RADIO
The summer heat permeates throughout the Midwest alongside the PGA Tour as we've come upon week 26 of the 2024 season. On tap this week is a familiar midsummer stop tucked within the tall trees of Silvis, Illinois, the John Deere Classic held at TPC Deere Run. The course was designed by former PGA Tour pro-D.A. Weibring with inclusion in the TPC network of courses. Rock River Valley provides the surrounding landscape on this exciting, but easy layout with a few water hazards and a dose of difficult bunkers.
We have extensive historical data from this tournament and course that we can use to help project a winning statistical player profile for 2024. Some big names have decided to add this to their schedule in search of late-season Fedex Cup Points, such as Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay. Sepp Straka is the defending champion as he was able to fend off several charges from competitors on Sunday of last season.
I wanted to use this piece to hopefully highlight a few different angles and elements that may be less spoken about to provide some value in this course preview. I'm hopeful that you can utilize this for building lineups and making your stat models to provide you with the best possible chances of success this week. In this course preview, we'll delve into some of the distinctive features that make TPC Deere Run unique, hoping that it will assist in your preparation for the upcoming tournament.
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An Introduction to TPC Deere Run
In the past couple of weeks, the PGA Tour has visited courses that were steeped in history and designed hundreds of years ago. By those standards, TPC Deere Run is still in its infancy. The doors to the clubhouse first opened in 1999 after a lengthy design and build took place at the hands of course architect and former PGA Tour professional D.A. Weibring. The course almost immediately gained a lot of notoriety and began hosting the John Deere Classic just one year later in 2000.
The piece of land that was utilized is a unique and exceptional property in the Illinois fields. The Rock River Valley provided a picturesque natural-looking landscape that provided the perfect site for an elite golf course. The property itself was once the site of a horse farm owned by the John Deere family, thus enabling the longstanding sponsorship between the John Deere company and the PGA Tour.
The course is admittedly lacking some architectural prowess and the field is typically sub-par by PGA Tour standards, but it is always in exceptional shape and in perfect condition come tournament week. This event is also known for its massive charitable donations, raising millions over the years to support all kinds of worthy causes. Tournaments like this will always have their place on the PGA Tour and should be appreciated for what they are. I'm excited for the action on the course this week and hoping that the tournament gets a deserving winner!
Sepp Straka matches the TPC Deere Run front nine record with a 28 (-7) in the final round.
+3.49 SG: PUTT in R4. pic.twitter.com/jWWnUbBHUj
— Underdog Golf (@Underdog__Golf) July 9, 2023
Scorecard:
Course Specs
At just over 7,200 yards and playing at moderate elevation, TPC Deere Run is effectively one of the shorter layouts that we see on the schedule every year. It's a par 71 featuring three par 5s that all play between 560-600 yards. Known for its wide fairways that encourage players to utilize their distance off the tee, TPC Deere Run annually records some of the highest Driving Distance x Driving Accuracy upticks of any event all season. Last year, players averaged 297 yards off the tee and hit the fairway 65% on average. That's 6 yards longer and 6% more accurate than the standard PGA Tour event.
Because of this, it often turns into a wedge-fest from the fairways. The fairways and tee boxes are comprised of a Southshore Bentgrass and they are always expertly maintained. The rough is a Kentucky Bluegrass/Fescue blend that Superintendent Jonathan Graham keeps at around 4 inches during the tournament. Last year was Graham's first season as head Super at TPC Deere Run, and the tournament played to a familiar winning score of -21, so it doesn't seem like he made any significant changes that we need to consider moving forward.
This tournament has a history of making...history. From 2009-2011, Steve Stricker won this event three consecutive years, which is still a PGA Tour record. In 2013, Jordan Spieth became the first teenager to win a PGA Tour event when he won in a playoff at age 19 over Zach Johnson (Illinois's very own) and Canadian David Hearn. It's a straightforward test that allows you to play often with a simple wedge in your hand. Players are likely to hit 13-14 greens in regulation per day, so from there, it becomes a good old-fashioned putting contest. The greens are 5,500 sq. ft. on average and a pure bentgrass with little undulation.
On this date in 2013, Jordan Spieth, 19, became first teenager to win on PGA Tour since 1931, winning John Deere on fifth hole of playoff. pic.twitter.com/lajziVuwTU
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) July 14, 2017
Statistical Considerations
As we mentioned earlier, the fairways are generous and wide which tempts players to blast away with their driver. However, if you miss the fairway, TPC Deere Run is exceptionally difficult to score from the rough. In terms of the penalty for missing in the rough, it has one of the widest dispersions of any course on tour in terms of average scoring from the fairways vs. the rough. As much as distance always helps, I'll be putting more weight on Driving Accuracy for this event.
The Bentgrass greens are normally very fast and somewhat tricky. This course ranks as one of the most difficult putting courses on Tour, likely because of the multiple tiers and moving hills/valleys around them which can tend to play tricks on the eye. That said, they roll extremely true and everything becomes makable if you leave yourself in the correct spots. Straka gained nearly four strokes putting in the final round last year on the front-nine alone. I'm factoring in SG: Putting (Bent) and course-specific Putting Stats for players with history.
The winning score will once again be incredibly low. I'm going to put a heavy weight in my stat model on Opportunities Gained. It's a metric that looks at how often a player is getting themselves a look at birdie from inside 15 ft. in comparison to the field. It's a stat that is available on sites like Fantasy National and I have found it extremely useful in events like this. More opportunities mean more birdies if you can select the correct player.
Lastly, as showcased by the DataGolf Approach Shot Distribution chart below, we have ourselves a wedge party. In the 2023 John Deere Classic, 43.6% of all approach shots came from within 150 yards. It's a percentage that is substantially above the Tour average. I'll be focusing on recent strokes gained data on Approach: 50-150 yards. Another interesting metric that always checks out with recent winners has been SG: Around The Green. In 2023, a player's ability to gain strokes around the green proved to be more important than SG: Off-The-Tee.
Approach Shot Distribution (Datagolf)
RadarPlot (TPC Deere Run) vs. Avg. PGA Tour Course
Good luck and enjoy the 2024 John Deere Classic!
