PGA Course Preview for the 2025 CJ Cup Byron Nelson: Scouting the Routing

Ian McNeill's free comprehensive course preview of TPC Craig Ranch for the 2024 Byron Nelson. Ian examines the course, giving key metrics and trends to help make informed decisions on the PGA betting board.

After a one-week hiatus for my least favorite event of the season, we're back in full force for another one of my bottom three! Jokes aside, TPC Craig Ranch will take a lot of flack for its rather featureless layout, but for golf bettors, any course that has yielded three winners from above 80-1 on the odds board is ripe with opportunity.

Couple this proclivity for long-shot winners with perhaps the last chance we'll have to see World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler before the 2025 PGA Championship, and there's plenty of reason to tune into the happenings at TPC Craig Ranch.

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 TPC Craig Ranch and the 2025 CJ Cup Byron Nelson!

The Golf Course

TPC Craig Ranch - Par 71; 7,414 yards

Past Champions

• 2024 - Taylor Pendrith (-23) over Ben Kohles
• 2023 - Jason Day (-23) over Austin Eckroat & Si Woo Kim
• 2022 - K.H. Lee (-26) over Jordan Spieth
• 2021 - K.H. Lee (-25) over Sam Burns

Craig Ranch by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):

• Average Fairway Width -- 37.1 yards; eighth widest on the PGA Tour
• Average Driving Distance -- 296.6 yards; sixth highest on Tour
• Driving Accuracy -- 61.6%; 14th highest on Tour
• Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.31; ninth lowest on Tour
  • Rough Penalty -- 0.21; 13th lowest on Tour
  • Non-Rough Penalty -- 0.41; 17th lowest on Tour
  • Missed FW Penalty Fraction -- 3.0%; 15th lowest on Tour
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: (+0.039); fourth easiest on Tour

In contrast to some of the more demanding venues we're scheduled to visit during the "Championship Season" of professional golf, this week's stop in McKinney, Texas provides one of the least rigorous tests these players will ever see at the top level. This general theme of amiability begins off of the tee, where TPC Craig Ranch presents very few impediments to the game's best.

At an average width of 37 yards, the fairways here will look like runways to those coming straight from the claustrophobic confines of Harbour Town, and the 2.75" Bermudagrass rough hasn't historically provided much consequence to off-line tee shots. This fact, along with a sneakily long layout of over 7,400 yards (seventh highest on the PGA Tour), makes Craig Ranch among the most susceptible courses on the schedule to a bomb-and-gouge approach.

Looking back through recent driving leaderboards here at the Byron Nelson, a clear pattern begins to emerge between players that have routinely topped the field in Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee. Last year, 11 of the top 12 drivers of the ball for the week averaged at least 300 yards, and each of the 10 players that averaged 305 yards in Driving Distance gained strokes to the field with their tee shots -- even when some hit less than 50% of their fairways.

I don't see much reason not to favor driving distance in your overall modeling, as most of the defense put up by this week's routing comes in the form of 490-plus-yard par fours. Three such holes exist on this course (12, 13, and 16), and each has carried a historic bogey/worse rate of 15, 23, and 24%, respectively. Any player able to carry the ball in excess of 300 yards can take a large chunk out of these holes' ability to cause stress (and set you up for success on the extremely score-able par fives here at Craig Ranch). With off-the-tee playing an inordinately large role in determining top finishes here at the Byron (26.3% of total strokes gained by top-five finishers), don't be afraid to ramp up your weight on ball speed, carry distance, and total driving splits on longer, driver-heavy courses.

Craig Ranch by the Numbers (Approach):

• Green in Regulation Rate -- 70.3%; Eighth highest on the PGA Tour
• Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: (+0.050); Second easiest on Tour
• Key Proximity Ranges:
  • 200+ yards (accounts for 35.7% of historical approach shots)
  • 175-200 yards (18.6%)
  • 150-175 yards (18.0%)

One thing that does set TPC Craig Ranch apart from other notable PGA birdie parties is the lack of wedge opportunities players will expect to find around this routing. In fact, with three of the four par 3's here measuring over 200 yards, seven of its 11 par fours measuring over 455 yards. Each of the three par fives playing as two shot holes to a majority of the field, the approach distribution this week looks a lot more similar to a venue like Bay Hill or Torrey Pines as opposed to some of its main corollaries in terms of scoring average.

Through four years at Craig Ranch, nearly 37% of approach shots have come from 200 yards and beyond and over 70% of approaches have come from beyond 150. Despite the winning scores, this is very clearly not a traditional wedge/putting contest to 25-under par. Instead, players will need to create a bulk of their birdie opportunities with a mid/long-iron in hand.

Fortunately, the softer conditions at Craig Ranch (paired with green complexes that measure in at nearly 7,000 square feet), make finding your target with the second shot one of the easiest tasks we'll see all year. Craig Ranch has ranked inside the bottom ten in Approach Difficulty in each of the four seasons it's hosted this event, and it's never ranked worse than 12th in Green in Regulation Percentage.

While Craig Ranch doesn't present the most strenuous ball-striking test, iron play has remained one of the most important metrics in predicting success at the Byron Nelson. Since 2021, the top-five finishers here have gained an average of 3.3 strokes on approach, and nobody has finished better than T9 whilst losing strokes to the field with their irons. Long Iron Proximity and Birdie Chance Creation will each remain at the forefront of my handicapping process.

Craig Ranch by the Numbers (Around the Greens):

• Scrambling Percentage -- 66.7%; 9.2% below Tour Average 
• Sand Save Difficulty -- (+0.001); 14th toughest on Tour
• Up-and-Down Difficulty (Fairway) -- (+0.054); Second easiest on Tour
• Up-and-Down Difficulty (Rough) -- (+0.084); Third easiest on Tour
• SG: Around the Green Difficulty: (+0.054); Third easiest on Tour

If players do happen to miss these greens in regulation (something the field's best ball-strikers only project to do about 20% of the time), they won't exactly be met with a daunting test from these greenside surrounds either. The scrambling percentage over the first three years here at Craig Ranch sits over nine percentage points above the PGA Tour average, and only Renaissance Club and Vidanta Vallarta have proven to be easier venues for players to gain strokes around the greens.

This combination of ease both in hitting these greens and getting up-and-down on the rare occasions you need to makes the case for weighing short game at the Byron Nelson a difficult one to make. Only 25% of top-five finishers here since 2021 have attained that position on the back of a top-10 field ranking in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens, and the three winners at the Byron Nelson since its move to Craig Ranch have gained a paltry 7.2% of their total strokes with their short games.

One argument that can be made for players who excel around the greens is that of the clear correlation we've seen year over year between prolific Par 5 scoring and top finishes here at TPC Craig Ranch. This metric is historically favorable to those with prodigious short games, and I will be including a few key Par 5 scoring stats in my modeling. However, outside of this auxiliary correlation, I see no reason to further weigh around the green play in any sort of Byron Nelson model.

Craig Ranch by the Numbers (Putting):

• Average Green Size: 6.778 sq. feet
• Agronomy -- Pure Bentgrass
• Stimpmeter: 11.5
• 3-Putt Percentage: 2.2% (0.8% below Tour Average)
• Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: (+0.017); Easiest on Tour

And finally, we come to the greens themselves. Like most events that require scores in the 20s to contend, ball-striking alone will not be enough to carry players to the top of the leaderboard. K.H. Lee, Jason Day, and Taylor Pendrith have combined to gain 14.8 strokes to the field with their flat sticks over the course of their four championship runs, and only three players in that time have managed to attain a top-ten finish at Craig Ranch with a below-average putting week.

Notably, the greens at TPC Craig Ranch aren't exactly preclusive to holing putts, as they've routinely ranked as some of the easiest surfaces to putt on from short, long, and mid-range. Last season, Craig Ranch ranked in the bottom three in putting difficulty from both 5-15 and 15-plus feet, and continually concedes one of the lowest three-putt percentages on Tour.

Despite this lack of nuance, I still need to trust a player on the greens to have any confidence in his ability to win this week's race to 25-under par. I'll be heavily weighing both season-long and long-term bentgrass putting splits (particularly from the key scoring range of 5-15 feet), and unlike most weeks on the PGA Tour -- I'll have no issue crossing a player off who hasn't proven capable of spiking with the flat stick.

Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):

• SG: Putting ceiling; specifically on bentgrass
• Mid/Long Iron play -- specifically weighting Proximity/Strokes Gained splits from 150-225 yards
• Driving Distance
• Historic acumen in easier scoring conditions
• Par 5 Proficiency
• Birdie or Better Percentage/Birdie Chances Created

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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 Units

Total 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.

Stephan Jaeger

Stephan Jaeger from LONG range for birdie and the co-lead! 😤

📺 Golf Channel | @SonyOpenHawaii pic.twitter.com/K89Y6OOIqu

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) January 12, 2025

"Course horses" are a common refrain from golfing media as we arrive at each weekly stop on the PGA Tour, but for Stephan Jaeger, the moniker is more suitable for an entire genre of golf course design. Over his three and a half years as a member on Tour, Jaeger has proven time and time again that he's as capable as they come on wide-open, driver-heavy golf courses with a breakneck scoring pace.

From the runways of Vidanta Vallarta, where Jaeger has claimed a third, sixth, and two additional top 20 finishes in four appearances, to a runner-up in the forgiving confines of last fall's Black Desert Championship, and a ninth and a fifth place finish in two of the last three years at Detroit Golf Club, Jaeger has found success at virtually every comp course in my dataset.

His first PGA Tour victory came just three hours south in Houston -- notably, at another course with wide-open driving corridors and a large percentage of long-iron approach shots, and between these two Texas venues (Craig Ranch and Memorial Park), Jaeger hasn't finished worse than 20th in any of his last five starts.

He comes in with some of the hottest approach form in this field (averaging 3.4 strokes gained over his last five tournaments), ranks top 25 in this field in season-long putting, and has ranked 1st and 4th over his last two starts at the Byron Nelson in Total Driving. Still posted at prices of 45-1 on betting boards, TPC Craig Ranch sets up as well as any course on Tour for the Bavarian's second career PGA victory.

Alejandro Tosti

Alejandro Tosti is HYPED !!! 🇦🇷

Birdie keeps him 1 back, +1600 live @BetMGM pic.twitter.com/Mwp3K1PN5Q

— Golfbet (@Golfbet) March 31, 2024

He doesn't boast the same the same CV as the seven-time worldwide winner above him in these write-ups, but many of the same arguments can be made for Alejandro Tosti this week at TPC Craig Ranch. The 28-year-old Argentinian ranks 2nd in this field in Driving Distance, has an established track record on similarly wide-open venues, and comes into the week on the back of one of the better three-start stretches of his PGA Tour career.

Tosti's come second and fifth through two career starts at Memorial Park. He's recorded two top-ten finishes at Vidanta Vallarta, and although he missed the weekend by one shot at last year's Byron Nelson, he managed to gain 6.6 strokes to the field from tee-to-green (ranking first in the field on a per round basis).

The 6.2 strokes he lost on the greens through those two rounds ultimately sunk his chances of a magical week in Dallas, but recent finishes of 5th, 12th, and 2nd in his last start at the Corales Puntacana Championship suggest Alejandro is firing on all cylinders coming into this year's rendition.

I think the lack of course history plays into our favor with the oddsmakers, as someone with Tosti's profile and recent form should not be flirting with the triple digits in outright markets -- especially in a field featuring just two of the OWGR's top 20. Tosti was among my first clicks of the week, and still a very enticing proposition at 90-1.

If you read my articles @RotoBaller or listen to @TheTurnGolfPod I’ve been telling y’all it was #WinningSeason when golf came back! Shoutout to the entire @RotoBallerPGA squad and all you guys that support my work for all the ❤️ pic.twitter.com/07a4ynvbSU

— Joe Nicely (@JoeNicely) June 28, 2020

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