2023 BMW Championship Course Preview
Olympia Fields Country Club- course details, key stats, and past champions
BMW Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club
Moving on to the second leg of the PGA tour FedEx Cup playoffs. Our remaining top 50 in the standings will take their talents to Olympia Fields Country Club in Illinois.
The BMW championship is longest running regular PGA tour event on the calendar outside of the four major tournament sites. This year the event will be held at Olympia Field CC North course for the only the 2nd time. Olympia Fields Country Club itself has been around since 1927. Notably hosting 2 U.S. Opens, 2 PGA Championships, 5 Western Opens, 1 U.S. Amateur Championship and a U.S. Senior Open.
The BMW championship has been a regular tournament on the PGA tour. It’s been a long running and highly regarded tournament for many years. This is only the 2nd time Olympia Fields CC will be hosting the event and the boys could be in for a bit of a challenge. The last time Olympia Fields CC hosted a PGA tour event, it played as the 4th hardest stop on tour.
This course has some teeth, and it will show this week, with plenty of bogeys to go around. Same as last week at the St. Jude Championship, this will be a no cut event. I personally don’t mind no cut events when they are few and far between. I know Justin Rose and a couple others couldn’t be more thankful with last week’s format. I am looking forward to seeing what this historically challenging course has to offer in 2023.
Course Details
Yardage: 7,366
Par: 70
Greens: Bentgrass/Poa
Fairways: Bentgrass
Roughs: Kentucky bluegrass
Green Size: 5,238 sq. ft.
Water in play on 8 holes
Designer: Willie Park Jr. in 1922
91 bunkers on property
Subtle elevation changes throughout the course
Tree-lined and entirely landlocked
Average of 3 green size hazards per hole
Breaking down the course a little, the focus will be on the many challenging par 4’s on the scorecard. Olympia Fields features 12 Par 4’s averaging 443 yards. A couple of the par 4’s can create some birdies, but the majority of them put golfers at bogey risk.
Olympia Fields CC put a nice little bow on each round wrapping things up with Hole 18 at 498 yards playing as the toughest hole out there. We have 4 par 3’s this week with an average distance of 205 yards per hole. I have to mention the close to obnoxiously long hole 8 playing at 254 yards yields a bogey rate over 32%.
The par 5’s on the course are to be taken advantage of. There are two of them averaging 616 yards in distance. Despite a little length, they play as two of the easier holes on the course. The Par 5 Hole 15 does, however, generate its fair share of bogies and can quickly help gain or lose strokes to the field if someone wants to f**k around and find out.
Key Stats/Notes
Strokes Gained: Ball Striking
Good Drives Gained
Strokes Gained OTT
Approaches from 150-175 yards
Approaches from 175-200 yards
Approaches from 200 yard plus
Bogey Avoidance
Par 4s Gained: 450-500 Yards
It’s not too blunt to say this is a hard course and some guys will get their ass kicked at Olympia fields. This course is extremely demanding off the tee, and long and straight is the preferred skillset. Not limiting things to OTT, this course should test all aspects of the game. The fairways are narrow compared to other PGA tour courses, with even more narrow landing zones on some holes. The rough is historically thick (4-6 inches potentially) and hard to manage, along with bunkers scattered everywhere. The course features rolling terrain, and makes frequent use of its very own Butterfield Creek. The creek navigates its way through seven holes, including twice on numbers 12 and 14.
At Olympia fields, fairways hit and GIR are below your average. In 2020, the average score was 71.8 – almost two full shots over par. To be fair, our last look at this course was described as U.S. Open set up which turned into quite the test for the boys. The event was won with a -4 winning score by Jon Rahm. In 2020, Driving and Approach were fairly even in regard to past success at this course. Putting will matter, but does not have to be heavily weighted. The tree lines are under control and there is room to bomb the ball out there, but they must be prepared for some potentially sketchy outcomes and high risk. Again, they can f**k around and find out.
Lastly, important to note that June was quite dry in the area this year, but July brought on some nice rain to grow out the rough quite a bit. It is very likely we will see a similar set up to 2020. Based on 2020 results, driving distance turned out to be an important key to success. It was almost as equal to accuracy off the tee. Nevertheless, I will consider both important for this week.
Another note that I want to stress is that we have pretty limited relevant course history here. Take that into account when creating a player pool or putting down your hard-earned money in the betting market.
Past Champions at Olympia Fields CC
2020- Jon Rahm- BMW Championship
2015- Bryson DeChambeau- U.S. amateur
2003- Jim Furyk- U.S. Open
As you can see, only one relevant past champion. Many golfers in the field have played the course in some former over their careers, but it is just so limited. It is hard to take past performance here into too much consideration this week, but always worth a look.
Course Comparisons
Oak Hill- hard course, long roughs, distance required, Major difficulty conditions.
Winged Foot- long course where distance matter, long bluegrass rough, sloped greens, Major difficulty conditions
Murfield Village- challenging long course and blue grass rough
Augusta National- long hard course, lots of historical data, bentgrass and similarly designed greens
-David Slinger
@slinger587 on twitter