laid out by his father. The goal for Marco Simone was not solely to host future Ryder Cups but also be utilized as a regular staple on the DP World Tour. Following TFII’s renewal, Marco Simone debuted the DS Automobiles Open in 2021, won by none other than captain’s selection Nicolai Hojgaard. The following 2022 and 2023 renditions were claimed by Robert MacIntyre (another member of the European Ryder Cup team), and Adrian Meronk (an almost-member of the European Ryder Cup team). Marco Simone immediately developed a reputation as one of the more challenging courses on the DP World Tour, featuring a cumulative scoring average of over half a stroke over par.

Marco Simone is set amongst mountainous, rolling terrain with water hazards abound and thick native grasses that frame narrow fairways. It will be interesting to track whether either team rolls out their stars for all five matches, as Marco Simone is far and away the most hilly and physically imposing Ryder Cup venue in recent memory. The course is a bit loud for my taste, and it is borderline unscrupulous. And yet, the Ryder Cup is only event where I am willing to sacrifice logical design for enrapturing theatre. Marco Simone’s intrigue as a viewing experience is inarguable. The course features a very TPC-esque routing. The first tee atmosphere will be raucous, and the back nine utilizes plenty of stadium-style, risk-reward holes with a varying degree of outcomes. While certainly hilly, there are some magnificent high points for spectators to view multiple holes at once. The noise will reverberate through the rolling valleys of the stunning Guidonia countryside. I do wish there was a bit more Italian quirk and charm. An abandoned farm house that frames the 13th green is my favorite feature of the course, and the property does carry a bit of “I tried to create PGA National in Italy” for my taste. Yet PGA National delivers on the PGA Tour every single year and features an exquisite closing stretch where big numbers lurk at every turn.

Ultimately, I’m most fascinated to see what tricks the European side has up their sleeves in terms of course setup. A recent interview with the Marco Simone groundskeeper suggested that course conditions will not differ greatly from what we have seen the last three years at the Italian Open, a tournament at which many members of the European side have had a great deal of success. I wrote earlier this month about how captain’s selections of Nicolai Hojgaard and Ludvig Aberg may point to a setup advantageous to bombers, and I will explain later in this article how this may be the first Ryder Cup in recent memory where the European side possesses a clear advantage in terms of their power off the tee. On the contrary, the U.S. side possesses the two shortest and most accurate players heading to Rome in Brian Harman and Collin Morikawa. I can gather in certainty that Marco Simone’s setup will be in stark contrast to what we saw in 2018, and in transparency, a Le Golf National setup that heavily favors accurate driving would be counter-productive to the cumulative skill of the squad that Luke Donald has assembled. To further understand the specific skill-set best suited for success at Marco Simone, let’s dive into the stats.

Stats 

• Off the Tee 
  • While my data profile of Marco Simone remains somewhat incomplete due to the fact that it has never hosted a PGA Tour event, there are still plenty of valuable insights we can gather from its time hosting the Italian Automobiles Open. One piece of evidence that sticks out like a sore thumb is that long and accurate drivers appear to have a massive edge at Marco Simone. The leaders in true strokes gained at Marco Simone have been Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Lucas Herbert, Aaron Rai, Kurt Kitayama, Robert MacIntyre, Richard Bland, Tyrrell Hatton, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Nicolai Hojgaard. The only player in that group that I can definitively say is not a great driver of the ball is Herbert. Even Richard Bland and Aaron Rai possess elite accuracy off the tee. Whether distance or accuracy becomes more important is a tough question that I will attempt to answer. Yet it’s still abundantly clear that a player benefits from being above average at both distance and accuracy, or elite at one of the two.
  • The eight most accurate drivers of the ball over the past six months have been Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Tommy Fleetwood, Sepp Straka, Brian Harman, Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry, and Scottie Scheffler. 
  • The eight longest drivers of the ball over the past six months have been Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, Nicolai Hojgaard, Wyndham Clark, Jon Rahm, Sam Burns, Scottie Scheffler, and Brooks Koepka. 
  • Marco Simone has been compared to Bay Hill off the tee, which skews more so in the direction of distance than accuracy. My research likes Bay Hill as an off-the-tee comp as well, but I would venture to say that there will be an even graver penalty for wayward driving at Marco Simone than the host of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Marco Simone is not a second-shot golf course like other PGA Tour bunny tracks. It skews more similar to TPC Potomac, Royal Liverpool, or TPC Sawgrass in the sense that it is all about getting to point A before we can get to point B. Accomplishing the first task is crucial. Of course, the second shot is important, yet players can eliminate the possibility of birdie fairly quickly if their first shot is offline. Many golf courses on Tour allow players to get away with murder off the tee. Rory McIlroy contended at both Oak Hill and Olympia Fields with absolutely zero regard for finding the short grass off the tee. I do not believe such a strategy will pay off at Marco Simone.
  • I wrote about this earlier this month, but the Nicolai Hojgaard and Ludvig Aberg selections have me hesitantly leaning in the direction that the course may be set up in a way that favors distance over accuracy. Of course, the European team is in control of course setup, and while they have a team chock full of excellent drivers of the ball, Hojgaard and Ludvig are far from the only members to be far more long than they are accurate. Over the last 6 months, here are the ranks of the European team in true distance vs. true accuracy:
    • Rory McIlroy: 2nd in Distance, 115th in Accuracy
    • Ludvig Aberg: 10th in Distance, 56th in Accuracy
    • Nicolai Hojgaard: 12th in Distance, 138th in Accuracy
    • Jon Rahm: 19th in Distance, 95th in Accuracy
    • Robert MacIntyre: 34th in Distance, 139th in Accuracy
    • Viktor Hovland: 42nd in Distance, 28th in Accuracy
    • Tyrrell Hatton: 52nd in Distance, 88th in Accuracy
    • Tommy Fleetwood: 65th in Distance, 14th in Accuracy
    • Sepp Straka: 71st in Distance, 18th in Accuracy
    • Shane Lowry: 75th in Distance, 35th in Accuracy
    • Justin Rose: 76th in Distance, 59th in Accuracy
    • Matt Fitzpatrick: 82nd in Distance, 120th in Accuracy
  • If we go by the numbers, distance is actually far more of an asset to the European side than accuracy. Every single member ranks inside the top 90 in true distance, and four of the 12 rank inside the top 20. The average distance rank on the European team is 45.0, and we ought to imagine that Rory, Rahm, and Hovland, three of their five longest drivers, will be utilized heavily. On the contrary, Tommy Fleetwood and Sepp Straka are the only Europeans to rank inside the top-20 in true accuracy, and Rory, Hojgaard, Rahm, MacIntyre, Hatton, and Fitzpatrick all rank outside of the top 80. Overall, the European team yields an average ranking of 75.4 in true accuracy. Now let’s contrast those numbers to the U.S. side:
    • Wyndham Clark: 18th in Distance, 100th in Accuracy
    • Sam Burns: 22nd in Distance, 114th in Accuracy
    • Scottie Scheffler: 23rd in Distance, 48th in Accuracy
    • Brooks Koepka: 29th in Distance, 83rd in Accuracy
    • Patrick Cantlay: 35th in Distance, 13th in Accuracy
    • Justin Thomas: 39th in Distance, 125th in Accuracy
    • Rickie Fowler: 41st in Distance, 61st in Accuracy
    • Max Homa: 46th in Distance, 64th in Accuracy
    • Xander Schauffele: 57th in Distance, 71st in Accuracy
    • Jordan Spieth: 66th in Distance, 66th in Accuracy
    • Collin Morikawa: 97th in Distance, 9th in Accuracy
    • Brian Harman: 130th in Distance, 21st in Accuracy
  • By the numbers, the Europeans boast four of the five longest players in the field, and while the U.S. team is also more long (average distance rank: 50.25) than they are accurate (average accuracy rank: 64.56), the gap separating the two is narrower. This doesn’t even account for the fact that a setup favoring distance over accuracy would hurt two players on the U.S. side, Collin Morikawa and Brian Harman, more than any other player on the European side. Rolling the dice with Ludvig and Hojgaard gives the Europeans four of the five longest players of the entire 24 headed to Rome and bolsters their length advantage even further. A golf course that emphasizes length over accuracy also entirely devalues the off-the-tee skill of both Harman and Morikawa and increases the advantage that the Euros’ best two players, McIlroy and Rahm, have over the U.S. best two players, Scheffler and Cantlay. McIlroy and Rahm are far more inaccurate than Scheffler and Cantlay, yet they pack far more of a punch in the distance category. The eight best overall drivers of the ball over the past six months have been Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, and Collin Morikawa. The Europeans do have five of the top seven drivers headed to Rome at their disposal.
  • Finally, I also wanted to examine which players have performed the best on courses with narrow fairways and thick rough. Some courses that have these features include Bethpage, Oak Hill, Winged Foot, Bay Hill, and Torrey Pines, just to name a few. Marco Simone is an imperfect comp, because there is a far graver penalty for a wayward miss, but it’s still value to identify who raise their baseline on courses with such microscopic landing areas. The best eight players off the tee on courses with narrow fairways and thick rough over the past two years have been Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Max Homa, and Patrick Cantlay. 

• Approach 
  • I went through every single hole at Marco Simone and identified the most likely expected proximity distance. This does not mean every player will be hitting from these ranges. I simply took an average driving distance of qualified players and applied it to every hole, taking into account expected strategy. Here’s what I came up with:
    • Inside 100 yards: 22% (Tour average: 10.5%)
    • 100-125 yards: 6% (Tour average: 11%)
    • 125-150 yards: 11% (Tour average: 17%)
    • 150-175 yards: 11% (Tour average: 11%)
    • 175-200 yards: 22% (Tour average: 17.5%)
    • 200 yards plus: 28% (Tour average: 22.9%)
  • The proximity buckets that rank above average at Marco Simone are inside 100 yards, 175-200 yards, and 200 yards-plus. This makes sense in theory with up to four drivable par fours, at least two reachable par fives, and a number of longer par fours. Short chipping and long-iron play will be the name of the game at this venue, but as I have mentioned earlier, none of this is possible if a player cannot keep the ball in play off the tee. I essentially have off-the-tee play and approach play weighted equally this week, a breakdown I have at virtually zero other PGA Tour courses. Approach play will still be crucial at this course, but as previously mentioned, Marco Simone is far more of a point A to point B golf course than it is a pure second-shot golf course.
    • The best eight players in the Ryder Cup inside 100 yards over the last six months have been Max Homa, Scottie Scheffler, Nicolai Hojgaard, Wyndham Clark, Ludvig Aberg, Matt Fitzpatrick, Collin Morikawa, and Jon Rahm. 
    • The best eight players in the Ryder Cup from 175 yards-plus over the last six months have been Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Brooks Koepka, and Justin Rose

• Around the Green 
  • Around-the-green play is never a skill that seems to be discussed in match play formats, but I can say with a great deal of confidence that greens will be missed at Marco Simone. This will not be a bunny setup, and as we saw at Le Golf National, it actually behooves the European side to set the course up to play more challenging. The issue with accounting for short game prowess at Marco Simone is that I worry that the rough is so thick around the greens that skill may almost be mitigated. There is not a ton of short grass at Marco Simone, and paspalum fairways are notoriously easy to chip from. For this reason, the only around-the-green metric that I will be examining this week is how players have performed on courses with extremely thick green-side rough. The best around-the-green players on courses with thick rough over the last two years have been Tommy Fleetwood, Scottie Scheffler, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Wyndham Clark, Rory McIlroy, and Matt Fitzpatrick. 

• Putting 
  • Putting is a skill in match play that often gets overblown. I will still take elite ball-strikers over elite putters seven days a week and twice on Sundays in this format. With that being said, there is a a lot of undulation to the putting surfaces at Marco Simone, and a preference on Bent-grass is certainly preferred. The best eight Bent-grass putters in the Ryder Cup over the last six months have been Tyrrell Hatton, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose, Sam Burns, and Rory McIlroy. 

• Scoring Stats
  • As is always the case in match play, birdies or better are the name of the game. I am far less concerned with players who make big numbers, as they will play far less of a price in this format than in stroke play. The eight best birdie-makers in this field over the last six months have been Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay, Wyndham Clark, and Rickie Fowler. 

• Comp Courses/Course History
  • In terms of course history, experience at the Italian Open is certainly valuable, but both sides have now traveled across the pond to play multiple practice rounds, and all players will get to see the course on Monday through Thursday of tournament week as well.
  • The players in the Ryder Cup who have gained over a stroke per round at Marco Simone are Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre, Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick, & Nicolai Hojgaard. 
    • Players with experience at Marco Simone
      • Rory McIlroy: 4th
      • Tommy Fleetwood: T2
      • Robert MacIntyre: 1st, WD
      • Tyrrell Hatton: 8th
      • Matt Fitzpatrick: MC, 2nd
      • Nicolai Hojgaard: 1st, T27, T15
      • Viktor Hovland: T34
  • A key advantage for the Europeans is that not a single member of the U.S. team has seen Marco Simone under tournament conditions. On the other hand, seven members of the European side have played in the Italian Open, and six of the seven have recorded a top-eight finish.
  • I’ve already alluded to Bay Hill as a potential comp, particularly in the questions that it’s posing off the tee. Again, Bay Hill skews more on the distance over accuracy side, and there will be a far graver penalty for large misses at Marco Simone. Still, both are long, firm golf courses where long and straight is the name of the game. The best players at Bay Hill have been Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jordan Spieth, Max Homa, Tommy Fleetwood, and Patrick Cantlay. Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, and Tyrrell Hatton have all won at Bay Hill. Matt Fitzpatrick has five straight top-15 finishes. Jordan Spieth has multiple top-fives.
  • There’s actually a lot of PGA National, host of the Honda Classic, in Marco Simone. No, water does not come into play on nearly every hole the way that it does at PGA National, but both golf courses are all about hitting your targets, and wayward driving is penalized gravely. Just in the way that water acts as a stroke penalty at PGA National, thick native grasses at Marco Simone will force players to hack back out to the fairway. Neither course is overly long, but both feature an extremely challenging set of par threes and risk/reward par fives. While different in agronomy and location, the questions being posed at both PGA National and Marco Simone are incredibly similar. The best players in this field at PGA National have been Sepp Straka, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose, Wyndham Clark, and Tyrrell Hatton. Sepp Straka, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, and Rory McIlroy have all won at PGA National. Justin Rose, Shane Lowry, and Tommy Fleetwood all have multiple top-fives.

Model 

• Off the Tee (28%)
  • Long-Term Off the Tee Baseline (7%)
  • Driving Distance (7%)
  • Driving Accuracy (7%)
  • Strokes Gained Off the Tee: Narrow Fairways, Thick Rough (7%)
• Approach (30%)
  • Long-Term Approach Baseline (14%)
  • Long-Term Proximity Inside 100 yards (5%)
  • Long-Term Proximity 175-200 yards (5%)
  • Long-Term Proximity 200 yards plus (6%)
• Around the Green (7%)
  • Strokes Gained Around the Green Thick Rough (7%)
• Putting (13%)
  • Strokes Gained Putting: Bent-grass (13%)
• Scoring Stats (10%)
  • Birdies or Better Gained (10%)
• Comp Courses/Course History (12%)
  • Marco Simone (6%)
  • Bay Hill (3%)
  • PGA National (3%)

Model Top 24

1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Viktor Hovland
3. Rory McIlroy
4. Patrick Cantlay
5. Jon Rahm
6. Max Homa
7. Xander Schauffele
8. Rickie Fowler
9. Tyrrell Hatton
10. Wyndham Clark
11. Collin Morikawa
12. Tommy Fleetwood
13. Ludvig Aberg
14. Brooks Koepka
15. Justin Rose
16. Shane Lowry
17. Matt Fitzpatrick
18. Justin Thomas
19. Sepp Straka
20. Sam Burns
21. Nicolai Hojgaard
22. Jordan Spieth
23. Brian Harman
24. Robert MacIntyre