Scouting the Routing: 2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelson

After a one-week hiatus for my least favorite event of the season, we're back in full force for another one of my bottom three!  Jokes aside, TPC Craig Ranch will take a lot of flack for its rather featureless layout, but for golf bettors, the prospect of a betting board without Scottie Scheffler is a sight we can all come together to celebrate.

TPC Craig Ranch has also featured its share of memorable storylines in its three years of service. Most notably, it provided us with one of the more emotional Sundays of the 2023 season, as a pink-clad Jason Day captured his first win since his mother's passing on a day we should all remember to cherish the women who have sacrificed so much for us.

Now that the tears have been wiped from my eyes, this piece will serve to break down every key trend and statistic I'm weighing to project a player's viability in the outright market and set our readers up to make the crucial decisions necessary on pre-week betting boards. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report on TPC Craig Ranch and the 2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelson!

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The Golf Course

TPC Craig Ranch - Par 71; 7,414 yards

Past Champions

• 2023 - Jason Day (-23) over Austin Eckroat & Si Woo Kim
• 2022 - K.H. Lee (-26) over Jordan Spieth
• 2021 - K.H. Lee (-25) over Sam Burns

Harbour Town by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):

• Average Fairway Width -- 37.1 yards; eighth widest on the PGA Tour
• Average Driving Distance -- 296.6 yards; sixth highest on Tour
• Driving Accuracy -- 61.6%; 14th highest on Tour
• Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.31; ninth lowest on Tour
  • Rough Penalty -- 0.21; 13th lowest on Tour
  • Non-Rough Penalty -- 0.41; 17th lowest on Tour
  • Missed FW Penalty Fraction -- 3.0%; 15th lowest on Tour
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: (+0.039); fourth easiest on Tour

In contrast to some of the more demanding venues we're scheduled to visit during the "Championship Season" of professional golf, this week's stop in McKinney, Texas, provides one of the least rigorous tests these players will ever see at the top level. This general theme of amiability begins off of the tee, where TPC Craig Ranch presents very few impediments to the game's best.

At an average width of 37 yards, the fairways here will look like runways to those coming straight from the claustrophobic confines of Harbour Town, and the 2.75" Bermudagrass rough hasn't historically provided much consequence to off-line tee shots. This fact, along with a sneakily long layout of over 7,400 yards (seventh highest on the PGA Tour), makes Craig Ranch among the most susceptible courses on the schedule to a bomb-and-gouge approach.

Looking back through recent driving leaderboards here at the Byron Nelson, a clear pattern begins to emerge between players that have routinely topped the field in Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee. Last year, nine of the top 10 players in this metric finished the season inside the top 50 in Driving Distance. In previous years, Cameron Champ, Bryson DeChambeau, Jhonattan Vegas, and Joseph Bramlett have each excelled off-the-tee despite sitting well behind the pace in fairway percentage.

I don't see much reason not to favor driving distance in your overall modeling, as most of the defense put up by this week's routing comes in the form of 490-yard par fours. Three such holes exist on this course (12, 13, and 16), and each has carried a historic bogey/worse rate of 15, 23, and 27%, respectively. Any player able to carry the ball in excess of 300 yards can take a large chunk out of these holes' ability to cause stress (and set you up for success on the extremely score-able par fives here at Craig Ranch). With off-the-tee playing an inordinately large role in determining top finishes here at the Byron (26.3% of total strokes gained by top-five finishers), don't be afraid to ramp up your weight on ball speed, carry distance, and total driving splits on longer, driver-heavy courses.

Harbour Town by the Numbers (Approach):

• Green in Regulation Rate -- 70.3%; Eighth highest on the PGA Tour
• Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: (+0.050); Second easiest on Tour
• Key Proximity Ranges:
  • 200+ yards (accounts for 35.7% of historical approach shots)
  • 175-200 yards (18.6%)
  • 150-175 yards (18.0%)

One thing that does set TPC Craig Ranch apart from other notable PGA birdie parties is the lack of wedge opportunities players will expect to find around this routing. In fact, with three of the four par 3's here measuring over 200 yards, seven of its 11 par fours measuring over 455 yards. Each of the three par fives playing as two shot holes to a majority of the field, the approach distribution this week looks a lot more similar to a venue like Bay Hill or Torrey Pines as opposed to some of its main corollaries in terms of scoring average.

Through three years at Craig Ranch, over 35% of approach shots have come from 200 yards and beyond, and over 70% of approaches have come from over 150. Despite the winning scores, this is very clearly not a traditional wedge/putting contest to 25-under par. Instead, players will need to create a bulk of their birdie opportunities with a mid/long-iron in hand.

Fortunately, the softer conditions at Craig Ranch (paired with green complexes that measure in at nearly 7,000 square feet), make finding your target with the second shot one of the easiest tasks we'll see all year. Craig Ranch has ranked inside the bottom ten in Approach Difficulty in each of the three seasons it's hosted this event, and it's never ranked worse than 12th in Green in Regulation Percentage.

While Craig Ranch doesn't present the most strenuous ball-striking test, iron play has remained one of the most important metrics in predicting success at the Byron Nelson. Since 2021, the top three finishers here have gained an average of 5.7 strokes on approach, and nobody has finished in the top 10 whilst losing strokes to the field with their irons. Long Iron Proximity and Birdie Chance Creation will each remain at the forefront of my handicapping process.

Harbour Town by the Numbers (Around the Greens):

• Scrambling Percentage -- 66.7%; 9.2% below Tour Average 
• Sand Save Difficulty -- (+0.001); 14th toughest on Tour
• Up-and-Down Difficulty (Fairway) -- (+0.054); Second easiest on Tour
• Up-and-Down Difficulty (Rough) -- (+0.084); Third easiest on Tour
• SG: Around the Green Difficulty: (+0.054); Third easiest on Tour

If players do happen to miss these greens in regulation (something the field's best ball-strikers only project to do about 20% of the time), they won't exactly be met with a daunting test from these greenside surrounds either. The scrambling percentage over the first three years here at Craig Ranch sits over nine percentage points above the PGA Tour average, and only Renaissance Club and Vidanta Vallarta have proven to be easier venues for players to gain strokes around the greens.

This combination of ease both in hitting these greens and getting up-and-down on the rare occasions you need to makes the case for weighing short game at the Byron Nelson a difficult one to make. Only 25% of top-five finishers here since 2021 have attained that position on the back of a top-10 field ranking in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens, and the three winners at the Byron Nelson since its move to Craig Ranch have gained a paltry 7.2% of their total strokes with their short games.

One argument that can be made for players who excel around the greens is that of the clear correlation we've seen year over year between prolific Par 5 scoring and top finishes here at TPC Craig Ranch. This metric is historically favorable to those with prodigious short games, and I will be including a few key Par 5 scoring stats in my modeling. However, outside of this auxiliary correlation, I see no reason to further weigh around the green play in any sort of Byron Nelson model.

Harbour Town by the Numbers (Putting):

• Average Green Size: 6.778 sq. feet
• Agronomy -- Pure Bentgrass
• Stimpmeter: 11.5
• 3-Putt Percentage: 2.2% (0.8% below Tour Average)
• Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: (+0.017); Easiest on Tour

And finally, we come to the greens themselves. Like most events that require scores in the 20s to contend, ball-striking alone will not be enough to carry players to the top of the leaderboard. K.H. Lee and Jason Day have combined to gain 11.1 strokes to the field with their flat sticks over the course of their three championship runs, and only two players in that time have managed to attain a top-ten finish at Craig Ranch with a below-average putting week.

Notably, the greens at TPC Craig Ranch aren't exactly preclusive to holing putts, as they've routinely ranked as some of the easiest surfaces to putt on from short, long, and mid-range. Last season, Craig Ranch ranked in the bottom three in putting difficulty from both 5-15 and 15-plus feet, and we've also seen a 25% reduction in three-putt percentage despite these greens ranking well inside the top half of average square footage.

As such, it's difficult to tell just how much of an advantage elite putters will gain on green complexes that are this straightforward for the average player. Last year, six of the top 13 putters in the field finished the season outside the top 100 in SG: Putting, and only Adam Scott and Peter Kuest ranked inside the top 20 in both 2023 Strokes Gained and week-long putting at the Byron.

This stark contrast in season-long and weekly putting makes it very difficult to make a case for relying on putting splits as a predictable entity in our handicapping processes. As usual, I will be placing a small weight on the key putting ranges of 5-15 feet -- as well as historic putting splits on pure bentgrass. However, given the comparable correlations we've seen from more predictive week-to-week metrics (Driving and Iron Play), I hesitate to place too much emphasis on a player's putting acumen. As long as he's proven capable of spiking with the flat stick with enough regularity to return top finishes, I'd have no trouble looking to a more volatile profile in this facet.

Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):

• Mid/Long Iron play -- specifically weighting Proximity/Strokes Gained splits from 150-225 yards.
• SG: Putting ceiling; specifically on bentgrass
• Driving Distance
• Historic acumen in easier scoring conditions
• Par 5 Proficiency
• Birdie or Better Percentage/Birdie Chances Created

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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

 

The Sunday Shortlist

Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.

Min Woo Lee

Min Woo Lee came ready to play this morning ☕️

+2500 before restart
+1600 birdie to -11
+500 eagle on 10@FDSportsbook

2 strokes back... pic.twitter.com/yTRBervCQE

— Golfbet (@Golfbet) March 4, 2024

We've long awaited the week in which the 25-year-old Min Woo Lee achieves his first stateside breakthrough, and in my estimation, the benign links of TPC Craig Ranch make for the perfect backdrop. Over the last 12 months, the uber-talented Aussie has established himself as a name to watch on some of the world's most prodigious birdie parties, notching two wins at the Macau Open and Australian PGA Championship at scores of 30 and 20-under, respectively. He also finished T9 at last year's Travelers Championship, a star-studded elevated event with a winning score of 23-under, and earlier this spring, he came runner-up to Austin Eckroat at the softest rendition of PGA National we've ever seen.

With his elite length, Min Woo has the tools to dominate this leaderboard off-the-tee, he carries one of the highest short-game ceilings on the PGA Tour, and leads this field in Par Five Scoring over his last 50 rounds. In addition, Min Woo has recorded some of his best career approach weeks on layouts that require an abundance of long-irons (PGA National, Bay Hill, LACC), and ranks 27th on Tour in Birdie or Better Percentage from over 200 yards.

Fresh off of his second career top 25 finish at Augusta National just two weeks ago (finishing 11th in Total Ball-Striking in the process), there may not be a more perfect venue for Min Woo to keep cooking than right here at Craig Ranch. I don't see a world where he isn't among the top drivers of the ball this week, and the approach distributions are as tailor-made for his profile as anywhere else on Tour. If the putter can morph back into the weapon that's long-carried Min Woo into the conversation of top-tier golfing prospects, we could finally see him join the likes of Tom Kim, Akshay Bhatia, and Ludvig Aberg as a PGA Tour winner.

Byeong-Hun An

Byeong-Hun An plays an absolute beauty from 271 yards out on 18 to set up eagle. 🤌🦅

📺: Golf Channel & @peacock | @TheSentry pic.twitter.com/VSYAL6u0B2

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) January 6, 2024

Despite the well-established exploits of Tom, Si Woo, and Sungjae, there is a case to be made that 32-year-old Byeong-Hun An is the most likely to carry the Korean flag to a win at their home sponsor's new site. After a brutally bad stretch of golf three years ago that saw him fall from a playoff mainstay all the way to the Korn Ferry Tour, Ben has re-established himself as one of the Tour's most consistent performers thus far in 2024. Through 11 starts this season, An has missed just two cuts, he's racked up six top 25s, and perhaps more importantly, he's displayed hints of the ball-striking prowess that gained him so much notoriety within the golf-betting space in the late 2010s.

Over the last six months, Ben ranks second in this field in driving distance, third in weighted proximity, first in Birdie or Better Percentage, and fourth in Birdie Chances Created. Like Min Woo, Ben also possesses an adept touch around the greens that makes him a great Par 5 performer, and although he's had his share of struggles keeping the ball in play with his elite speed, the generous confines here in Dallas should suit his distance-intensive approach to a tee. In fact, the 3.9 strokes he gained with his driver last season marked the fifth-best driving performance of his entire year -- resulting in a 14th-place finish despite losing over two strokes to the field on the greens.

Of course, putting woes aren't exactly an isolated occurrence for the Seoul native, as An has combined to lose a mind-numbing 11.8 strokes between Harbour Town and San Antonio over his last two PGA starts. However, from an overarching perspective, in 2024 as a whole, An has experienced one of the most consistent runs he's had in his career on the greens. He's gained strokes in six of 10 starts, and bentgrass has always provided his best long-term putting returns. Keep in mind that just last month, An finished eighth at the star-studded Arnold Palmer Invitational as a slightly better-than-average putter for the week (+0.8), and with the tee-to-green acumen he's consistently shown over the last 12 months, it won't take much help from the flat stick for Ben to make his way back into contention. I'm hoping this recent downturn in form can elevate his price on a rather nondescript betting board, and at anything approaching 33-1, I'll be compelled to take another shot at this alluring ball-striking profile.

 

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