By Andy Lack

2023 BMW Championship Course Breakdown: Olympia Fields 

The Basics 

• Course: Olympia Fields (North)
• Location: Olympia Fields, Illinois
• Designer: Willie Park Jr. (1923)
• Length: Par 70; 7,336 yards
• Hazards: Water comes into play on 3 holes
• Fairways: Bent-grass/Poa Annua
• Rough: Kentucky Blue-grass
• Greens: Bent-grass/Poa Annua, measuring 5,000 square feet on average

The BMW Championship is the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. It was introduced in 2007 and was previously known as the Western Open. The field is comprised of the top 50 PGA Tour golfers in the FedEx Cup standings following the conclusion of last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship. It will once again be a no-cut event, and the top 30 in the standings at the end of the week will advance to the FedEx Cup finale at East Lake.

This tournament has been held at a number of different courses, often in the Chicago area, such as Cog Hill, Medinah, and Conway Farms, falling in line with the history of the Western Open. The event has certainly departed from that in recent years, employing venues such as Cherry Hills, Crooked Stick, Aronimink, Bellerive, Caves Valley, and Wilmington C.C. Running through the winners, it’s very rare that we do not see a top player win, as much of the fat has been trimmed at this point. The last couple of years, we’ve had champions such as Patrick Cantlay (three times), Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, and Rory McIlroy. Marc Leishman at 45/1 and Keegan Bradley at 140/1 were the only real outliers across the last decade.

We will once again be returning to Olympia Fields in 2023, which has proven to be a departure from the easier venues that the BMW Championship has chosen over the past decade. We last saw Olympia Fields in 2020, when Jon Rahm triumphed over Dustin Johnson in a playoff at four-under par. Only five players broke par that entire week. It played as the hardest non-major venue in the last three years. Juxtapose that with Patrick Cantlay defeating Bryson DeChambeau in a playoff at 27-under par the following year, and this year should be a welcome return to a major championship style of test. Seven of the last 11 BMW Championship winners have been forced to shoot 20-under or better to claim victory. It’s probably more likely that we will see someone shoot 20 over par than 20 under par this week.

Olympia Fields is a classical, tree-lined, parklands course in Olympia Fields, Illinois, about 25 miles south from the center of Chicago. It contains two 18-hole courses, and the tournament this week will be hosted on the North course, designed by Willie Park Jr. Olympia Fields has hosted four major championships: two U.S. Opens (1928 and 2003), and two PGA Championships (1925 and 1961). It has also been the site of the U.S. Senior Open (1977), the U.S. Amateur (2015), and the 2017 KMPG Women’s PGA Championship. The Western Open was played at the club five times as well.

Olympia Fields is a tight golf course with some gnarly 3.5-inch rough, and it is a proper execution test, which beckons a resemblance to Oak Hill and Winged Foot. It plays as a par 70, measuring 7,336 yards on the scorecard. Water comes into play on three holes, and the fairways are a blend of Bent-grass/Poa Annua. The rough is a fairly thick Kentucky Blue-grass, and the greens measure 5,000 square feet on average, featuring Bent-grass/Poa Annua. On paper, it does not look all that dissimilar from previous BMW Championship hosts such as Crooked Stick, Aronimink, or Medinah No. 3, yet the main difference is that Olympia Fields played incredibly firm and fast in 2020, making it one of the most difficult non-major tests that we’ve seen in the last decade.

In terms of the actual layout, both par fives measure over 600 yards, and the 15th hole barely played under par. In 2020, it featured the toughest set of par fives on the entire PGA Tour. The eighth hole measures 254 yards and featured over a 32% bogey rate. It played as the second-hardest hole on the course. Eight of the 12 par fours measure over 450 yards on the scorecard, and in 2020, not a single par four played under par. It featured the third-hardest set of par threes on the PGA Tour.

In terms of top-10 finishers, we saw a fairly even distribution of strokes gained across the board. Jon Rahm won here via a balanced attack, gaining strokes across the board, and there were no real massive trend lines in terms of one category being outwardly more important than the other. Hideki Matsuyama and Joaquin Niemann both finished top-three here with field average putting. Nine of the top 10 players on the leaderboard gained strokes on approach, but Patrick Cantlay did finish 12th here while losing 5.2 strokes on approach. Eight of the top 10 on the leaderboard gained strokes off the tee, and I would probably point to excellent driving at the top if we are looking for one reference point. Any leaderboard populated by Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Joaquin Niemann, Hideki Matsuyama, Tony Finau, Jason Kokrak, Rory McIlroy, and Matthew Wolff is sure to favor distance over accuracy. With that being said, Brendon Todd still finished eighth here, Mackenzie Hughes finished 10th, and Brian Harman finished 12th.

I’ve already mentioned Oak Hill and Winged Foot as comparative courses, but what separates Olympia Fields from those other narrow, long, Bent-grass major championship-style tests is that the Willie Park Jr. design played firm enough for shorter players to compete. The approach shot distribution was heavily skewed toward short- to middle-iron play, unlike most other difficult venues that are incredibly long-iron dependent. Olympia Fields required an incredibly balanced attack, whereas courses in a similar vein often heavily emphasize distance off the tee and long iron play. Aesthetically, and even somewhat statistically, it still bears a strong resemblance to many of the narrow, thick-rough, Bent-grass courses we have come to know and love. Yet there’s some nuance involved with Olympia Fields as well. Let’s dive into the stats.

Stats 

• Off the Tee 
  • In 2020, 12.5% of strokes gained at Olympia Fields came off the tee, which is below the Tour average of 15.3%.
  • In 2020, Olympia Fields ranked seventh out of 29 courses in strokes gained off the tee difficulty.
  • Driving accuracy at Olympia Fields was a whopping 48% (the lowest on Tour that year), compared to the Tour average of 62%. The fairways only measure 26.4 yards wide on average, the third-most narrow on Tour that year. Essentially, even the most accurate drivers of the ball could not find the short grass, which effectively eliminates the relevance of precision. There was absolutely zero deterrence from hitting driver on nearly every hole at Olympia Fields. Average driving distance here was 298 yards compared to the Tour average of 289 yards. It ranked fourth in 2020 in longest average driving distance on par fours and par fives. Unsurprisingly, three of the top six players in this field in driving distance (Johnson, Finau, and Rahm) finished top-five on the leaderboard. The longest drivers of the ball in this field over the last year have been Rory McIlroy, Cameron Young, Byeong Hun An, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Cameron Davis, Taylor Moore, and Viktor Hovland. 
  • Still, Fitzpatrick, Munoz, Todd, Lanto Griffin, and Mackenzie Hughes all still finished top-10 while losing strokes to the field in driving distance. Distance certainly helps at Olympia Fields, but the firmness of the turf and lack of incredibly long par fours still allows shorter players to compete here. There’s a little more nuance to the greens and green-side complexes at Olympia Fields than say, a Torrey Pines. If forced to choose, I would still rather my players be deadly with their length than deadly with their accuracy this week. None of the top four finishers in driving accuracy in 2020 finished in the top 40 on the leaderboard, where there was a much stronger correlation with driving distance. It mainly helps to have power on this course because since everyone is missing the fairway, the longer players will have shorter clubs out of the rough. The top five players in good drive percentage all finished in the top eight on the leaderboard. Essentially, players greatly increase their chance to hit the green in regulation if you are either deadly accurate like Matt Fitzpatrick, or one of the longest players in the field like Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, or Joaquin Niemann. The middle of the road solution is not incredibly effective at a course such as Olympia Fields. For what it’s worth, Rahm, Johnson, and Niemann all gained to the field in accuracy as well. They didn’t need to be deadly accurate, but Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Champ both finished near the absolute bottom of the leaderboard ranking first and second in driving distance. Olympia Fields still ranked 10th out of 29 courses in missed fairway penalty and third out of 29 courses in rough penalty.
  • I would still define Olympia Fields as more of a total driving test with more of an emphasis on distance than accuracy than a pure long drive competition. Similar to Oak Hill, I wanted to identify players who were able to raise their baseline off the tee on firmer golf courses with difficult fairways to hit and thicker rough. The best players off the tee under these conditions over the past three years have been Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Emiliano Grillo, Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Viktor Hovland, Sungjae Im, and Byeong Hun An. 

• Approach
  • In 2020, 32.1% of strokes gained came via approach, which is below the Tour average of 35.1%.
  • In 2020, Olympia Fields ranked seventh out of 29 courses in approach difficulty. The greens in regulation percentage of 57% was far lower than the Tour average of 65%. It featured the third-toughest greens to hit on the PGA Tour in 2020.
  • As much as we would think Olympia Fields to be a long-iron course, the driver-heavy nature of it and firmness of the turf caused a far greater plurality of approach shots from 125-175 yards than I would have expected. 19.0% of approach shots at Olympia Fields came from 125-150 yards, which is greater than the Tour average of 17.0%. 22.8% of approach shots came from 150-175 yards, which is greater than the Tour average of 20.3%. Even if we expect the course to play a touch softer this year, there are a large amount enough medium-length par fours that will require short- to middle-iron approaches, and a lot of the yardage is taken up by two incredibly long par fives and one gargantuan par three. The best mid- to short-iron players in this field over the last year have been Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Cameron Young, Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Tom Kim, Max Homa, and Chris Kirk.  

• Around the Green 
  • In 2020, 19.2% of strokes gained at Olympia Fields came around the green, which is well above the Tour average of 14.5%.
  • In 2020, Olympia Fields ranked seventh out of 29 courses in strokes gained around-the-green difficulty.
  • With such a low greens-in-regulation percentage, short game is essential here. Still, three of the top six players on the leaderboard in 2020 did lose strokes around the green.
  • In 2020, Olympia Fields ranked 10th out of 29 courses in around-the-green difficulty from the fairway, fourth out of 29 courses in around-the-green difficulty from the rough, and 14th out of 29 courses in around-the-green difficulty from the bunkers. Olympia Fields is certainly a challenging course around the greens, but we did see some outlier performances close to the top of the leaderboard, as players such as Dustin Johnson were able to get away with a substandard short game. With that being said, many of the best iron players were still missing their fair share of greens, and players such as Hideki Matsuyama and Sebastian Munoz were able to separate themselves with their short game. The best players in this field around the green over the past two months have been Scottie Scheffler, Rickie Fowler, Brendon Todd, Jason Day, Tommy Fleetwood, Tony Finau, Justin Rose, Chris Kirk, Rory McIlroy, and Wyndham Clark. 
  • I also wanted to identify players who were able to navigate chipping in incredibly firm conditions, and who’s raised their baseline compared to normal PGA Tour courses. The best players in this field around the green on firmer golf courses have been Chris Kirk, Russell Henley, Brendon Todd, Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Matt Fitzpatrick, Hideki Matsuyama, and Byeong Hun An. 

• Putting 
  • In 2020, 36.1% of strokes gained came with the flat-stick, which is just slightly above the Tour average of 35.5%.
  • In 2020, Olympia Fields ranked eighth out of 29 courses in strokes gained putting difficulty. It ranked 23rd out of 29 courses in putting inside five feet, 11th out of 29 courses in putting from five to 15 feet, and first out of 29 courses in putting greater than 15 feet.
  • The greens at Olympia Fields feature some fairly severe contouring, and in 2020, Olympia Fields was the most difficult lag putting course on the PGA Tour. A proficiency in approach putting is certainly important, and Olympia Fields is far from a pure tee-to-green test like many would assume when looking at it on paper. The Willie Park Jr. design is incredibly balanced in the pushback that it provides in all four major statistical categories, and it ranked greater than Tour average in percentage of strokes gained that came with the flat-stick.
  • The best approach putters in this field over the past year have been
  • Olympia Fields features a Bent/Poa mix, similar to what we see at Detroit Golf Club, TPC River Highlands, and Winged Foot. The Bent does tend to overwhelm the Poa on these types of courses, and these are nothing like the bumpy, pure Poa surfaces that we see on the West Coast. These surfaces are far more similar to a pure Bent-grass than they are a pure Poa. The best Bent/Poa/pure Bent-grass putters in this field over the last two years have been Denny McCarthy, Brendon Todd, Max Homa, Harris English, J.T. Poston, Keegan Bradley, Tyrrell Hatton, Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele, and Eric Cole. 

• Scoring Stats 
  • Even if we hold the belief that we may see a bit softer conditions than in 2020, Olympia Fields is still hard. In fact, it played far harder than most major championship venues over the last couple of years! I wanted to identify the players that seem to thrive in these styles of conditions. The best players over the last two years in what I would define as extremely difficult scoring conditions are Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Wyndham Clark, Xander Schauffele, Max Homa, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, and Collin Morikawa. 
  • The main reason that Olympia Fields played so difficult was because of its firmness. The firmness made it incredibly difficult to hit both the fairways and the greens. This requires a fair amount of precision on the approach and either extreme accuracy or extreme length off the tee. The best players in this field over the past two years on what I would categorize as very firm golf courses have been Jon Rahm, Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, Wyndham Clark, and Tommy Fleetwood. 

• Comp Courses/Course History 
  • Even if the conditions are not identical, we do have a very recent reference point at this golf course from 2020. The players in this field that finished top-20 at Olympia Fields in 2020 were Jon Rahm, Hideki Matsuyama, Tony Finau, Matt Fitzpatrick, Brendon Todd, Patrick Cantlay, Byeong Hun An, Brian Harman, Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Collin Morikawa, and Scottie Scheffler. 
  • While Oak Hill features more long irons, in aesthetics, agronomy and strategy, the host of the 2023 PGA Championship is one of the strongest comparisons to Olympia Fields that I was able to identify. The players in this field that finished top-20 at Oak Hill in 2023 were Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Davis, Kurt Kitayama, Sepp Straka, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Patrick Cantlay, Corey Conners, Eric Cole, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, and Xander Schauffele. 
  • Winged Foot, host of the 2020 U.S. Open, is also a great course to look at in reference to Olympia Fields. Both are classical, old-school, tree-lined parklands, Bent-grass courses with narrow fairways, thick Blue-grass rough, and undulating Bent/Poa greens. The biggest difference between the two is that Winged Foot has more back-to-front sloping putting surfaces and more long-iron approach shots, but there is still a lot that we can draw from on that 2020 U.S. Open leaderboard. The players in this field that finished top-20 at Winged Foot were Harris English, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Hideki Matsuyama, and Lucas Glover. 
  • While in an entirely different part of the country and featuring different agronomy, the style of play required at Torrey Pines is very similar to what we should expect to see this week at Olympia Fields. Both courses feature incredibly narrow fairways and encourage a driver-heavy approach where the longest drivers undeniably have an edge. It should not come as a surprise that there has been a fair amount of crossover among the Olympia Fields leaderboard and what we see year to year at the San Diego staple, which also hosted the 2021 U.S. Open. The best players in this field at Torrey Pines have been Tony Finau, Jon Rahm, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose, Sungjae Im, Sahith Theegala, Keegan Bradley, and Xander Schauffele. 

Model 

• Off the Tee (18%)
  • Driving Distance (6%)
  • Recent Off-the-Tee Form (6%)
  • Strokes Gained Off the Tee: Narrow, Firm, Thick Rough (6%)
• Approach (25%)
  • Strokes Gained Approach (13%)
  • Long-Term Proximity 125-150 yards (6%)
  • Long-Term Proximity 150-175 yards (6%)
• Around the Green (14%)
  • Recent Around the Green Form (7%)
  • Strokes Gained Around the Green: Firm Golf Courses (7%)
• Putting (14%)
  • Strokes Gained Putting: Bent/Poa (8%)
  • Approach Putting (6%)
• Scoring Stats (14%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Difficult Scoring Conditions (7%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Firm Conditions (7%)
• Comp Courses/Course History (15%)
  • Olympia Fields (4%)
  • Oak Hill (4%)
  • Winged Foot (4%)
  • Torrey Pines (3%)

 

Model Top 20 

1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Rory McIlroy
3. Jon Rahm
4. Tyrrell Hatton
5. Patrick Cantlay
6. Viktor Hovland
7. Xander Schauffele
8. Rickie Fowler
9. Max Homa
10. Tony Finau
11. Tommy Fleetwood
12. Collin Morikawa
13. Jordan Spieth
14. Hideki Matsuyama
15. Matt Fitzpatrick
16. Justin Rose
17. Keegan Bradley
18. Wyndham Clark
19. Jason Day
20. Corey Conners