Workday Charity Open Preview

Even with a lower quality field than we had become accustomed to recently, last week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic produced similar if not higher levels of entertainment and controversy in equal measure. That was mainly down to one man, as golf’s new marmite figure Bryson DeChambeau showed both his best and worst side as he powered his way to his first PGA Tour victory of the season in Detroit. His transformation into the game’s most powerful player has been one you can only marvel at and when his putter is as hot as it was last week he is going to be incredibly hard to stop in any field, but his on course demeanour threatens to overshadow his incredible talent, as he showed all his impetuousness after berating a cameraman for lingering a little longer on him than he’d have liked after a poor bunker shot. It is that which will be the main takeaway for many last week despite all his brilliance.

The Bryson debate will be parked for one week at least as he’s not in the field for this week’s inaugural (and probably only) playing of the Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village in Ohio, the first of back to back events played at the course they call Jack’s Place. Two successive events at the same venue is not a situation that we are used to and it will present a number of challenges to the organisers, including how they vary the setup enough to keep it interesting and engaging for the viewers as well as dealing with the rigours of having 153 tour professionals playing from virtually the same positions on the course for two full weeks and how it copes with those demands. Luckily, we know that Muirfield Village is well established as one the PGA Tour’s sternest tests and it has attracted a top class field to feed our appetite for the next week.

What will it take to win here?

As the regular host of the Memorial Tournament, which has been rescheduled from its usual spot in early June to next week, we know pretty much everything there is to know about Muirfield Village and the challenge it poses. It’s a 7,392 yard par 72 designed by the tournament host, Jack Nicklaus and has featured every year on the PGA Tour since 1976, with many of golf’s biggest names forming part of its roll of honour. In contrast to last week, the recipe for success at Muirfield Village is cast-iron at this stage and as with the majority of Jack Nicklaus designs, the premium is on quality approach shots on what is traditionally a very tough test. This is officially the first edition of this particular event but the last ten winners of the Memorial is more than relevant when assessing what will be needed to succeed this week:

2019 Patrick Cantlay

2018 Bryson Dechambeau

2017 Jason Dufner

2016 William McGirt

2015 David Lingmerth

2014 Hideki Matsuyama

2013 Matt Kuchar

2012 Tiger Woods

2011 Steve Stricker

2010 Justin Rose

In general, it’s a pretty high quality list of winners with notable ball strikers Patrick Cantlay, Jason Dufner, Hideki Matsuyama and Justin Rose all winning here when the pressure was taken off their putting and more focused on their iron-play. Billy McGirt and David Lingmerth would have been more surprising winners, but both have excelled in that facet of the game relative to the other categories and that has seen them regularly perform well here. A certain Tiger Woods has also made this course his own, with five wins around this venue and has always been revered for his approach play in particular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xFMPjDaTaU

Although it’s a long course and it’s fairways are relatively wide, accuracy is slightly favoured over distance off the tee with the rough off the fairways generally quite thick and the fairway bunkers particularly deep and punishing. Therefore, approach play is particularly important to concentrate on, with missed greens costing an average of 0.7 strokes per hole as the tricky, undulating greens make scrambling difficult. As a consequence, strokes gained approaching the green is by far the most important stat to concentrate on this week, with none of the last ten winners of this event ranking higher than 25th for the week in that category and only three of those outside of the top ten. There will be slight differences to the setup this week from how we usually see the course however, with the greens rolling at 11ft on the stimpmeter compared to the usual tournament pace of 13ft which the organisers hope to have them running at next week. That change is to accommodate some more challenging pin positions that wouldn’t usually be required, so shouldn’t deter from the importance of good approach play.

The Field

While this is undoubtedly a high quality field, it’s interesting that some big names who have made hay on this course over the years have chosen to skip the first of the two events played here including Bryson DeChambeau, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Tiger Woods. One dynamic that we don’t usually get to explore will be the value of playing a course in tournament conditions for a more prolonged period, and it will be interesting to see how those who are playing both tournaments perform relative to those who have chosen to skip this week. Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka represent the only members of the world’s top five in action this week, after all choosing to take last week off. Thomas had been in excellent form in his first two events back before missing the cut at the Travelers Championship last time out, but that performance is easy to write off after three demanding weeks back since the resumption of golf. He’s perhaps the most likely to contend here of that trio with his current rank of 7th in strokes gained approach sure to pay dividends while Rahm and Koepka currently rank 86th and 163rd in that category, though they can contend anywhere when they are at their best. Last year’s Memorial champion Patrick Cantlay returns here after making his comeback at the Travelers Championship a fortnight ago and loves this course, having finished 4th in 2018 before winning here and showed enough on his comeback there finishing tied 11th that would suggest another bold bid is on the cards here. Another former champion, Hideki Matsuyama also caught the eye last week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic finishing tied 21st on his second start back since lockdown. Matsuyama regularly features prominently among the strokes gained approach rankings and that was case last week finishing 7th in that category and is 6th overall for the season, and he could reap the rewards for a similar ball striking performance here. It’s been a quiet year for the Japanese prodigy who’s always been tipped for great things but hasn’t quite lived up to it yet and he’s slipped outside the world’s top 20 from a high of 3rd in 2017, so he’ll be determined to turn his season around in the remainder of the year. Viktor Hovland, who featured in our rising stars section last week, is another who arrives here on the verge of a big performance after finishing tied 12th last week having again been let down by his short game. Justin Rose also returns here having featured at Colonial with other big names including Phil Mickelson, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed, and Rickie Fowler. Of the rest, two who may be well suited to this test are Corey Conners, who contended at the RBC Heritage before a poor final round and Argentine Emilliano Grillo, who opened with a 66 last week and hits greens for fun if he can improve on his putting. US Open champion Gary Woodland is also worth mentioning with some good results since the restart and has an attractive statistical fit having also contended earlier this season at PGA National, another Nicklaus design that challenges similar attributes to Muirfield Village.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhcAxG98dsk

Irish Interest

A one over par back nine at the Rocket Mortgage Classic meant that Seamus Power fell short of the top ten required to get him into this field last week despite a fine overall week so we are left with two Irishmen in the field this week with Shane Lowry and Graeme McDowell both participating. It’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks for Graeme McDowell having chosen to skip the Travelers Championship as a precaution after his caddy Ken Comboy tested positive for coronavirus earlier that week, that coming after attending the funeral of a close personal friend prior to the RBC Heritage the previous week. In light of that, it’s hard to expect too much this week from the former US Open champion now entering the twilight of his career but his iron-play is his strength and this is a course where length off the tee is not a prerequisite which always helps the Northern Irishman. For Lowry, it’s a good opportunity to kick start his season after lockdown after making his first cut since the resumption at the Travelers Championship. In two attempts here Lowry has made the cut twice with a tie for 15th in 2017 his best result so far, so there are some reasons to be positive. For someone as quintessentially Irish as Lowry, you can’t help but feel this extended spell in the US with his young family must be incredibly tough mentally even with all the comforts that come with being a very successful golfer and it’s easy to sympathise with him in that regard. Let’s hope that he can at least bring a few smiles to those watching at home with a good performance this week.

Rising Stars

Not all the players who we highlight in this segment will be college highflyers who are destined for success the minute they step foot on the PGA Tour and can sustain that through all of their careers, and one who definitely doesn’t fit that category but is now playing the best golf of his life and still on the ascendency is Max Homa. Homa did actually have a brilliant college career, part of a vintage University of California golf team which also contained fellow PGA Tour pros Michael Kim and Brandon Hagy and was a member of the 2013 Walker Cup team, but had struggled to maintain his status on the PGA Tour until finally getting the hang of things last season culminating in his first win at the Wells Fargo Championship. Clearly very popular with his fellow pros and possibly more recognised for his regular quips on social media, the lighter side of his personality might distract people from noticing what a serious player he has become. So far this season he has posted three top tens with two of those coming at similarly demanding tee to green tests to this week at Riviera and Torrey Pines. He is definitely worth following on the course, as well as on Twitter.

Another player in the field worth highlighting this week is Brandon Wu, who is at a far more primitive stage of his career having graduated from Stanford last year. Stanford would be recognised for producing talent in academic fields rather than professional sport but it has produced a number of exceptional golfers including current pros Patrick Rodgers, Maverick McNealy and of course, Tiger Woods. Wu has gone some way to emulating their achievements having finished 4th on the all-time Stanford career scoring average prior to going pro and finished an excellent 35th at the US Open last year as an amateur where he actually graduated on the 18th green at Pebble Beach, having been unable to attend the ceremony. Having helped the US team win the Walker Cup by winning three of his four matches, Wu immediately made his mark on the PGA Tour by finishing tied for 17th at the Houston Open on his first start. He is yet to better that result this season, but gets into this event on a sponsor’s exemption and has shown enough to suggest he can be a force in the world of golf in the years to come.