The Course Report
Austin Country Club
About Austin Country Club
Pete Dye is a name we hear early and often on the PGA Tour. Austin Country Club brings his tricks of the trade to the forefront as the PGA Tour tackles the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
Now this course is set up for all styles of play for potential success. The fairways are forgiving, so don’t think Sawgrass in terms of difficulty off the tee box, but understand that Dye’s ability to mess with sight lines is going to come into play.
The one aspect that I want to stress is that players this weekend aren’t playing for a cut or a number. They’re going against an opponent, and avoiding bogeys isn’t necessary. You’re looking to take advantage of your oppoenets mistakes in order to capitalize on your opponent.
The structure of the tournament is simple. The players are split into 16 groups of four players (each group has a player seeded 1–16, 17–32, 33–48, 49–64). Each group plays in a round-robin format over Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. One point is awarded for a win, and one-half point for a tie, with only the group winner qualifying to the next round. If two or more players are tied at the top of the group, there is a sudden death stroke play tie-breaker played to decide who progresses. The second phase is played as a knock out tournament, with the round of 16 and quarterfinals played on Saturday, and the semifinal, third-place playoff and final played on Sunday. Come Sunday, expect to see an exhausted final pairing.
As always, this tournament comes down to approach and putting. Keys to success are being able to hit these small greens, hit your 10-15 footers, and be able to absorb the pressure during your individual match. Yet, I can’t stress this enough that the midset of these players is different than a touranment. They’re playing one opponent, and they’re only concerned about the hole in front of them. If a player is just simply locked away in a fairway bunker his oppoenent might be very cautious in his approach being aware that a par is going to win him the hole.
From a build strategy make sure you’re able to able to build optimally by avoiding players from the same group our initial bracket. For DFS purposes you’re not building an optimal lineup.
Architect: Pete Dye
Greens: Tifeagle Bermuda Greens
Green Size: 5500 (smaller than average)
Stimpmeter: 11.5-12.5 (Fast)
Length: 7,127 – Par 71
Water Hazards: 7 Holes
Bunkers: 70+
Nuggets and Tidbits
-Forgiving fairways, but there is plenty of slope, elevation, and difficult greens.
-POA overseed will likely be somewhat present in these greens.
-Smaller than average greens mean that players must be dialed in on their approach game.
-Plenty of scoring on the course, but remember that players are in match play. They aren’t number hunting but looking to take advantage when an opponent makes a mistake.
-Approach is key, but it is also beneficial to be able to get up and down during match play.
-The easiest hole is the par-5 6th hole. So for you live betters looking to bet a draw, this might be your gravy all weekend.
-The most difficult hole is the par-4 8th hole. It runs nearly 500 yards, and for live betters, if you’re watching someone struggle it might be time to take a hole winner.
-This is a classic style course, and it does not favor one style of player over another.
-Recent form has been a strong indicator of success.
Weather Forecast
The Bracket
Past Winners
A hot putter, and four straight birdies in the final round led to Ramey’s first win on the PGA Tour.
He simply was electric on Sunday as he posted a round score of 67, and did enough to outlast runner-up Ben Martin.
Dahmen came out of nowhere to win the Corales, and capture his first win on the PGA Tour.
Dahmen at that point has missed 7/8 cuts, and came in to this tournament with awful form. Yet, when the pressure was on Dahmen came to perform.
This was Swafford’s second win on the PGA Tour, and unfortunately witht he WGC being held the same weekend we see a NO invite to Augusta.
Regardless, Swafford tried to give this one away. With a six shot lead came a double bogey followed by another which led to the tournament being all square. While the tension was high, Swafford did enough to outlast the field chasing him.
McDowell did enough with one stroke to capture his fourth victory on the PGA Tour.
On the par-3 17, McDowell hit a monster birdie putt to take the lead and never look back. The victory was his first since 2016.
Not only was this Garnett’s first win on the PGA Tour, but he did it in dominating fashion going wire-to-wire for the championship.
The scores seemed closer than they actually were as players got as close as two strokes to Garnett. The truth is that he kept finding greens and erased mistakes with ease.
It took a 3-man playoff, but Johnson beat Louis Ossthuizen and Marc Leishman by shooting a 15, 1 under in a four hole playoff.
Johnson was a surprise win as just the week before his prep came in Illinois at the John Deere Classic. This was Johnson’s second major win, and his first Claret Jug.
Entering with a six-stroke lead over the field, McIIroy went from dominant to just hanging on. Still, no golfer ever got withing two strokes the entire day, and he held his composure despite struggles off the tee and on the greens.
In winning, McIIroy became the seventh wire-to-wire winner in Open Championship history.
After winning the Scottish Open the week prior, Mickelson birdied four of the last six holes and became the Open Champion.
To this point, Phil had come close to winning, but had often doubted his abilites on links style courses.
Els began Sunday 6 shots back, but still clinched the vicotry after Adam Scott imploded.
Els’ 68 was a comeback of epic proportions when you consider the fact that Scott was still winning by 4 strokes on the 15th tee.