The 2021-22 PGA TOUR season comes to an end this week as East Lake Golf Club prepares to host another edition of the TOUR Championship.
Trimmed down to the top 30 golfers in the FedExCup standings, the field is small and there is no 36-hole cut line to sweat. Everyone will be guaranteed 72 holes of action this week.
The Starting Strokes format returns this year with golfers each assigned a certain amount of strokes to start the week, based on their FedExCup position entering the week.
The Course
East Lake Golf Club is the host venue this week. It’s hosted every year since the 2004 edition as well as three previous, scattered instances before that.
This Donald Ross design was laid out in the early 1900s and has been renovated by Rees Jones. Not that it matters this week, but Andrew Green of AH Design is also scheduled to do a major overhaul after the 2023 TOUR Championship.
The course is tight and tree-lined with an emphasis on tight. The course graded out as the second-tightest fairways at 300 and 325 yards among all courses used last season.
It’s no surprise, then, to see the field averages roughly just 54 percent of fairways in recent years.
That wouldn’t be a big deal if the bermuda rough was manageable but the field has found just 48% of GIR when missing the fairway which is a huge drop-off from the 80-percent clip when attacking from the zoysia fairways.
That bermuda rough is heavily present around the greens as well, making it tough to get up-and-down if you find yourself on the wrong side of the green.
The classical greens feature bermudagrass and are heavily undulated as many classical courses are. The greens can run really fast, typically 12.25 feet on the spur or faster.
Paul Casey summed up the course well a few years ago, “It’s a golf course that rewards good ball striking, you’ve got to hit a lot of fairways, you’ve got to position the ball ideally below the hole and good touch putting .” Many players echo his statements about the importance of finding the fairways at East Lake. Distance is still a big advantage so the key for gamers this week will be to find the golfer who is locked in with his driver as he controls the entire round at East Lake.
Eagles are tough to come by at this par-70 layout, but big numbers are also rare. The result is a scoring environment that is right around the TOUR average despite the course hosting the top 30 golfers on TOUR each year.
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Correlated Courses
Using historical data at the TOUR Championship we can look at overperformance and underperformance at East Lake and compare that to all of the courses played out on TOUR. Here are the ones that shared a lot of overlap:
TPC Scottsdale
Torrey Pines
Chapultepec GC
Quail Hollow Club
The theme is courses that reward top-tier driving and also feature speedy and/or classical greens.
The Weather
Thursday: Light rain with a high of 80 degrees. Calm winds.
Friday: thunderstorms with a high of 78 degrees. Calm winds with gusts flirting with 20 MPH.
The forecast features a heavy dose of rain all week. The timing and severity of that rain will dictate how the course plays but with a small field there shouldn’t be too much of a concern about needing a Monday finish.
Golfers to Watch
Scottie Scheffler
He’s pieced together one of the best PGA TOUR seasons ever and has a chance to really cement his strong season with a big finish at East Lake. Starting with a two-shot cushion, he’ll be tough to catch if he just plays to his baseline.
Will Zalatoris
He withdrew last week with a back injury. He starts just three shots off the lead this week but his back is a major question mark, providing a lot more downside in his range of outcomes but he’s one of the top threats if the back has recovered well over the weekend.
Cameron Smith
The Aussie cited hip discomfort as the reason for not teeing it up last week at the BMW Championship. He dropped from 3rd to 6th in the FedExCup standings as a result.
Sahith Theegala
The talented youngster remains very humble. He’s talked about knowing how much he still needs to improve if he wants to be a top-tier talent on the PGA TOUR and also talked about being well behind Cameron Young in the Rookie of the Year race. While that is likely true, he could certainly make the decision tougher if he took it low this week at East Lake and finished higher in the final FedExcup standings. He showcased his clutch gene down the stretch on Sunday at Wilmington CC.
Rory McIlroy
He’s bettered the field average in 25-of-32 rounds at East Lake. That is impressive in any event, but even more impressive when you consider the stacked fields he’s faced over the years at the TOUR Championship. It’s safe to say he likes the layout here but he’ll open six shots off the pace of Scheffler at the top.
Adam Scott
If you want to ride the playoff momentum, Scott is a top candidate. He’s gained 14.8 strokes at the St. Jude and BMW Championship combined which is best in the field among golfers who completed both events. He’s also a past champion at the course (2006). Will he keep his foot on the gas for one more week but take it off now that he’s accomplished his goal of making it to East Lake?
Ranking the Field
1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Patrick Cantlay
3. Xander Schauffele
4. Rory McIlroy
5. Will Zalatoris
6. Cameron Smith
7. Sam Burns
8. Jon Rahm
9. Justin Thomas
10. Sungjae Im
11. Tony Finau
12. Matt Fitzpatrick
13. Cameron Young
14. Viktor Hovland
15. Jordan Spieth
16. Joaquin Niemann
17. Max Homa
18. Corey Conners
19. Hideki Matsuyama
20. Collin Morikawa
21. Scott Stallings
22. Billy Horschel
23. Adam Scott
24. Sepp Straka
25. Brian Harman
26. Aaron Wise
27. Sahith Theegala
28. KH Lee
29. Tom Hoge
30. JT Poston