The PGA TOUR heads to Jersey City for the first leg of the 2021 FedExCup Playoffs.
This event has a rotating host and this year it’s Liberty National playing that role.
As the starting event of the Playoffs there are 125 eligible golfers. As of Monday morning, there is just one golfer taking a pass, No. 8 seed Louis Oosthuizen. He was a pre-tournament WD last week due to a neck injury so he’s presumably resting up for the final push of the Playoffs.
At the end of the week, the top 70 in the FedExCup standings will move on to play in next week’s BMW Championship.
The Course
Liberty National Golf Club is the host this week. We’ve seen it in competition at the 2009 and 2013 Barclays, the 2017 Presidents Cup, and the 2019 NORTHERN TRUST.
Laid out by Bob Cupp and Tom Kite, this 2006 design was built on a landfill and was not well-received initially at the 2009 Barclays.
It got a makeover ahead of the 2013 edition and the players tend to like it better now.
Some of those changes were just related to the setup of the course. Phil Mickelson had this to say about the changes, “If Augusta had rough and 24‑yard wide fairways, I don’t think it would be a very fun or great golf course, and you have the same criticism you have here in ’09. Now with the rough and a first cut, I think the subtleties and nuances of the golf course are coming out and it’s spectacular.”
Off the tee, strategy will be determined by course conditions. As a par 71 that plays to 7,410 yards, it requires a driver on most of the par 4s unless it’s playing firm and fast. We’ll need to listen to pre-tourney pressers to get more information on those expected course conditions.
From there, golfers will deal with water hazards on more than half the holes, 98 bunkers, and small greens (just 4,653 square feet on average).
That sounds like a tough task and once you reach the greens you have to deal with speedy, undulating bentgrass greens. If you need a visual aide, Webb Simpson said they remind him of Donald Ross greens.
Overall, it’s a pretty tough expected scoring environment that is going to produce a lot of big numbers. The winning scores in past editions hosted by Liberty National have been 9-under in 2009, 11-under in 2013, and 16-under in 2019. If I had to peg the winning score on Monday before the event I would put that guess somewhere between 13 and 17-under. After seeing the calm winds in the forecast, perhaps it plays a bit easier than that.
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Course Quotes
Sifting through some past quotes, let’s try to break down the course to see how it will play.
Rory McIlroy: “There’s not much rough out there, anyway, so it’s sort of bombs away with the driver and try to get it up as far as you can and go from there. It’s definitely a golf course that you’re going to have to keep being aggressive on this week.”
Jon Rahm: “I do believe it favors the long hitter. The rough is not very, very thick. We were pretty aggressive off the tee, and you start taking certain lines and hitting drivers everywhere, with a little bit of like a loose attitude knowing that if you miss a couple shots and still have a chance with the rough, it helps out.”
Byeong Hun An: “It’s a tricky golf course. You have to be precise with the second shot, especially, not only drivers, because like I said, there are a lot of greens because undulating greens, so you don’t want to miss it in the wrong side.”
Brooks Koepka: “This golf course is exciting. I think there’s about six easy holes where you really have got to make your birdies and then there’s about ten tough holes. If you put it in the fairway, you’re not exactly still expecting to make par, so it’s a very tough golf course. You’ve got to position yourself well off the tee and then if you miss greens, the lines around the green aren’t exactly tight, but the grass, there’s no real root system. So you can very easily duff one and if you’re worrying about duffing it, you thin it, and these greens are very — they have subtle slopes to them. So you never quite have a straight putt.”
Charl Schwartzel: “The greens have got a lot of contours, so you got to be accurate with your irons, you got to leave the ball in the right places, so it always makes you think. It’s not just a straightforward course where you can hit it and you’re going to be fine. You got to think around it.”
Recap: Golfers were able to hit a lot of drivers during the 2019 edition when it was soft. They talk a lot about the tricky greens, putting an emphasis on iron play.
Correlated Courses
Looking at grass types, geography, course attributes, and past performance, here are a few courses/events that I think could prove to be a good pointer this week:
Augusta National Golf Club
Muirfield Village Golf Club
TPC Boston
TPC Sawgrass
Quail Hollow
We’re looking for courses where you can hit lots of drivers but there is a penalty somewhere along the lines for poorly struck shots.
We don’t have as large of a sample as most weeks but these courses pass the eye test for me. Maybe add in Detroit GC if you want to run with the Donald Ross green complex quote from Webb.
The Weather
Thursday: Overcast with a high of 78 degrees. Winds at 6 to 10 MPH.
Friday: Overcast with a high of 80 degrees. Calm winds.
It’s going to be a major relief, temperature-wise, compared to last week in Greensboro. There doesn’t look to be any major concerns weatherwise so I think we are in for a fine week with calm winds for most of the week.
Golfers to Watch
Jon Rahm
He is the pre-tournament betting favorite. World No. 1 arrives with a solo 7th and T3 since his U.S. Open victory. Rahm posted a third-place finish the last time Liberty National hosted this event (2019). It’s hard to find many holes in his game right now.
Abraham Ancer
While Rahm finished third the last time they played at Liberty National, Ancer did him one better (solo 2nd). Ancer led the field in strokes tee-to-green during that 2019 NORTHERN TRUST event and he enters this week fresh off his maiden win at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude, just two weeks ago.
Patrick Reed
Sticking with the theme of history at Liberty National, Reed walked away with the trophy at the 2019 NORTHERN TRUST. The American also went 3-1-1 at the 2017 Presidents Cup so there are plenty of good vibes around this layout. He arrives with finishes between 19th and 34th in six of his last seven starts. A lot of middling results but perhaps a return to this happy hunting ground will provide a spark.
Dustin Johnson
He’s a three-time winner of the event but has never finished better than 15th in three tries at Liberty National. He arrives with top 25s in five of his last six starts so he’s finding form again after a bit of a mid-season slump.
Adam Scott
He entered last week on the Top 125 FedEx bubble but left Greensboro in much better standing. He played his way into the Wyndham playoff and nearly won it had he not missed from inside of five feet on the first playoff hole. Scott will have good vibes at the course this week, as the winner of the 2013 Barclays.
Daniel Berger
The Florida State product has already racked up a career-high (8) in top 10s this season, with three events still to play. Berger went 2-1-0 at Liberty National during the 2017 Presidents Cup but would love to post a big finish this week to springboard his standings for a different team competition, the Ryder Cup. Berger is currently 10th on the U.S. Team Rankings.
Ranking the Field
1. Jon Rahm
2. Jordan Spieth
3. Collin Morikawa
4. Xander Schauffele
5. Dustin Johnson
6. Viktor Hovland
7. Paul Casey
8. Daniel Berger
9. Scottie Scheffler
10. Bryson DeChambeau
11. Justin Thomas
12. Brooks Koepka
13. Webb Simpson
14. Cameron Smith
15. Patrick Reed
16. Rory McIlroy
17. Harris English
18. Hideki Matsuyama
19. Abraham Ancer
20. Patrick Cantlay