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Ian McNeill's free comprehensive course preview of Philadelphia Cricket Club for the 2025 Truist Championship. Ian examines the course, giving key metrics and trends to help make informed decisions on the PGA betting board.
Just four weeks have passed since Rory McIlroy produced one of the most magical moments in Masters' history, yet we once again stand on the precipice of a Major Championship. With our ordinary host of the Truist Championship gearing up for the 2025 PGA, a brand new venue has been introduced to contest the year's seventh Signature Event.
Philadelphia Cricket Club: the oldest country club in the United States, is the stage chosen for the 2025 Truist Championship. And since 1922, the Wissahickon Course has confounded nearly all who have stepped foot on its rolling hills. Right alongside Winged Foot, Bethpage Black, Baltusrol, and Quaker Ridge as one of A.W. Tillinghast's cardinal works, this week should be as enjoyable as any we've seen this year for fans of Classical architecture.
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 Philadelphia Cricket Club's Wissahickon Course and the 2025 Truist Championship!
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The Golf Course
Philadelphia Cricket Club (Wissahickon Course) - Par 70; 7,119 yards
Past Champions
- 2024 - Rory McIlroy (-17) over Xander Schauffele
- 2023 - Wyndham Clark (-19) over Xander Schauffele
- 2022 - Max Homa (-8) over K. Bradley, M. Fitzpatrick, and C. Young
- 2021 - Rory McIlroy (-10) over Abraham Ancer
- 2019 - Max Homa (-15) over Joel Dahmen
* Of note - none of these past winners came at this venue. The 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024 iterations were played at the Quail Hollow Club, while 2022's Truist Championship was played at TPC Potomac
Philly Cricket Club by the Numbers
Weeks with no historical precedent at the Tour level are always the toughest to project, but at face value, this 7,100-yard setup should be open season for this elite field. Nine of the twelve par 4's this week come in under 450 yards, and with the par-three 14th measuring just 122 yards on the scorecard, this is far from the usual driver/long-iron intensive venues we tend to see when the best on Tour get together.
Instead, I project positional driving and wedge play to be at the forefront of my modeling process, as any drive in the fairway should open up a green-light scoring opportunity with a short iron in hand. While the 3" fescue rough is far from the hack-out penalty we tend to see at places like Torrey Pines or Muirfield Village, an abnormally wet spring (over eight inches of rain since the start of March), means there will certainly be some inordinately lush rough looming just off of the fairway.
This recent rainfall also projects to take some sting out of Philly Cricket Club's greatest defense: it's green complexes. Tillinghast golf courses are renowned for their striking undulation and confounding break, and while I do expect a greater than average miss percentage from inside 10 feet this week, the test would certainly be much more daunting if we got a firmer, faster version of Philly Cricket Club.
With receptive greens and a bevy of wedge opportunities, there isn't a golf course on the planet that can contend with the control possessed by the greatest players on the planet. Birdies will be needed in bunches to keep up with the pace-setters at the top of the leaderboard, and the player most able to control his golf ball around this positional layout will stand the best chance of emerging victorious.
Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):
- Wedge play - particularly looking at Proximity/Strokes Gained splits from inside of 150 yards
- Putting splits on Fast Bentgrass greens, examples in recent years include Augusta National, Winged Foot, Olympia Fields, Muirfield Village, etc.
- Total Driving/Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (larger weight on accuracy compared to distance)
- Birdie Chances Created/Birdie Conversion Rate
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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.
Justin Thomas
WHAT A WAY TO WIN IT! 🤯
Justin Thomas with the putt to claim victory at the @RBC_Heritage 🔥🏆 pic.twitter.com/JSaofLwsur
— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) April 20, 2025
Fresh off ending a nearly three year winless drought in Hilton Head, Justin Thomas will go off as one of this week's premier favorites in Philadelphia. JT talked at length about the work he's done on the greens (including some valuable insight he picked up from Xander Schauffele), and over the last two months, he's been as prolific as they come on Tour with the flat stick.
In four starts at Augusta, Harbour Town, Innisbrook, and Sawgrass, Thomas has gained an average of 4.52 strokes per tournament with his putter. A figure that should it prove sustainable, would immediately vault him back in a familiar spot among the world's best.
There will be no such questions asked about JT's game from tee through green -- especially at such a wedge-intensive setup like Philly Cricket Club. Thomas ranks first in this field in Proximity from inside of 150 yards over his last 50 rounds, and nobody in this field has created more birdie looks inside of 15 feet.
JT also recorded one of the better short game weeks of his career around Winged Foot in 2020 (one of this week's closest architectural corollaries), gaining 4.8 strokes to the field around the greens and 4.7 with his putter. He's recorded victories at two other shorter, wedge-intensive tracks in the Northeast: Medinah and TPC Boston (at 25 and 17-under respectively). If this course plays as I expect, there aren't many else in the field I trust more to knock down flagsticks and take it deep than the Tour's current leader in Birdie or Better Percentage.
Viktor Hovland
22 minutes ago Viktor Hovland was 3 back.
Now he's tied for the lead after making birdie on the toughest hole on the course @ValsparChamp.
📺 NBC pic.twitter.com/s90NeEIQAH
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 23, 2025
While he's proven his best can contend anywhere on the planet, Viktor Hovland's found his must sustained success on the bentgrass of the American Northeast. His two most iconic victories of his 2023 campaign came at Muirfield Village and Olympia Fields (gaining a combined 12.3 strokes putting), and his two closest calls at adding a Major Championship to his resume were on the bentgrass of Oak Hill and Valhalla.
Hovland's not entirely back into the form that elevated into World No. 1 conversations 18 months ago, but signs are trending in a very positive direction for Vik through the first four months of 2025. Over his last seven starts, Hovland has yet to lose strokes with his iron play: ranking him third in this field in SG: Approach over the last 50 rounds.
He's been particularly adept from inside of 150 yards: gaining 0.06 strokes per shot this season (fourth in the field), and stuffing it inside of six feet (quantified as a shot that gains >0.5 strokes), on 9.9% of his wedge approaches (fifth in the field).
Considering Hovland rates as one of the best bentgrass putters on Tour (and has gained strokes in each of his last three starts on the greens), the profile this week can in many ways reflect the winning formula he used at Innisbrook less than two months ago: keep the ball in play off of the tee, tread water around the greens, and spike with the irons and the putter. At prices encroaching on 40-1 in a short field, books are giving us plenty of opportunity to buy back into his resurgence.
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