19th Hole

Vincenzi’s BMW Championship betting preview: Rory primed for glory at Olympia Fields

Published

9 months ago

Aug 14, 2023

The PGA TOUR has reached the penultimate event of the 2023 season as we head to Olympia Fields Country Club in Olympia Fields, Illinois to play the BMW Championship.

The top-50 players left standing in the race for the FedEx Cup will tee it up this week looking to punch their ticket to East Lake.

This is the second time the BMW Championship will be played at Olympia Fields, with the first being in 2020 when Jon Rahm outdueled Dustin Johnson in an epic playoff.

The tournament will be held on Olympia Fields’ North Course, which is a par 70 measuring 7,366 yards and featuring Bluegrass greens similar to Poa annua.

The BMW Championship will be a no-cut event, with the top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings moving onto the Tour Championship next week.

Past Winners at the BMW Championship

2022: Patrick Cantlay (-14) Wilmington Country Club
2021: Patrick Cantlay (-27) Caves Valley
2020: Jon Rahm (-4) Olympia Fields
2019: Justin Thomas (-25) Medinah
2018: Keegan Bradley (-20) Aronimink
2017: Marc Leishman (-23) Conway Farms

5 Key Stats For Olympia Fields Country Club

Let’s take a look at five key metrics for Wilmington Country Club to determine which golfers boast top marks in each category over their past 24 rounds.

Strokes Gained: Approach

SG: Approach tells us how close a golfer is getting to the hole on his approach to the green. When players are locked-in on their approach game, they often have far more opportunities to putt for birdie. This should serve as a particularly strong indicator for success at the BMW Championship.

Scottie Scheffler (+38.7)
Lucas Glover (+29.1)
Russell Henley (+25.1)
Rory McIlroy (+23.5)
Hideki Matsuyama (+23.2)

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee is a combination of driving distance and driving accuracy and will be an important factor this week. Olympia Fields’ sizable par 70 includes many long par-4’s. Therefore, driving it long and in the fairway will be the best recipe for success.

Rory McIlroy (+26.4)
Scottie Scheffler (+25.4)
Si Woo Kim (+20.9)
Patrick Cantlay (+19.9)
Byeong Hun An (+18.6)

Proximity 175-200

With many of the holes at Olympia Fields being relatively long, most of the approach shots will be coming from the proximity of 175 to 200 yards. It will be important to target good long-iron players.

Viktor Hovland (22.0)
Scottie Scheffler (+19.7)
Eric Cole (+13.2)
Sepp Straka (+11.9)
Hideki Matsuyama (+11.7)

Par 4’s 450-500

This course features seven par 4s playing at a difficult distance of 450 to 500 yards. Players’ recent success navigating long par 4s will be one of the most important indicators for success at the BMW Championship.

Rory McIlroy (+25.1)
Viktor Hovland (+22.0)
Scottie Scheffler (+22.0)
Tommy Fleetwood (+15.3)
Lucas Glover (+14.7)

Strokes Gained: Tee to Green

Tee-to-green success reports how efficient a player is at getting his ball to the green. It is a combination of Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach, and Strokes Gained: Around the Green.

This statistic is especially important on long golf courses like Olympia Fields this weekend. Put simply, it indicates which golfer is in the best current form.

Scottie Scheffler (+3.3)
Rory McIlroy (+2.3)
Lucas Glover (+1.8)
Patrick Cantlay (+1.7)
Viktor Hovland (+1.6)

Statistical Model

Below, I’ve reported overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed.

Scottie Scheffler (+800)
Rory McIlroy (+800)
Lucas Glover (+3300)
Viktor Hovland (+1600)
Tommy Fleetwood (+2200)
Patrick Cantlay (+1000)
Hideki Matsuyama (+3000)
Jon Rahm (+1000)
Si Woo Kim (+5000)
Rickie Fowler (+3300)

BMW Championship Picks

Rory McIlroy +800 (Bet365):

Last week, an underdog was able to emerge victorious at the Fed Ex St. Jude Championship. With a 50-man field at Olympia Fields this week, I don’t believe that will happen again. While there are always outliers, no-cut small field events tend to cause the best players in the world to rise to the top.

Of the best players in the world, none are playing better at the moment than Rory McIlroy. In his past 24 rounds, the 34-year-old ranks 4th in Strokes Gained: Approach, 2nd in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, 2nd in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking and 1st in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. McIlroy has not finished outside of the top-10 in any of his past eight events.

Rory’s majestic ball striking was on full display once again at TPC Southwind last week. He gained 4.4 strokes off the tee and 4.7 strokes on approach on his way to a tie for 3rd place finish. Say what you will about McIlroy’s ability to win majors over the past decade, but his propensity to win FedEx Cup events cannot be denied. The Northern Irishman is currently tied with Dustin Johnson for the most FedEx Cup wins and seems poised to pass him this week.

Olympia Fields is what I call a “big boy” golf course. Last week, iron play and putting was enough to win in Memphis, but this is a completely different golf course. The track is an absolute brute and requires power to contend. In 2020, Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson played bully ball on their way to a playoff, with big hitters Joaquin Niemann, Tony Finau and Hideki Matsuyama (who was hitting it much further in 2023) were the only other players under par.

Rory McIlroy is incredibly difficult to beat at this time of year and has the perfect skill set to tame the extremely difficult Olympia Fields at the BMW Championship.

Cameron Young +4000 (FanDuel):

As I mentioned above, Olympia Fields is a long and difficult golf course. I believe distance off the tee will be more of a benefit at this course than any other course on Tour this season. Although he’s been up and down this season, there’s no denying that Cameron Young is among the world’s best with a driver in his hands. In the field, Rory McIlroy is the only player that beats Young in driving distance.

In addition to the major distance advantage Young will have on the field, he also does a lot of his best work in difficult events. He’s been excellent in major championships as well as difficult tracks such as Riviera and Quail Hollow. Last week, Young gained 3.6 strokes off the tee at TPC Southwind, and I believe will have the chance to gain even more this week on a course where he can let the driver loose on just about every hole.

Young is yet to win on the PGA Tour, but he’s been knocking at the door in all of the biggest events. The BMW Championship will play like a major championship, which means the 25-year-old should find himself right in the thick of it yet again.

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19th Hole

Butch Harmon reveals what he worked on with Rory McIlroy during visit earlier this year

Published

9 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

While speaking on the “Son of a Butch” Podcast, legendary swing coach Butch Harmon revealed what he worked on with Rory McIlroy when the four-time major champion went to visit him after the Players Championship this season.

Butch Harmon on what he worked on with Rory:

“The work I did with him wasn’t a tremendous amount of changing what he did, it was his attitude and the way he played certain shots. From 150 yards and in he made a full swing like he was hitting a driver and I wanted him to make…

— Matt Vincenzi (@MattVincenziPGA) May 15, 2024

“The work I did with him wasn’t a tremendous amount of changing what he did, it was his attitude and the way he played certain shots. From 150 yards and in he made a full swing like he was hitting a driver and I wanted him to make more 3 quarter swings and chop the follow through off a little. He’s a very high ball hitter, but with short irons high balls aren’t good, it’s hard to control, we wanted to bring the ball flight down.”

The work certainly seemed to help McIlroy, as he went on to win the Zurich Classic alongside Shane Lowry and the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow in back-to-back starts.

Rory will now tee it up at Valhalla for the PGA Championship, which is the site of his most recent major victory in 2014.

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Brandel Chamblee says this technological development was key to Phil Mickelson winning major championships

Published

9 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

While speaking with GolfWRX, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee shared that he believes the solid core golf ball helped Phil Mickelson win major championships.

“One of the consequences of the solid core golf ball coming around was it put the straightest of hitters in the rough.

“Phil started winning majors in 2004, I don’t think that’s any coincidence. I think he started winning majors after the solid core golf ball came along and put everybody in the rough.

“And so [Phil] is like ‘I got you in the rough, I’m going to kick your a**. This is my game. I’ve been in the rough my whole career. I can go over trees, through trees, around trees.’

“Because he’s got that amazing creativity and Phil is an underrated iron player, phenomenal iron player. Great, great great out of the trouble. If you put the top-40 players on a list and ranked them in terms of accuracy, he would be 40th.

“So, I think that was one of the consequences of the solid core golf balls was it allowed Phil to win major championships.”

Mickelson went on to win the Masters in 2004 as well as five additional majors from 2004-2021 including three total Masters, two PGA Championships, and an Open Championship.

Check out the full interview with Chamblee below:

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Former Augusta National employee pleads guilty to transporting stolen Masters memorabilia; Arnold Palmer’s green jacket among stolen items

Published

9 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

According to a report from the Chicago Tribune, a man was charged in Chicago with stealing millions of dollars’ worth of memorabilia from Augusta National last month.

The man, Robert Globensky, was charged with transporting the memorabilia across state lines.

The report states that between 2009 and 2022, Globensky allegedly transported “millions of dollars’ worth of Masters golf tournament merchandise and historical memorabilia” from Augusta National “and transported to Tampa, Florida, knowing the same had been stolen, converted and taken by fraud.”

The document was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Since then, more details have emerged about the case.

According to Darren Rovell of Cllct, one of the items that was stolen was Arnold Palmer’s green jacket.

The Chicago Tribune also reported that Globensky was able to steal the merchandise due to his role as a former warehouse coordinator at Augusta National who oversaw the Masters merchandise that was sold.

Rovell states that “A source with intimate knowledge of the case said an Augusta National member, who knew the jacket was missing, contacted a well-known collector who had gained a reputation for tracking down rare items. The member’s goal was to return the jacket to Augusta under the guise of purchasing it in a private sale.”

The plan worked, and the man agreed to sell the jacket for an agreed upon price of $3.6 million. After the sale was complete, the FBI swarmed the house of the thief.

Cllct also reported that Globensky pled guilty in a federal court in Chicago on Wednesday and now faces up to 10 years in prison.

The Chicago Tribune adds that Globensky’s plea deal includes an agreement to provide the government a cashier’s check for $1.5 million in the next few days.