After a thrilling five-man playoff at the Sanderson Farms Championship, the PGA Tour FedEx Cup Fall swing heads to Sin City! It’s the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, NV. As always, here is your early deep dive on the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open and a preview of how to bet.
2023 Shriners Children’s Open Preview
The Field
Highlighting the field once again is Ludvig Aberg. Ludvig continued his impressive play at the Sanderson Farms Championship by qualifying for the five-man playoff after Ben Griffin choked away a back nine lead. He came up short, but he’s red hot. He’ll likely be the tournament favorite this week.
Also in the field is Tom Kim. Tom makes his debut in the FedEx Cup fall as the defending champion of this event. He’s played a few times on the DP World Tour this fall. He’ll be in good shape to defend his title at TPC Summerlin.
Lastly, Lexi Thompson will tee it up at TPC Summerlin on a sponsor invite. Considering this event desperately lacks star power, the intrigue of seeing how one of the best female golfers in the world stacks up to the PGA Tour professionals this week surely will generate some buzz. It would be a huge accomplishment for her to make the cut.
Other notables in the field include Akshay Bhatia, Eric Cole, Cameron Davis, Emiliano Grillo, Tom Hoge, Nicolai Hojgaard, Si Woo Kim, Luke List, and Vincent Norrman.
For the full field, click here.
The Golf Course
TPC Summerlin first opened in 1991 on the outskirts of Las Vegas. It was designed by Bobby Weed. Bobby Weed is a Pete Dye protégé. Bobby Weed is a very respected golf course architect and is noted for several high-profile golf courses. Some of his work includes TPC River Highlands, the Dye Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass, Grove XXIII (Michael Jordan’s new golf course in Jupiter, FL), and renovations to Medalist Golf Club and Timuquana Country Club.
While Bobby Weed did a nice job blending the golf course with the surrounding desert landscape, it’s about your standard run-of-the-mill PGA Tour venue.
Rocky waste areas are utilized as either forced carriers or as natural hazards around greens. There is also a good use of elevation changes around the golf course. There is a good variety of uphill and downhill holes, along with some elevated green complexes. This can be challenging for the mere mortals who play it every day.
But not for those on the PGA Tour. With elevation and short-cut rough, players can take pretty much all the trouble off the tee out of play. That shortens up the golf course significantly and yields a ton of short approach shots. Players then fire into huge, relatively flat greens for great looks at birdie.
And birdies are plentiful in this tournament. Tom Kim won this tournament last year at -24. Sungjae Im won the 2022 Shriners Children’s Open at -22. The last two tournaments before that resulted in a playoff where everyone sat at -23 after 72 holes. The only time the tournament showed teeth was in 2017 when Patrick Cantlay won the event at -9. That year, the golf course was unseasonably cold and windy, which was the only defense it had against the players.
The forecast calls for dome-like conditions. Temperatures will hang in the upper 70s and mid-80s with very light winds and brilliant sunshine. Expect this to be a birdie bonanza once again.
Betting Strategies
General Information:
TPC Summerlin is a Par 71 at about 7,255 yards. Because the golf course is at approximately 2,000 feet at altitude and the fairways can run pretty firm, it plays a lot shorter than that. For more information about scoring and lengths of holes from the 2022 Shriners Children’s Open, click here.
Since 2015, TPC Summerlin has been the 15th easiest golf course of all venues played on the PGA Tour. Its ease in scoring is primarily found on the Par 4’s and 5’s, which feature some of the easiest scoring conditions on the PGA Tour. In 2022, it ranked as the 7th easiest golf course on the PGA Tour.
In terms of agronomy, the fairways and 2.25-inch rough are pure bermuda. The greens, however, are bentgrass. New turf was planted at TPC Summerlin in 2022. It had absolutely no effect on the scoring conditions at the golf course.
Off-The-Tee
Since 2015, TPC Summerlin ranks 80th out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty off-the-tee. In 2022, the tee shots ranked 40th out of 41 golf courses in terms of difficulty. With firm fairways and altitude that boost driving distances, the lack of hazards off the tee, and non-penal rough, there is very little adversity at TPC Summerlin off the tee.
Since 2015, all measured drives at TPC Summerlin average 298.5 yards in length. That ranks 12th out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour since 2015 in terms of length. In 2022, the average measured drive at TPC Summerlin was 303.8 yards, good for 3rd longest out of 41 golf courses on the PGA Tour. As mentioned earlier, the altitude, firm conditions, and the inability to take drivers out of players’ hands are why the driving distances are so long at TPC Summerlin.
Since 2015, the average driving accuracy at TPC Summerlin is 61.0%. That ranks 45th out of 86 golf courses in terms of driving accuracy of all golf courses played on the PGA Tour since 2015. However, there has been a significant jump in driving accuracy rates since 2018. The field average hasn’t dipped below 64% since 2019.
Overall, it’s not all that penal to miss a fairway at TPC Summerlin. It ranks slightly above average in terms of the difference in score between tee shots that find the fairway and those that find the rough. While the 2.25″ bermuda rough isn’t that thick, it can promote some flyer lies. And because birdies are plentiful, the ability to control spin with wedges to stick short approach shots from the fairway is key.
Approach
Since 2015, TPC Summerlin ranks 56th out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty with the approach shots. In 2022, the approach shots ranked 30th out of 41 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in the 2022-2023 season in terms of difficulty.
Players absolutely pepper the greens at TPC Summerlin at high rates. That’s what happens when the average green size is almost 7,400 square feet in area. Even though they’re on the firm side, players have very little trouble finding the putting surface in regulation.
Since 2015, the average green in regulation rate at TPC Summerlin is 72.1%. That’s the 13th highest green in regulation rate of all golf courses played on the PGA Tour since 2015. In 2022, the green in regulation rate was 73.2%, which ranked 4th out of 41 golf courses in terms of GIR % during the 2022-2023 season.
Finally, here is the approach shot distribution chart from the 2022 Shriners Children’s Open (per DataGolf):
Per a review of prior years of distribution charts, this allocation is very representative of the historical percentages at TPC Summerlin. This is a test of the short irons this week, specifically from between 100-150 yards.
Around The Green
If there’s anything that’s tough about TPC Summerlin, it’s around the green. Since 2015, TPC Summerlin ranks as the 10th most difficult out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty around the green. It is annually one of the tougher golf courses around the green on the PGA Tour.
It’s particularly tough scrambling from the fairway. TPC Summerlin ranks as the 5th toughest conditions from short grass around the green. PGA Tour Live discussed this topic last week. Per the crew, the bermuda around the green is really, really grainy. It’s not easy to chip off of grainy bermuda. Experience on this surface could be a plus.
The bunkers are also difficult to try and get up and down from out of them. Since 2015, TPC Summerlin has featured the 21st most difficult greenside bunkers of all golf courses played on the PGA Tour. This isn’t too dissimilar from other Bobby Weed and Pete Dye golf courses, as golf courses like TPC River Highlands and TPC Sawgrass feature similarly difficult bunkers.
However, the bunkers were renovated in 2018. Since then, they haven’t played nearly as tough. In 2022, they were only the 20th out of 41 golf courses in terms of difficulty. While still a chore to get up and down, they don’t have as many teeth as they once had.
Putting
Since 2015, TPC Summerlin ranks as the 20th out of 86 golf courses played on the PGA Tour in terms of difficulty. It’s annually one of the easiest putting venues on the PGA Tour.
While the greens are huge, they don’t have a ton of undulation to them. That’s why it doesn’t feature any particular range of putts that are overly difficult. As long as players find their line and hit it solid, putting is a fairly easy chore at TPC Summerlin.
Typically, the greens run around 11.5 on the stimpmeter. That’s a little slower than the PGA Tour average.
Predictive Skillsets
Here’s the predictive skillset chart of what types of players are expected to do well at TPC Summerlin (per DataGolf). This will preview what types of players are expected to do well at the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open:
There’s almost no correlation between success at TPC Summerlin and what one does best off the tee. Because the golf course is so forgiving off the tee, and because even long hitters can bomb it pretty far, there’s no heavy concentration of predominantly long hitters or accurate hitters at the tops of leaderboards at this event. It’s typically a mixed bag.
Case in point – consider the 2020 Shriners Children’s Open. That was a three-way playoff featuring Matthew Wolff (one of the longest and most inaccurate drivers in the world), Austin Cook (one of the shortest but more accurate drivers on the PGA Tour), and Martin Laird (who possessed above-average length off the tee and elite accuracy). All of them are vastly different drivers off the tee. And all of them had an equal shot to win the Shriners Children’s Open in the playoff.
However, there is a slightly positive correlation between those who are good iron players (particularly from under 150 yards), good scramblers, and good putters. While anyone from all walks of life off the tee can show up to TPC Summerlin and do well, it does seem like you have to be pretty good in at least two of the three other areas of the game to succeed in this tournament.
In Tournament Strokes Gained
Here is a distribution chart of the variance in total strokes gained based on tournament performance. This chart demonstrates what forces have an influence on how a player separates themselves from the field (per DataGolf):
Similar to the non-predictive nature of off-the-tee performance, one’s performance in a tournament off the tee doesn’t matter as much as other golf courses on the PGA Tour. However, it’s slightly more important with the approach shots around the green and on the greens than the average PGA Tour venue to separate oneself on the leaderboard.
These types of tournaments are ideal for gamblers who can properly match a player’s strengths to the golf course, as the more predictive attributes of a player are able to translate into separating oneself on the leaderboard. As such, it’s vital to properly assess golfers’ strengths and weaknesses in this field, as that will preview what to expect at the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open more than it would at other golf courses.
