After an emphatic European victory at the 2023 Ryder Cup, the PGA Tour FedEx Cup Fall swing continues with a trip down to Mississippi. It’s the 2023 Sanderson Farms Championship at the Country Club of Jackson. As always, here is your early deep dive on the 2023 Sanderson Farms Championship and a preview of how to bet.
2023 Sanderson Farms Championship Preview
The Field
From here on out, fields on the PGA Tour fall swing will be pretty barren of star power. No longer do the top players have much incentive to play in the fall because the new FedEx Cup season doesn’t begin until January. And with the Sanderson Farms offering a very low purse, there aren’t a lot of top players in the field.
However, highlighting the field is a young member of the victorious European team at the 2023 Ryder Cup. Ludvig Aberg will fly back over and compete at the 2023 Sanderson Farms Championship. With his high ceiling and the limited talent in the field, expect him to be towards the top of the odds board this week.
Other notables in the field include Sam Bennett, Akshay Bhatia, Eric Cole, Emiliano Grillo, Tom Hoge, Stephan Jaeger, Kevin Kisner, Keith Mitchell, and Webb Simpson.
For the full field, click here.
The Golf Course
In 1914, a group of wealthy local businessmen helped fund and build the Country Club of Jackson. The golf course was relocated in 1960.
The country club underwent a significant renovation in 2008 by John Fought. His vision was to reincorporate classic Donald Ross design features and restore the greens with new Bermuda turfgrass. After the renovation, the club successfully lobbied the PGA Tour to move the Sanderson Farms Championship away from the Annandale Golf Club and hosted the tournament on its Dogwood and Azalea Championship Courses for the first time in 2015.
Some Donald Ross renovations are tremendously successful, such as the renovation of the Sedgefield Country Club for the Wyndham Championship. Some aren’t, like Rees Jones’ ruination of East Lake. Unfortunately for Fought, the land didn’t give him all that much to work with. While the Country Club of Jackson has some Ross elements in it, overall, it’s not a very exciting golf course:
Fought did a pretty good job with the hand he was dealt. One can definitely see classic Donald Ross principles in the golf course. The golf course has a classic out-to-in routing. It has a nice mix of left and right doglegs to force players to work the ball both ways. There’s some classic Ross undulation to the greens. The greenside bunkers also are pretty well done and are of the Donald Ross style. And there’s a good variety to the lengths of all the Par 3’s. You could lift up this piece of property and put it in the Northeast, and it would fit in with the numerous Donald Ross designs in that part of the country.
But unless Fought wanted to move a ton of dirt, there isn’t a whole lot that could be done to the flat, swampy piece of property to make it more interesting. He did not try to force anything on the golf course and focused simply on creating a solid, no-nonsense track. The greens also don’t have as much dramatic undulation as a lot of Ross courses have. But overall, this is a perfectly fine golf course for a fall event on the PGA Tour.
Betting Strategies
General Information:
As mentioned earlier, PGA Tour winner John Fought spearheaded the renovation of the Country Club of Jackson in 2008. While he’s done work on other good golf courses, such as Pumpkin Ridge and Pine Needles, no other current golf courses on the PGA Tour feature his work.
The Country Club of Jackson is a Par 72 at about 7,460 yards. For more information about scoring and lengths of holes from the 2022 Sanderson Farms Championship, click here.
Since 2015, the Country Club of Jackson has been the 17th easiest golf course of all venues played on the PGA Tour. Its ease in scoring is primarily found on the Par 3’s and 4’s, which feature some of the easiest scoring conditions on the PGA Tour. In 2022, it ranked as the 14th easiest golf course on the PGA Tour.
In terms of agronomy, the fairways are pure bermuda, while the 2-inch rough is a combination of bermuda and Zoysia. The greens are Champion Bermuda. While there are a handful of other golf courses that also use this particular strain of bermuda, consulting general bermuda statistics for performance on these greens suffices.
Off-The-Tee
Since 2015, the Country Club of Jackson ranks 42nd out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty off-the-tee. In 2022, the tee shots ranked 20th out of 40 golf courses in terms of difficulty. It’s ranked slightly above average in terms of difficulty on the PGA Tour for the last three seasons.
Since 2015, all measured drives at the Country Club of Jackson average 286.7 yards in length. That ranks 47th out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour since 2015 in terms of length. In 2022, the average measured drive at the Country Club of Jackson was 294.8 yards, good for 21st out of 40 golf courses on the PGA Tour. Last year, firm conditions caused a ton of roll out on the ball. That and the advancements in technology mean players can uncork a long drive at the golf course.
Since 2015, the average driving accuracy at the Country Club of Jackson is only 54.8%. That’s the 18th lowest driving accuracy rate of all golf courses played since 2015. In 2022, only 51.7% of the field hit the fairway on their drive. That was good for the 7th lowest rate on the PGA Tour last season. In addition, the Country Club of Jackson has ranked inside the Top 10 in most fairways missed on the PGA Tour since the 2017 season.
A primary reason for the low driving accuracy rates is the typical firm turf conditions seen in the fall in Mississippi. That makes it difficult to hold fairways. In addition, the golf course has the 14th most narrow fairways of all golf courses played since 2015.
But like it was at Silverado, it’s not very penalizing to miss a fairway. There is only a 0.29 stroke difference between players who find the fairway off the tee and those who don’t on any given hole. That’s the 10th smallest difference of all golf courses played on the PGA Tour. Without a lot of adversities in the landing zone off the tee, players can bomb away without fear at the Country Club of Jackson.
Approach
Since 2015, the Country Club of Jackson ranks 54th out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty with the approach shots. In 2022, the approach shots ranked 19th out of 40 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in the 2022-2023 season in terms of difficulty. This was a little more difficult than in previous years. The firm conditions likely had something to do with that.
Despite low driving accuracy rates, players generally hit the greens in regulation at the Country Club of Jackson at a fairly high rate. Since 2015, the average green in regulation rate at the Country Club of Jackson is 69.8%. That’s the 20th highest rate of all golf courses played on the PGA Tour since 2015. However, last year, the green in regulation rate was 64.8%, which ranked 22nd out of 40 golf courses in terms of GIR % during the 2022-2023 season. Players were unable to generate enough spin out of the bermuda rough to hold greens as easily as they had in the past.
Finally, here is the approach shot distribution chart from the 2022 Sanderson Farms Championship (per DataGolf):
Per a review of prior years of distribution charts, this allocation is very representative of the historical percentages at the Sanderson Farms Championship at the Country Club of Jackson.
Around The Green
Since 2015, the Country Club of Jackson ranks as the 63rd out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty around the green. It is annually one of the easier golf courses around the green on the PGA Tour. And no area, whether it be from the fairway, the bunkers, or from the rough, seems to pose a lot of adversity towards getting up and down from off the green at the Country Club of Jackson.
Putting
Since 2015, the Country Club of Jackson ranks as the 43rd out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty. However, for the last two years, it was one of the easiest greens to putt on the PGA Tour. It ranked 24th out of 41 golf courses in difficulty in 2022 and 34th out of 38 golf courses in 2021. For those who putt well on bermuda, the greens at the Country Club of Jackson.
Predictive Skillsets
Here’s the predictive skillset chart of what types of players are expected to do well at the Country Club of Jackson (per DataGolf). This will preview what types of players are expected to do well at the 2023 Sanderson Farms Championship:
By far, the most correlated predictive skill set is driving distance. The correlation between driving distance and success at the Country Club of Jackson is one of the strongest predictors on the PGA Tour. There’s also almost no correlation between how good or poor one is in finding fairways, largely due to the lack of a penalty for missing a fairway as well as the organically low driving accuracy rates in the tournament.
Recent winners at the Country Club of Jackson include Mackenzie Hughes, Sergio Garcia, Cameron Champ, and Sebastian Munoz. With the exception of Mackenzie Hughes, all of them drive it a long way. However, even Hughes has done extensive speed training in the last few years in order to get more pop off the tee. It is fitting that he then won on the golf course with power off the tee seems to be highly correlated to success at the tournament.
In addition, there’s a higher-than-average correlation between good putters who do well at the Country Club of Jackson. Due to the relatively easy conditions, tee-to-green, as well as the higher-than-average frequency of short approach shots, can sometimes make this tournament a putting contest.
In Tournament Strokes Gained
Here is a distribution chart of the variance in total strokes gained based on in tournament performance. This chart demonstrates what forces have an influence on how a player separates themselves from the field (per DataGolf):
While driving distance is a highly predictive trait of those who do well at the Country Club of Jackson, one’s ability to separate themselves with a great driving performance isn’t as strong as the average PGA Tour venue. Because of the low driving accuracy rates combined with the low penalty for missing fairways, it’s harder to gain strokes on the field just by driving.
And the same can be said tee-to-green in general. There’s a slightly lower effect one can have to separate themselves from the field through their approach play, likely due to the high volume of shots under 150 yards. Or from around the green due to the already higher than average green in regulation rates and the relatively easy conditions around the green.
However, one can definitely separate themselves a lot more on the leaderboard through their putting than the average PGA Tour stop. With little challenge tee-to-green at the Country Club of Jackson, this event can turn into a putting contest.
Because the trait of being a good putter is highly correlated to success at the Country Club of Jackson, as well as in-tournament performance putting has a greater effect on the variation in strokes gained or lost in tournament, anyone who bets on a player who struggles on the greens better have a very good reason for doing so.
