Shriners Open Preview

The PGA TOUR returns to America for this week’s showdown in the desert. 

Nope, it’s not Tiger vs. Phil yet but we are headed to Las Vegas for the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. 

We’ll have 132 golfers in the field this week. Given the time of the year and the lack of emphasis on pace of play, don’t expect everyone to make it through their rounds on Thursday and Friday. UPDATE: They did drop the field by 12 guys this year but there have been past editions where 20+ golfers were left stranded. The cut is Top 70 and ties, as usual. 

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The Course

TPC Summerlin has been the sole host of this event since 2008. Before that, it was a course rotation used. 

The course is a par 71 that plays around 7,255 yards according to the scorecard. 

As you’d expect from desert golf, there isn’t any water in play off the tee. There is some on approach, though (3 holes plus one of the par 3s). The fairways are typically firm and fast which gives the shorter hitters a chance to knock out some lengthy drives. 

With firm conditions, an average-lengthed layout, and slight altitude, golfers will put plenty of short irons and wedges into their hands. That makes this course play on the easy side of the spectrum but exceptions are always made whenever the wind decides to roll through. We saw that last year when golfers were dealing with heavy winds Friday thru Sunday and that resulted in a 9-under winning score. That was a stark contrast from previous editions which had seen winners reach 19-under or better in 8-of-9 editions since Summerlin become the lone host in 2008. 

Unless there is a repeat of that fierce wind, we should expect to see birdies and eagles flying off the shelf. It’s eagles in particular that ease the scoring here. Looking at all events since 2014, this ranks 6th in terms of eagle rate (8th in birdie rate). There are plenty of ways to get in trouble here but overall, every hole is a birdie hole here, when you are playing well. It’s no surprise to see that we’ve seen a pair of 60s shot here (J.J. Henry, 2014; Rod Pampling, 2017). 

When looking at those names that fired rounds of 60s, we notice that length isn’t a requirement here. We’ve seen plenty of golfers call this a position-based course. It’s more fairways-and-greens style of golf that is top priority. You really don’t need to use your around-the-green prowess much around this layout. That makes sense when you consider most years golfers are pelting greens at a 70-to-75% clip. 

For grass types, golfers will see bermuda from tee-to-green but then bentgrass on the putting surfaces. This is a strange one in that historical performance on bentgrass does not highly correlate with success here at TPC Summerlin. Based on the numbers and no other info, I would tell you they are overseeded greens but they are actually A1/A4 Bentgrass. Personally, it’s not a week where I will look at grass splits at all. 

Course Quotes

Sifting through some past quotes over at the  Fantasy Golfanac, let’s try to break down the course to see how they will play…

Patton Kizzire: “this is a little bit more of a ball placement off the tee golf course, place your ball in the fairway and be accurate with your irons. And of course, I love a putting contest.”

Rod Pampling: “You don’t have to be the bomber to do it all. Playing with Brooks today, he hits it a long way, but he was hitting a lot of irons off the tee, so it’s still a positional golf course, and that’s what you need to do is position yourself properly and give yourself the chances.”

James Hahn: “Greens are rolling fast. Fairways are nice and firm. It’s definitely a premium to hit the fairways. The rough here, you’re getting some fliers, so it’s hard to adjust how far they’re going with the altitude. You know, it’s playable, a lot of low scores. “

Lucas Glover: “I’ve always had trouble with the distances here. It goes a little bit further than where I grew up and where I live, and a lot of trouble here short, so I find myself 20 feet long on a lot of my wedge shots. My direction has been okay, I’ve just been over the flag a bunch. That’s just being confident in my number and frankly my math.”

Patrick Rodgers: “Yeah, I can take advantage of some of my length. I feel really comfortable on the greens. Some of the greens are pretty big with a lot of breaking putts. I feel like I putt well on those style of greens. But I know it’s going to take a lot lower than 6-under par to win this tournament, so I’ve got a long way to go.”

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