Colonial Country Club will be the star of the show this week as a field of 120 golfers head to Texas for the Charles Schwab Challenge.
The classical design rewards course management and tilts in favor of precision more than power.
For DFS roster construction we are going to dig a little deeper and focus on the turf.
Birdies on Bentgrass
Colonial Country Club has bermuda from tee-to-green but bentgrass putting surfaces.
“Those are always nice. Any time you can get bentgrass greens, that just means one less factor. You don’t have all that really grainy Bermuda.” -Patrick Reed in 2016
“These greens, I absolutely love. I wait all year to get on bentgrass greens.” -Bryce Molder in 2016
“I grew up on greens that look very similar to this. I grew up on bent greens that are undulating.” -Webb Simpson in 2018
Those quotes are just a reminder that grass types really are a focus for many golfers out on tour. Others ignore the details entirely but there are built-in comforts for golfers that have a lot of experience on bent greens.
Here are the top performers in adjusted strokes gained per round on courses with bentgrass greens, over the last two years:
Scottie Scheffler
Sungjae Im
Jordan Spieth
Tony Finau
Sam Burns
Viktor Hovland
Collin Morikawa
Tommy Fleetwood
Justin Rose
Christiaan Bezuidenhout
Lucas Herbert
K.H. Lee
Max Homa
Russell Henley
Kurt Kitayama
We can also look at performance versus baseline to see who shows the largest increase in performance compared to their typical scores:
Kurt Kitayama
Austin Eckroat
Jimmy Walker
Chez Reavie
Lucas Herbert
Christiaan Bezuidenhout
Adam Long
Robby Shelton
Adam Schenk
K.H. Lee
Aaron Rai
Luke List
Justin Rose
Harry Hall
Justin Suh
Overlap List: names that show up on both lists include Kurt Kitayama, Lucas Herbert, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, K.H. Lee, and Justin Rose.
Rose ready for seconds at Colonial CC?
The Englishman won the 2018 edition of this event and could be ready to add a second victory to his tournament resume. Rose won at Pebble Beach earlier this year and more recently he’s piled up top 25s in four of his last five starts. That includes a top 10 at the PLAYERS and top 10 last week at Oak Hill.
Bezuidenhout brings momentum with his irons
The South African only real weakness is his lack of power relative to the average PGA TOUR pro. That weakness is muted a bit at a classical course like Colonial. Is he playing well, though? He arrives with 3.5 or more strokes gained approach in five straight events. He twirled a T15 here last year and could be in store for something similar this week.
