Sleeper picks: RBC Canadian Open

The PGA TOUR enters the second week of its holiday hiatus, but you won’t find any in the stacked field at this week’s Hero World Challenge easing off the throttle. After the pandemic canceled the 2020 edition of the annual stop at Albany in The Bahamas, an intimate gathering reconvenes with the same no-cut, stroke-play competition over 72 holes, purse of $3.5 million and full-field distribution of Official World Golf Ranking points. And, oh yeah, Tiger Woods remains the host. The only change pertains to the permanent increase in the size of the field. For details on that, how Albany played in 2019 and other nuggets, scroll past the projection for all 20 participants. For the first time in its 21-year history, a record 20 golfers will be chasing victory and its $1-million prize. Accommodations were ratified to add the winners of the most recent edition of THE PLAYERS Championship and a third sponsor exemption inside the top 50 of the OWGR on Sept. 6. They join winners of all majors since the previous edition of the Hero World Challenge, the other two sponsor exemptions and the defending champion. To fill the field, the OWGR on Sept. 6 was used in order of position. Albany is in its sixth consecutive edition as the host. It’s a par 72 with five par 3s and five par 5s. In its first five spins, it surrendered a scoring average south of 70 just once. That occurred in 2017 when the field of 18 landed at 70.333 and despite Rickie Fowler’s course-record 61 to seal a four-stroke victory. In 2019, the scoring average was 69.792. Henrik Stenson prevailed by at 18-under 270. He was the only golfer that week to sign for four rounds in the 60s. With sand, water and wind helping to defend scoring, course management and a plan of attack on the par 5s is the way to go on Albany, which stretches to 7,309 yards. Stenson played the par 5s in 4.60 with one eagle, eight birdies and nine pars against two bogeys. Considering only par breakers across the rest of the course’s 52 holes over four rounds, he circled another eagle (at the par-4 14th hole in the opening round) and 11 birdies. Therefore, he converted 42.86% of his 21 par breakers on 27.78 percent of the holes played. Moderate winds at worst are forecast, so the talented field will have its way with Albany once again. There’s a threat of passing showers on Saturday, but the bermudagrass greens should touch 12 feet on the Stimpmeter for which they’re prepped. What rough there is stands just an inch and a half. NOTE: PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf will resume with the Sentry Tournament of Champions on Jan. 6-9.

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The second stop in the FedExCup Playoffs goes to The First State, as the BMW Championship arrives at Wilmington (Del.) Country Club. While the course has more than a century of history and has hosted a variety of high-level events, this will be the first time the PGA TOUR visits. Here are Five Things to Know about this new venue: 1. RICH HISTORY Golf at Wilmington Country Club can be traced back to 1901. The Delaware Field Club, which provided members with opportunities to play baseball, football, tennis and cricket and had previously built a nine-hole course in nearby Elsmere, evolved into Wilmington Country Club that year, buying 129 acres of land in Wilmington and offering stock at $25 a share. Annual dues were also set at $25. The original course was nine holes and carved out of a wheat field cleared by 25 workers using eight horses. Full construction took about two months and cost $2,000. Nearby land was meant to be reserved for wheat harvesting, but the board quickly saw golf as a greater source of revenue, so another nine holes were added for $850. The 5,700-yard course played as a par 72-and-a-half. In the 1950s, Wilmington Country Club bought a new piece of land and handed the keys to Robert Trent Jones, one of the era’s preeminent golf architects. Jones created a beast, which is expected to play longer than 7,500 yards for this year’s BMW Championship. While the South Course opened in the fall of 1959, the North Course followed roughly one year later with a shorter 6,721-yard design by Dick Wilson. The North Course may be shorter, but it also features smaller greens, narrower fairways and more sand than the South. 2. FLIP IT While this will be Wilmington Country Club’s first professional event, its amateur history goes back over a century, as the original course hosted the 1913 U.S. Women’s Amateur. The new South Course followed with the 1965 and 1978 U.S. Junior Amateurs, the 1971 U.S. Amateur, the 1978 U.S. Girls’ Junior and the 2003 U.S. Mid-Amateur. The 1971 U.S. Amateur, then a stroke-play event, produced Wilmington’s signature shot, one that is both the most famous in the club’s history and led to a re-routing of the layout. Canadian Gary Cowan, who’d also won the U.S. Amateur five years earlier, came to the 72nd hole with a one-shot lead over 19-year-old phenom Eddie Pearce, who’d won the 1968 U.S. Junior Amateur and returned to the final a year later. But Cowan yanked his drive into the left rough and found himself in a buried lie. He’d faced a similar shot two days earlier and came up short of the green. A playoff seemed like a real possibility. Cowan, who’d used a wedge in his first trip to this same rough, took out a 9-iron this time for the 130-yard shot. The 32-year-old insurance man’s strike carried to the green and rolled into the hole. The walk-off eagle gave him a three-shot win. Cowan’s shot would change Wilmington Country Club forever. Ahead of that U.S. Amateur, the television broadcasters asked the club to flip the nines in order to feature the clubhouse on the shot into the final hole. After Cowan’s heroics, Wilmington’s membership decided to permanently adopt the U.S. Amateur layout. The course will again be slightly adjusted for a big event. This time, the routing is being changed to fit hospitality tents on key holes and balance the two nines (the current front nine typically plays more difficult for the members). The BMW Championship layout will see Nos. 10-13-14-15-5-6-7-8-9 used as the front nine and 1-2-3-4-16-17-11-12-18 as the back nine, meaning Cowan’s finishing hole will still be the final hole 51 years later. Along with the USGA events, the 2013 Palmer Cup came to Wilmington and saw a United States team led by Justin Thomas, Daniel Berger and Patrick Rodgers dominate the European team, 20.5-9.5. Thomas and Rodgers each collected three and a half points in the event, while Berger recorded three. Wilmington Country Club also is where a player with one of the TOUR’s great nicknames got his start. Ed “Porky” Oliver was a caddie at Wilmington Country Club before going on to win eight times on TOUR and play in three Ryder Cups. Oliver will be inducted into the Western Golf Association’s Caddie Hall of Fame at this year’s BMW (the WGA also conducts the BMW Championship). Oliver’s biggest win was the 1941 Western Open, which also was conducted by the WGA. Both Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson were runners-up in that event. Oliver was runner-up in three majors, finishing second to Hogan in the 1946 PGA and 1953 Masters and Julius Boros in the 1952 U.S. Open. 3. THE KING AND THE BEAR After Jones finished the course, Wilmington Country Club welcomed some of the globe’s best as guests. In 1963, Arnold Palmer came through for an exhibition. In July 1966, Carol Mann and Gary Player descended upon Wilmington for a match. And then in September 1966, the big one occurred, as Palmer returned to Wilmington with Jack Nicklaus in a match between the budding rivals. Palmer joined forces with Delaware Amateur champion Roy Marquette, while Nicklaus teamed with amateur legend Bill Hyndman. Hyndman had defeated Nicklaus just seven years earlier at the British Amateur before losing the championship match to future PGA TOUR Commissioner Deane Beman. Nicklaus’ 69 edged Palmer’s 71, but strong play from Marquette lifted Team Palmer to a narrow victory. Birdies by Palmer on 13 and Marquette on 14 (in the original routing) flipped the match into their favor. A crowd of 1,500 cheered the group around Wilmington as they helped raise $10,000 for charity. Palmer reportedly passed on a dinner with President Lyndon B. Johnson to play in the exhibition, flying in on what “The Morning News” called his “$900,000 jet.” Nicklaus, coming off a 10-day Florida vacation, tied the course record with a 69 and narrowly missed a 20-footer on 18 that would have broken the mark. The par-5 12th hole – which is now the third hole for membership, but will be No. 12 again this week – was the site of a memorable scene. No player had ever reached the 594-yard hole in two, but Nicklaus gave himself a chance with a 350-yard drive. His second shot with a 1-iron sailed over the water short of the green, past the pin and ended up in a bunker. He proceeded to get up-and-down for birdie. When someone in the gallery mentioned to Nicklaus that Gary Player had called the hole “unfair,” Nicklaus’ bluntly retorted, “That’s because he can’t reach it.” That exhibition also was the site of an ace by Palmer. Or was it? Palmer wrote in his autobiography that he made his eighth career hole-in-one during that match. He said the hole-in-one came on the 13th hole, which will play as No. 2 for the BMW Championship. However, a scorecard from the event and “The Morning News” story make no mention of this. According to Michael Shank, PGA Director of Golf at Wilmington, the club’s centennial history referenced the exhibition, but says nothing of the hole-in-one. Could it have been during a practice round with Nicklaus? Perhaps, or there’s another plausible answer. Palmer’s long-time dentist, Howdy Giles, was based in Wilmington and Palmer used to fly into town to both get his teeth checked and play Wilmington Country Club with Giles and friends. Did the hole-in-one occur during one of those rounds? This mystery remains unsolved. 4. TOUGHEN UP When the BMW Championship was awarded to Wilmington Country Club in November 2020, the planning committee spent the winter both celebrating and planning renovations. Six decades removed from Jones’ creation of the course, changes were needed to prepare the course for PGA TOUR play. Keith Foster had previously provided renovations in 2008, but in 2020 a new batch of adjustments was needed. A tornado earlier that year had brought down 300 trees and destroyed every bunker on both the North and South courses. Architect Andrew Green used the repairs as an opportunity to introduce new characteristics to the course. For example, the fifth hole lost two trees that previously protected the hole’s left side. As a means of deterring players from launching drives into open rough or using the nearby 16th fairway (the 14th hole for the BMW), Green added bunkers to the open area between the two holes. He also moved the fifth fairway slightly left to “protect the strategic integrity” of the hole, Shank said. Another hole, the 14th for the members and the BMW’s third hole, appeared to be a par 5 that could be adjusted to a par 4 for the pros. However, the unfortunate loss of a 280-year-old white oak behind the original green led Green to propose moving the green 60 yards farther back. While softening the dogleg in the fairway, this will now play as a 582-yard par 5 for the BMW Championship. A total of 250,000 square feet of construction was done with about 200 yards added to the course. It now measures 7,5349 yards and plays to a par of 71. “The South Course presents challenging tee shots with fairway bunkers guarding the landing zones, very large putting surfaces divided into multiple sections and flash-faced bunkers,” Shank said. The greens and approaches are Bermudagrass with bentgrass tees and fairways, along with tall fescue in the courtesy paths, primary rough and secondary rough. 5. HEADING HOME Taking some liberty with the routing for its PGA TOUR debut, the BMW Championship has loaded the final stretch with character and treachery. The 15th hole (the regular 17th) is a par 3 that can play as long as 234 yards, with water defending most of the green. The triangular green features three different plateaus with the lowest at the front right and higher tiers on the back right and back left. A left pin placement demands a full carry over water, as the green narrows the farther back and left a tee shot goes. A bunker directly behind the center of the green guards against a long shot. A back-left pin on Sunday will surely penalize players who are overly aggressive with double-bogeys. No. 16 (usually the 11th hole) can play as long as 393 yards, but is also a good candidate to be turned into a drivable par-4 at some point during the week. The hole plays slightly uphill with a bunker on the right side of the fairway, 85 yards short of the green. Players will need to decide if they are going to lay up short of the bunker, leaving an approach of approximately 100 yards, or play around, or over, the trap that cuts into the fairway. On the green, a ridge that runs through the center of the green acts as a backboard for front hole locations while protecting pins cut on the back half of the putting surface. It will be both the location of the tee and the flag that will determine how players choose to play this hole. After a 17th hole (normally No. 12) loaded with sand, the 18th hole – the only hole on the back nine in its normal spot in the routing – is a 446-yard, dogleg-left par 4 with an uphill approach shot. Most players will look to land their tee shot at the bend of the fairway, where bunkers await to swallow tee shots on both the left and right sides. Bunkers are stationed short of the green on both sides, and the approach becomes more blind the farther back the pin is placed. Of course, players can opt for the left junk if they want to recreate Wilmington’s most historic shot.

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jim Furyk is hosting his first PGA TOUR Champions event at this week’s Constellation Energy FURYK & FRIENDS. He compared his hosting duties with competing in a major championship because of the excitement and nerves he felt when he woke up Monday. “I think it will be an emotional week,” he said Tuesday. His inaugural event has attracted a strong field that also includes Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Ernie Els and Steve Stricker. Furyk, 51, has won three times this season on PGA TOUR Champions, including the U.S. Senior Open. He sat down with PGATOUR.COM at Timiquana Country Club to discuss his new event, as well as his decorated PGA TOUR career. He talked about the role that self-belief had in his progression from a solid college player to a 17-time TOUR winner, as well as the most important shot he hit that no one saw. He told the story of how watching Nick Faldo hit wedges at the Masters changed his career and described playing with Tiger in his first win, a scene he described as “chaos.” (Note: Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.) PGATOUR.COM: What made you want to host an event? JIM FURYK: Well, we had our event that we called Furyk & Friends for 10 years and we had a nice little niche and we were raising about half a million dollars each year for charity. We were raising some good money, but we also didn’t have a formula for growth. It was an opportunity more than anything else. It was an opportunity that Tabitha and I talked about and an opportunity for us to really showcase our city in Jacksonville and then also raise more money for charity. PGATOUR.COM: You moved to the Jacksonville area in 1996. Did you expect that you’d stay 25 years and, on a professional level, did you think the next 25 years would hold what they did? JIM FURYK: I bought a townhome and it was just kind of a, ‘Let’s just see what Jacksonville has to offer.’ I had heard a lot about the water, the practice facility at TPC, the cost of living and the quality of living. It just became home. We raised our kids here. Our foundation’s here. But no, I never had the idea that in 1996 that this would be like my permanent home. As far as my career, I was a good junior player and highly recruited. I was a solid college player, but, even on my own team, I wasn’t the can’t-miss kid or the guy agents were seeking after. Some of that was a blessing for me. I didn’t sign a big contract with an equipment contract and feel pressure to come out and be one of the top players on TOUR. I got to improve at my own rate. By the time I won my first event, I felt like I could handle it. In 2003, I won my first major and people asked, ‘What’s different now?’ and I was like not much. I always felt like I was lucky in that whatever I accomplished I was ready for. I didn’t go out in my second year and back into winning a big event and like, ‘Uh oh.’ I was ready for it. But I never imagined leaving college that I was going to have an almost 30-year career, win 17 times, play in nine Ryder Cups, be the Ryder Cup captain. I couldn’t have even dreamed of that. PGATOUR.COM: What’s the most important shot in your career that no one saw? JIM FURYK: The most pressure I ever felt in my life was in Q-School, and that includes major championships or Ryder Cup. In my second Q-School, in the finals in 1993, I made the four-round cut on the number and I got my TOUR card on the number (Note: At the time, Q-School was a six-round event with a 72-hole cut). It was a stressful, stressful week. We were playing in Palm Springs at PGA West. I made the fourth-round cut on the number, making a 15-footer for birdie on the last hole, thinking I had to two-putt. What happens if that doesn’t go in and I don’t make the fourth-round cut? In the final round, the last two holes were a par-3 with water short. One of the guys I was playing with, we were tied, he hit it in the water and made double. I scraped it up on the middle of the green somewhere and two-putted. I hit an OK drive on the last hole – think about how long ago this was, and I can remember the shots – and I had to hit a 4-iron into this green. Pin is front-left on a lake. I hit the ball 30 feet long and right of the hole. With a 4-iron, it was a pretty good shot. I had a putt coming over a ridge and it lipped out. I had a tap-in for par but I wasn’t sure if I had to make birdie or par. I was the first group out and I had to wait two-plus hours for scores to come in. The top 40 and ties earned their TOUR cards and I tied for 37th. PGATOUR.COM: What was the secret to your longevity? JIM FURYK: I was able to stay pretty healthy. I do things differently than a lot of players, but I think the belief that it was going to work, and sticking by it, was able to give me the longevity. I had to refine it, I had to get better, I had to get more consistent, but I had the belief that it was good enough. My goals were never all that short-sighted. I wrote goals down during my career, but I never wrote down that I need to win two tournaments this year or win $1 million. They were never even that I need to hit 70% of the fairways. My one goal each and every year was to improve and to look back 12 months from now and say that I’m a better player because of X, Y and Z. There was always this quest and search for how to improve. It’s easy at times to identify your weaknesses. It’s really difficult to put your finger on how to address them, though. My dad was always very good at helping me get better at those things and creating a path or a way to do it. Sometimes, you can’t get it tomorrow. It may take six months. When I first went out on TOUR and played my first Masters in 1995, I remember watching Nick Faldo hit some wedges next to me in that old practice area. He was hitting this beautiful, low, driving wedge shot that landed so soft. I didn’t want him to see, but I was watching what he was doing. He walked away after about 15 minutes and I asked my dad, ‘Did you see that? That’s how I want to hit wedge shots.’ I knew that if I wanted to take the next step I would need to get better from 100 yards and in. And so, I worked on what my dad said for two years, relentlessly, in that back area of TPC and turned myself into what I thought was one of the best wedge players on TOUR. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own. I would identify that I needed to get better but he helped me get there and I put the work in. PGATOUR.COM: This week’s Shriners Children’s Open comes 25 years after Tiger Woods earned his first win there. You played with Tiger that Saturday. What do you remember about that round? JIM FURYK: The TOUR was totally caught off-guard by his presence and the chaos it created at golf tournaments. It was almost unsafe. It was like we had to fight our way from one green to the next tee. It was total chaos. And I think that led to hiring the security staff we have now. At the time, we were using like concert security that didn’t know much about golf and the plans for us around the golf course weren’t that good. My day was a mess. I was just frustrated. It took awhile. We just didn’t understand what his presence was going to mean, even then. We were naïve. I think Tiger was probably more prepared for it than anyone. PGATOUR.COM: What is it about the game that you’re still grinding at 51? JIM FURYK: Early in my career, I would have told you something different. When I was 25, it was a fear of failure. Larry Bird used to wake up and he’d had a dream that he went 0-for-28 and couldn’t make a shot. That fear of failure kept me driven. Now it’s just pride. The guys out here have had great careers. We just have a lot of pride in our craft. I put the work in because I don’t want to put a product out there that I’m not proud. I have a lot of pride in what I do. I enjoy practicing. I enjoy trying to get better. I enjoy being going off by myself with a bag of shag balls and hitting flop shots, trying to figure out different ways to do it. I’ve liked the serenity and peacefulness. I can get lost in it. An hour can go by and it feels like five minutes. I’ve always enjoyed getting better.

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