RADIO
After a sporadic September on the scheduling front, October brings with it the first signs of fall and a run of seven PGA Tour events in eight weeks!
The start of our stretch run begins in Jackson, Mississippi for the Sanderson Farms Championship: an event that has seen its fair share of variety within its recent catalogue of champions. From Major Champions and top-five players in the world, to multiple 100-1 long-shots. Such is the ethos of the fall swing, and this week in particular, with only one top 50 player present in this field, the possibilities feel as endless as ever on the PGA Tour!
This piece will serve to break down every key trend and statistic I'm weighing to project a player's viability in the outright market and set our readers up to make the crucial decisions necessary on pre-week betting boards. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report on the Country Club and of Jackson the 2024 Sanderson Farms Championship!
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The Golf Course
The Country Club of Jackson - Par 72; 7,461 yards
Past Champions
- 2023 - Luke List (-18) over L. Aberg, B. Griffin, H. Norlander, and S. Stallings (playoff)
- 2022 - Mackenzie Hughes (-17) over Sepp Straka (playoff)
- 2021 - Sam Burns (-22) over Cameron Young & Nick Watney
- 2020 - Sergio Garcia (-19) over Peter Malnati
- 2019 - Sebastian Munoz (-18) over Sungjae Im
- 2018 - Cameron Champ (-21) over Corey Conners
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):
- Average Fairway Width -- 29.0 yards; sixth narrowest on the PGA Tour
- Average Driving Distance -- 287.5 yards; 15th lowest on Tour
- Driving Accuracy -- 54.6%; seventh lowest on Tour
- Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.28; fifth lowest on Tour
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: 15th easiest on Tour
It’s a stark change of scenery from the rolling hills of Northern Califonia to the Golden Coasts of Jackson, Mississippi, but from a statistical standpoint, there are many through-lines to be drawn between the first two stops of the fall swing. Like Silverado three weeks ago, the Country Club of Jackson features some of the narrowest fairways on the PGA Tour, and its historical driving accuracy rate sits a whopping 8 percentage points below the Tour Average (53.9% vs 61.9%).
Don’t let these narrow landing areas confuse you though, as like the Fortinet Championship, players will receive very little penalty for driving the ball off-line at the Sanderson Farms. At just 0.29 strokes, Jackson CC features the 6th lowest missed fairway penalty on the PGA Tour, and with just 2 water hazards/penalty areas in play off the tee, there aren’t a lot of deterrents standing in the way of players swinging away with driver off of nearly every tee box.
This disregard for Jackson’s off-fairway impediments has been best exemplified by Cameron Champ, who won here in 2018 despite ranking 123rd in Driving Accuracy that week. And last year, 54-hole leader Ben Griffin and eventual champion Luke List combined to hit just 47.3% of their fairways on the week: a mark that sat a nearly six percent below the field average.
In fact, nearly 40% of Top 10 finishers since 2018 have finished the week below field average in driving accuracy in Jackson, whereas driving distance has taken a much more prescient role in overall predictiveness. Since 2015, eight of nine winners here have rated out above field average in driving distance (average rank of 11.4), and roughly 70% of Top 10 finishers have beaten the field average in distance off the tee.
Although a past champions list of Cameron Champ, Sam Burns, and Luke List paints a clear picture in favor of the bomb-and-gouge strategy, I hesitate to put too much weight on driving as a whole when we’ve seen the likes of Mackenzie Hughes, Ryan Armour, and Peter Malnati also find the winner’s circle here within the last nine years. The three of them combined to lose 1.8 strokes off-the-tee in their respective wins, and of the four strokes gained metrics, off-the-tee still comes in at a distant third in relation to its contribution to Top 5/10/20 finishers.
I will be treating Driving Distance as a key statistic given it's bump in predictiveness here historically, but this course is far from the Torrey Pines's, Bay Hill's, or Quail Hollow's of the world: where certain players can be eliminated from a player pool based entirely on their deficiencies off of the tee. As Ben Griffin (-2.9 SG: OTT) almost proved here last year, this week's layout is benign enough to allow the next few facets of this article to mitigate a sub-par off-the-tee performance.
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Approach):
- Green in Regulation Rate -- 70.1%; eighth highest on the PGA Tour
- Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: (+0.013); 13th easiest on Tour
- Key Proximity Ranges:
- 200+ yards (accounts for 22.5% of historical approach shots)
- 125-150 yards (19.3%)
- 100-125 yards (16.4%)
As we move into the second shot and beyond, the formula for success moves swiftly from the “choose your own adventure” philosophy we discussed with the driver, into a more necessary prerequisite. Top five finishers at the Sanderson Farms have gained an average of 3.94 strokes to the field with their approach shots (compared to just 2.16 off-the-tee), and only one winner here since 2017 has managed to capture this title whilst gaining any less than 2.5 strokes on approach.
Anyone who combs through golf statistics on a regular basis will understand the importance of approach play to success on the PGA Tour, so the real question we should be asking is which types of iron players should we be targeting? As is the case with most of the easier venues on Tour, proximity ranges at the Country Club of Jackson fall into two general categories: wedges on the Par 4’s, and long irons on the Par 3’s and 5’s.
With seven Par 4’s this week measuring in at under 450 yards, four reachable Par 5’s, and two Par 3’s measuring over 200 yards, I’d anticipate players to have a wedge or long iron in their hand on 70-plus percent of their approach shots. Proximity to the hole metrics from <150 and >200 will both be integral parts of my modeling process, as will incoming iron form as a whole.
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Around the Greens):
- Scrambling Percentage -- 62.0%; 4.5% above Tour Average
- Sand Save Difficulty -- (+0.049); 2nd easiest on Tour
- Up-and-Down Difficulty (Fairway) -- (+0.004); 15th toughest on Tour
- Up-and-Down Difficulty (Rough) -- (+0.028); 13th easiest on Tour
- SG: Around the Green Difficulty: (+0.018); 12th easiest on Tour
It's a common refrain throughout the swing season, but with the best ball-strikers in this field projected to hit 75-80% of their greens in regulation, it's difficult to make a strong case for the importance of around the green play this week. As a matter of fact, there have been multiple instances of recent leaderboards here in Jackson filled with players who rated out below the field average that week with their short games.
In 2022, six of the top 12 on the leaderboard lost strokes around the greens. And in the three years previous, we saw two Sanderson Farms Champions (Cameron Champ and Sergio Garcia), capture this crown whilst losing strokes in this category.
Like three weeks ago at the Procore, I will be using Par 5 scoring as a bit of a stand-in for around the green play, as a quality short game is one of the most correlative stats to being an elite scorer on the par fives. On the other 14 holes, however, CC of Jackson doesn't present nearly enough difficulty either into or around the greens to warrant a substantial weight on chipping as an independent entity.
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Putting):
- Average Green Size: 6,200 sq. feet
- Agronomy -- Champion Bermuda
- 3-Putt Percentage: 2.9% (0.1% below Tour Average)
- Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: (+0.001); 15th easiest on Tour
In contrast to it's fellow short-game metric, putting has been the most impactful of the four strokes gained metrics when projecting Top 5/10/20 finishers at the Sanderson Farms (narrowly edging out Approach), and over the last five years, only one Champion of the Sanderson Farms has managed to capture the title whilst gaining less than 2.8 strokes putting.
Agronomically, the greens at Jackson are made up of Champion Bermuda and roll upwards of 12.5-13 on the Stimpmeter, making them some of the fastest greens we’ll see all year. This absolutely contributes to CCoJ being one of the more difficult venues to gain strokes with the putter relative to its spot on the schedule, and it puts even more emphasis on a player’s history on comparable green types.
Historic acumen on similar surfaces will be a key metric in my modeling, as will recent putting splits leading up to this week (Sedgefield, Quail Hollow, and TPC Southwind all feature Champion Bermuda greens and were played in competition over the course of the 2024 season). Unless you carry a truly elite ball-striking ceiling (which is much harder to find in this strength of field), I’ll need some legitimate upside cases to point to when projecting your performance on these greens.
Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):
- Total Ball-Striking: w/ special emphasis on Driving Distance, Incoming Approach Form, and Wedge proximity <150 yards
- SG: Putting on Faster Bermudagrass greens (Sedgefield, TPC Southwind, Quail Hollow, and Congaree are all recent examples of courses with similar agronomy)
- Par 5 Scoring
- Birdie or Better Percentage
- Strokes Gained: Easier Scoring Conditions
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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod
2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 UnitsTotal Winnings: +311.229 Units
Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36
H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE
— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022
The Sunday Shortlist
Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.
Keith Mitchell
UNREAL!
Keith Mitchell with a hole-out eagle on 18 to take the lead!
📺 : NBC and Peacock | @ValsparChamp pic.twitter.com/JIcNMVVvqB
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) March 23, 2024
Whether it be its direct proximity to the President's Cup, one of the European Tour's most prestigious events being contested on the same week, or the general need for rest after a grueling 2024 season as a whole, we're not exactly being spoiled for choice as PGA fans in the headliner department. Only one player in this field currently sits inside the top 50 in the world rankings (Nick Dunlop), and all but three players currently sit outside of the top 50 year-long designation required for entry into 2025's signature series.
This lack of marquee names does provide a golden opportunity (both for players and bettors), however, as a win at the Sanderson Farms carries with it the same exemptions, financial rewards, and securities afforded to the winner of any other Tour event. For bettors, the outright case becomes a lot easier when our favorite mid-tier player isn't having to hold off a charge from Scottie Scheffler or Xander Schauffele over the weekend to close the deal.
One player who should be licking his chops at this opportunity is Keith Mitchell: a player who despite sitting as the 89th-ranked player on the planet, will almost assuredly sit atop the models of many of your favorite golf-betting personalities. Mitchell may not have a finish better than ninth in 2024 thus far, but he has put on a career-best run of tee-to-green play: resulting in a whopping 10 top-twenty finishes over his last 20 starts, and a place alongside some of the game's premier names in many underlying ball-striking metrics.
In fact, over his last 50 rounds, only Scottie Scheffler has gained more strokes to the field than Keith Mitchell when combining driving and iron play. He leads this field in Ball-Striking, Birdie Chances Created, and Birdie or Better Percentage, and ranks inside the top five in Total Driving, Driving Distance, and Weighted Proximity.
There aren't many entities in this field that I'd look twice at in the 20-1 range normally, but my numbers have Mitchell as far and away the safest projection in this field. His slumping putter has seemed to be corrected over the last two weeks: most notably gaining a season-best 3.3 strokes on the Champion Bermuda greens of Sedgefield last month. The UGA alum has always held a special affinity for Bermudagrass, and if these trends can hold this week in Jackson, you'd be hard pressed to find him anywhere but the top of the leaderboard on Sunday afternoon.
Nick Hardy
Nick Hardy sacrificed a club for the sake of a great approach into the 9th green.
Hardy went on to make the closing birdie putt and shoot 65 (-6) at TPC Twin Cities. pic.twitter.com/hQRuFCEiHI
— Underdog Golf (@Underdog__Golf) July 27, 2023
He captured his first PGA Tour title one state away at the 2023 Zurich Classic, and with the recent ball-striking run he's put together in the last three months, Nick Hardy looks primed to find his way into victory lane on his own very soon. Hardy comes into this week having gained strokes approach in ten straight starts dating back to April's Valero Texas Open, and has gained strokes off of the tee in eight of those ten.
Despite ranking inside the top 15 in each ball-striking category over the last three months, Hardy has been held to no finish better than 38th since the Valero: due largely to a balky putter that has lost a whopping 3.1 shots on average in his last five starts.
Fortunately though, Hardy will be returning to much friendlier confines in regards to historic putting splits. The Illinois-grad has gained strokes on Jackson's greens in each of his three career appearances: logging finishes of 26th, 5th, and 35th since making his debut in 2021.
Once a top-ten ranked amateur in the loaded class of 2019, the breakthrough has been a long-awaited one for the Chicago-native. He's clearly comfortable on this property and I believe the underlying stats show a player much more primed for a win than his recent finishes would indicate. He's a top-five ball-striker in this field by my numbers, and at prices north of 100-1, Hardy is absolutely worth a shot in a field devoid of any truly elite figures.
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