Hey guys, welcome back. Going to approach this week a little different for content. I went over the course on the Podcast and have dropped little nuggets about the distance the course will play. So I want to just recap some course and related stats data I find interesting that also applies throughout the season.

First off, yes this course is long, and scorecard length has increased. My comment regarding the length is that it was mostly to 2 holes. So what does this mean? It means the other 16 holes are largely unchanged. So the majority of this course will play identical to 2021 in terms of length, it isn't an overall increase in length for half of the holes or more. So while OTT and DD is vitally important, I would not go overboard thinking this is a massively long course. It really isn't. Considering the Par change from 2021, the winning score would have still been -19. Plenty of birdies to be made here.

The other piece I wanted to cover was the lead-in statistics, specifically SG:APP. We all love good approach numbers, but understanding the underlying data matters. If you look at our lead-in stat correlations, SG:APP is near the bottom. Why is that? This does occur occasionally in weak fields where there are just so many poor performers who inevitably have good weeks. But this is a really strong field considering this is the Top 50 on the PGA Tour in 2025, so why would approach be less valuable as a lead-in stat.

As you know, this course has many long approaches...here is the data from 2021:

While my hot take is we see fewer longer approaches, majority will still be 200+ and 175-200. Now why is this important? Let's take a quick look at what Approach distributions are included in these player's lead in stats:

Besides the Open Championship, there is not many events that had crossover with this week's distributions. So using the known distributions to apply to Approach IQ would be a bit more valuable, but still I would focus most on good drivers as where the players will gain an advantage this week. Here is that PlayerIQ look:

WeatherIQ

Wind isn't the concern, but rain certainly is. Don't see much opportunity to completely avoid, but if anything this will lend itself to DD being more valuable.

CORE Plays