At this time last year, the PGA TOUR had just wrapped up its fourth major championship of the season but still had two to play.
Colonial Country Club will once again be the backdrop after a major with last week’s PGA Championship being the second of the 2021-22 campaign.
It’s hard to truly relax on a tough course like Colonial CC but this will be a laidback atmosphere compared to the uptight nature of a major championship.
As an event with invitational status, the field will be limited to just 120 golfers. The cutline rules will return to the PGA TOUR standard which is top 65 and ties.
The Course
Colonial Country Club returns for another edition of this event which is running its 75th edition. This is the longest-running event on TOUR being held at the same course, even if the sponsor has changed a few times over the years.
Last week, Jordan Spieth said the following about Southern Hills, “Reminds me a lot of Colonial, just a little bit on steroids, a little more undulation and driver in your hands more.” They didn’t have to wait long to get the trimmed-down version.
Colonial CC is a par 70 that plays to 7,209 yards on the card. It’s not overly demanding lengthwise and will certainly feel like a donut was taking off the warmup bat when compared to last week’s big venue. Similar to Southern Hills, Colonial CC was also designed by Perry Maxwell.
Off the tee, golfers see tight corridors and many of the par 4s will take the driver out of hand for many in the field. Most would say this is a plodder’s paradise but Jason Kokrak proved last year that power hitters can’t be ignored, either.
With much of the course being positional off the tee, that puts a big emphasis on approach play. With small green sizes, precision with the irons is the best way to stay near the top of the board.
Course knowledge can play a big part, especially when it comes to proper strategy as Spieth alluded to last year, “There’s always a place you can get into big trouble around the greens here, and there’s a place where you can kind of end up being able to make an easy par.” Again, this puts an emphasis on approach play because you still need to execute the shots, whether you have the proper course strategy or not.
Looking at turf, it will be similar to what they saw last week in Tulsa. They will see bermudagrass from tee-to-green with bentgrass putting surfaces. The greens typically run on the speedy side of the spectrum, around 12 feet on the stimp.
When looking at the expected scoring environment, here is what we know. Colonial Country Club features the lowest eagle rates of any regular TOUR stop. There aren’t a lot of big birds dropping with just two par 5s and no reachable par 4s. It becomes a par-is-your friend course with the fourth-highest par rate of all regular TOUR courses. As a result, the proven recipe is to stay patient and wait for the putter to heat up.
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Quotes on the Course
Jordan Spieth: “You’re going to get enough wedge opportunities, I think that, if you just kind of play patient golf and, again, don’t make those mistakes. And like I mentioned before, just kind of let the round start to get settled versus having to force things, I think I’ve done a good job of that here.”
Phil Mickelson: “I don’t feel like I can overpower the golf course because of the penalty for being off line with the trees and so forth and the rough. That’s one of the reasons why I like the golf course because iron play is so important and that seems to be the strength of my game. So if I can get the ball in play and I don’t have to hit a lot of drivers to get the ball in play it allows me to hit approaches and make some birdies and I think it’s the reason why I’ve done well here in the past is because of my iron play.”
Harold Varner III: “Last time I was here, I hit a lot of drivers, and that obviously is not the key to this place. Just had a really good game plan. Just hit a lot of fairways so you give yourself a lot of chances to hit greens.”
Justin Thomas: “It’s just a great old-school golf course where you put the ball in play and then it’s a second-shot course, and hitting to the small greens, and you have pure bent greens.”
Tony Finau: “I hit a lot of drivers. Only hit an iron off the tee once and 4-wood one time. I mostly hit drivers. I do think it’s a golf course you have the opportunity to push it up if you want to, and I was able to take advantage of some of my length there today.”
While most take a conservative approach off the tee, names like Finau (above) and Jon Rahm have taken the course on with more drivers. In general, most have hisotrically felt the risk wasn’t worth the reward when it comes to aggressiveness off the tee at Colonial CC.
Correlated Courses
Looking at historical performance across the PGA TOUR, here are some courses that share overlapping success and/or failures with Colonial CC:
Harbour Town GL
TPC River Highlands
TPC Boston
Harbour Town is the one that gets pointed out the most when it comes to linking possible comp courses with Colonial. None of the courses have a very high double bogey or worse rate. Creativity and shot-making can be used to escape trouble and plodders can just plod along while racking up piles and piles of pars.
The Weather
Thursday: Sunny with a high of 89 degrees. Winds around 9 MPH, gusts up to 20 MPH.
Friday: Sunny with a high of 92 degrees. Winds at 7 to 11 MPH, gusts up to 20 MPH.
It’s going to be a hot one with a tough of wind, as expected when heading to this area. The early forecast calls for an increase in those winds speeds over the weekend so we could see some big movement (good and bad) over the weekend.