It was a fun week of team play last week at the Ryder Cup but it’s back to being every man for himself this week at the Country Club of Jackson.
This will be the eighth edition of the Sanderson Farms since moving from Annandale to the CC of Jackson.
Let’s hop right in to talk about the course.
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The Course
The Country Club of Jackson returns to host another edition of the SFC.
This par-72 layout stretches out to 7,461 yards during tournament week.
That sounds pretty beefy but there are also five par 4s that play under 425 yards. It’s not a course where distance is a requirement but four of the past five winners have been longer than TOUR average in the driving distance department (Sergio Garcia, Sebastian Munoz, Cameron Champ, and Cody Gribble).
Working in favor of the big hitters, the field has averaged 80 percent GIR from the fairway in the last seven years here and 59 percent when missing the fairway. That is a relatively small gap so the rough does not sound extremely punishing. It’s clear from listening to golfers talk about the course, though, that you need to find the fairways to attack but it’s relatively easy to avoid disaster here, even when you are spraying it offline.
What about the scoring environment? Is it easy or tough? Winning scores have fallen between 18-under and 21-under in each of the last five years. That makes it slightly easier than average but not one of the easiest courses on TOUR, either.
Even with four par 5s on the card, the rate of eagles is well below TOUR average rates. With three of them stretching out past 580 yards, they are three-shotters for most of the field. The ability to post low rounds is due to the lack of trouble lurking, with the field averaging less than 1 double bogey per 72 holes. It’s one of the 10 easiest courses on TOUR, in that regard. Other courses in the same range are Detroit GC, Torrey Pines North, La Quinta CC, Kapalua, Waialae CC, Silverado Resort and Spa, and Corales.
Due to the lack of trouble from tee-to-green, it often turns into a short-game shootout with hot putters rising to the top.
Looking at the turf, golfers will see bermudagrass fairways and greens with bermuda/zoysia rough that sits at just two inches. The greens are right around TOUR average in terms of size (6,200 square feet) and they typically run between 12 to 12.5 feet on the stimp. Slightly speedy.
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Course Quotes
Sifting through some past quotes, let’s try to break down the course to see how it will play.
Brandt Snedeker: “I’ve done a lot of research on it and realize it’s a great golf course for me. It sets up really well. It’s kind of an old-school, more of a putting contest where the greens are perfect.”
Doug Ghim: “Golf course is pretty straightforward; however, you need to be in the fairway to be able to attack. Certain greens are really shallow and firm and really hard to get the ball in the right spot if you’re not coming out of the fairway.”
J.T. Poston: “It’s hotter so the ball goes further. You know, that makes this golf course — it’s not necessarily a long golf course for us, but it makes it that much shorter.”
Keegan Bradley: “I like courses where when you look out and you see what’s going on, there’s not a lot of blind shots, there’s not a lot of funky hazards or out-of-bounds or stuff like that. It’s just kind of right there in front of you. I like that.”
Charley Hoffman: “You’ve got to be in the fairway to put yourself in the right position on the green because you’re playing big-time defense if you don’t hit it in the fairway. You’ve definitely got to know where to putt from on these greens. They’re rolling a good 13, 14. I expect them to speed up and firm up and get even more challenging.”
Correlated Courses
Looking at grass types, geography, course attributes, and past performance, here are a few courses/events that I think could prove to be a good pointer this week:
Detroit GC
Corales GC
El Camaleon
TPC San Antonio
Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead)
Detroit is another course where big numbers just really aren’t that common. Other than that, the main theme is a lot of courses that give you lots of short irons on approach.
The Weather
Thursday: Chance of T-Storms with a high of 83 degrees. Calm winds.
Friday: Sunny with a high of 89 degrees. Calm winds.
There is a chance of storms each day leading up to the event so the course may be playing soft come Thursday morning. After the risk of storms on Thursday, the threat of precipitation seems to move out for the way so it should be smooth sailing after Thursday.