Truest Championship

Excited for this week at Philly Cricket. Gettin this in now, write up later 

Daniel Berger (45-1)

Adding another outright. I’ll be back tonight with a write up..

Hideki Matsuyama (30-1)

Top 10 (ties included):

Daniel Berger (+280)

This week I’ve had the pleasure to research and break down a new pga tour golf course which is refreshing. The Truist Championship will be held at Philly Cricket club which is a golf course with a lot of history and one I’m excited to see the worlds best navigate. Philly Cricket Club is a par 70 measuring out at just 7,119 yards. It’s a parklands style golf course with subtle undulations in Pennsylvania that is relatively simple off the tee and on approach, while the real challenge comes as you get closer to the greens. While I don’t think this will be a brutally tough challenge for these guys given the fact it is a short course with a lot of wedges into greens, but it certainly has its quirks on and around the greens that should give a lot of these guys fits. I’ll break down below what I believe to be key this week based on research and content that I’ve digested.

This golf course is quite easy off the tee, with wide fairways and lack of a huge penalty when missing them. The primary defense off the tee are some of the tricky bunkering that is littered throughout. The rough is relatively thick which in combination with the bunkers would lead me to focus more on accuracy off the tee than distance. But it is certainly not a pre requisite for me as missing the fairways appears to be far from a death sentence at this venue. With this being such a short course I don’t see a path for longer players off the tee to gain any significant edge. Shorter players will still have a ton of wedges into greens. Off the tee is not something I’ll be putting a lot of weight on but I do think more accurate players will have a little bit of an edge as they will likely have better angles into these small green surfaces.

I think approach play, as usual, will be the most reliable way to separate on this golf course. As I mentioned above, these green surfaces are quite small and have very difficult green side surrounds. Guys that can consistently dial in with the wedges will be rewarded by not having to scramble from tricky spots and difficult bunkers into firm and fast greens. Not to mention the subtle undulations on these greens will require players to be precise on approach in order to hit the correct quadrants for manageable birdie looks. I expect players that are flushing the wedges this week to climb up the leaderboard and the majority of my weight will go into recent approach play and long term proximity from 100-150 yds.

The aspect of this golf course that will truly challenge these players are the green side surrounds and the fast, bent grass green surfaces. Lots of difficult green side bunkering and chipping into small, quick greens will be a chore this week for these guys. Even with the fact that these guys will be hitting a ton of wedges into greens, these  greens being so small and fast with undulations should result in players having to get up and down pretty often. I am certainly looking for players with a serviceable around the green game. I will also be looking for guys that have had past success on putting on fast, undulating greens (Augusta National comes to mind). Overall I want players that are dialed in on approach, good long term wedge players, and a solid short game. This is a tricky week as we have not seen this golf course in pga tour play, but super excited to see how this place plays.