BMW Championship Preview
- trackmengolf
- Aug 25, 2020
- 6 min read
After seemingly squandering another golden opportunity to add to his sole major success at Harding Park just three weeks ago, the same old questions were raised about Dustin Johnson’s ability to close out tournaments under the severest of pressure. But in typical nonchalant style, Johnson shrugged off, or most likely ignored, those murmurings with the most emphatic victory we’ve seen this season at the Northern Trust to remind us all of the brilliance he still possesses and re-establish himself at the top of the world rankings once more. His nine shot victory at TPC Boston broke the lowest final 54-hole scoring record in PGA Tour history, as he recorded the joint second lowest score to par in the process after reaching -30 on his way to demolishing the field in Boston. What’s even more remarkable is that in the midst of the nine week spell bookended by two victories, Johnson shot three consecutive rounds of 80 and withdrew from the 3M Open to go alongside that major runner-up in San Francisco, and now he finds himself in pole position to earn his first Fedex Cup title with two events remaining.
This week we move on to the second of the three Fedex Cup events, with the field size cut down to 70 from 125 with some notable absentees including Jordan Spieth and Phil Mickelson, who failed to produce the finish needed to advance to the BMW Championship. With this championship moving to Olympia Fields Country Club in Chicago for the first time, we are treated to a venue that has been reserved for major championships in more recent years. Hopefully that should provide a tougher test after consecutive weeks with a score lower than -20 needed just to fill second place, and in turn produce a quality winner.
What will it take to win here?
As we’ve eluded to, sightings of Olympia Fields have been rare since the turn of the century with the last PGA Tour event to be held here being the 2003 US Open. More recently, it has played host to the US Amateur Championship in 2015 and the Women’s PGA Championship in 2017, but neither of those compare to the field we are likely to see here and we are a bit in the dark as to how it will play. We do know that it’s the longest par 70 used on the schedule this season, measuring 7,366 yards having been reduced from the par 71 used during the 2017 Women’s PGA. Reading into the 2003 US Open won here by Jim Furyk, it could be assumed that length is unimportant with Furyk having spent most of his career relying on accuracy off the tee complemented by a tidy short-game, while a brief glance at the 2015 US Amateur won by the big hitting Bryson DeChambeau would contradict that. Essentially, golf equipment and the way it’s played has changed a huge amount in the 17 year spell since this course last hosted a top quality men’s stroke play event and making any assumptions based on what happened here back then would be dangerous.
With reports that the rough will be significantly longer than what we saw last week, it might be more useful to read more into what happened at Harding Park over TPC Boston, as Olympia Fields also shares the same bentgrass/poa green surfaces that were used at the PGA Championship. While it’s always useful to look at the course fit when narrowing the field to find the most likely winner, it’s often better to concentrate on form and who’s playing the best, especially in this series of events where we have seen multiple winners in six of the last thirteen years. Having said that, with the length of the course and rough up it’s highly likely to suit the bombers and it would be a surprise if the winner this week didn’t end ranking highly for strokes gained off the tee.
The Field
At the end of this week the remaining participants of the playoffs that will make up the Tour Championship field will be cut to 30 from 70, and a number of big names have work to do if they are to make it to East Lake. Chief among them is Tiger Woods, who dropped to 57th in the list having started the week at 49th courtesy of another lacklustre performance in Boston. The most poignant image that emerged last week was of Tiger and his weekend playing partner Rory McIlroy sitting outside the clubhouse eating burgers before the leaders on Saturday had even teed off. Not only was it an incredibly humanising depiction of both men who usually seem supernatural to most of us, it also rather summed up where their respective games are at. Tiger’s short game let him down last week, having lost strokes both on and around the greens and a prominent showing is needed here if he is to have any chance of advancing to next week.
Dustin Johnson now tops the Fedex Cup standings after his imperious display of ball striking at the Northern Trust, and he looks set for another big week at a course that should favour his big hitting style as he looks to extend the gap between himself and the rest going into next week. Jon Rahm posted a fast-finishing 6th in Boston and hasn’t quite recaptured the form that saw him reach world number one with victory at the Memorial, but Rahm will have a sense of unfinished business at this course having been knocked out at the quarter final stage of the 2015 US Amateur. Bryson DeChambeau was the subsequent winner of that renewal and the positive memories associated with that week should set him up for a good showing, with a return to the conditions that saw him contend at the PGA Championship definitely a positive, for all his iron-play continues to lag behind his brilliant driving. Another poor performance on the greens again held back defending champions this week Justin Thomas in Boston, having finally relinquished the lead in the Fedex Cup standings which he held for much of the season. The emphasis placed on his long game will help Thomas, but the same green surfaces that he’s struggled with on the West Coast could pose a problem for him here.
Fresh off recording the 12th sub 60 round in PGA Tour history, Scottie Scheffler’s length off the tee will be a big asset in Chicago as he edges closer to an inevitable first victory, while another young bomber Matthew Wolff posted three good rounds in Boston having blown his chance on Saturday, and should be suited by this venue if he can string it all together. Collin Morikawa missed only the second cut of his career last week and he’ll be keen to avoid another, his iron-play very uncharacteristically wayward and it would be no surprise to see this prodigious talent bounce back. Webb Simpson and Daniel Berger also continued their brilliant form post lockdown by making the top ten last week and both will have Fedex Cup glory in their sights. Tony Finau will view this limited field event as a good opportunity to add to his sole PGA Tour victory with the emphasis likely to be on distance off the tee and Canadian Corey Conners, one of the most underrated ball strikers on the tour and 7th for strokes gained off the tee last week could make his presence felt in Chicago.
Irish Interest
With Shane Lowry and Graeme McDowell not doing enough in Boston to advance to this event, we’re left with one Irish representative and it was a case of more of the same for Rory McIlroy last week as he slumped to a finish of tied for 65thand dropped outside the top ten of the Fedex Cup standings. We hoped that if McIlroy was going to be paired with Tiger on the Saturday of a playoff event, they would at least be in contention and we saw none of the fireworks that we’ve come to expect of both men. In truth there were very little positives to take out of last week for McIlroy with his signature driving alarmingly poor having lost strokes off the tee when he ranks 6th in that category for the season. There was at least a significant improvement in his approach play, that facet of his game just enough to carry him through to the weekend having ranked 8th for the week but overall his game is not yet in a place where he can contend in fields of this quality.
McIlroy spoke in his usual honest manner about feeling uninspired in the aftermath of the Northern Trust and that has been reflected on the course having now not broken the top ten in seven starts since the lockdown. He also suggested he might implement some slight equipment changes to correct some of his errant tee shots, with adding loft to his driver to increase the spin rate and give him better control with that club an admission of the struggles he’s had recently, as he’s likely to give up some length as a result. Despite all of those clear negatives, it’s surely not long before a player with the talent of McIlroy begins to turn the tide, and with his place at East Lake secure he’s still very much in the race to collect his third Fedex Cup title.
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