Olympia Fields Country Club will host this week’s playoff event which features the top 50 golfers in the FedExCup standings.
The host course was last seen at the 2020 BMW Championship where only five golfers finished in red numbers for the week.
We shouldn’t expect that same level of difficulty as the course has seen more rain recently so it won’t be playing as fiery. Still, the course should be a tough test and with that in mind, let’s take a look at some top performers on tough tracks.
Tough Course Killers
The 2020 BMW Championship was hosted at Olympia Fields Country Club and the field averaged 71.82 that week, nearly two shots over the par of 70.
The easiest it played in any round was Sunday when the field posted a 70.3 scoring average. With softer conditions this time around, we may see scoring similar to that final round but even with that scoring, this would be on the tough side of the difficulty spectrum.
So, for DFS purposes, we can potentially find some undervalued names if we hone in on past performance on tough tracks.
Here are the top performers in adjusted strokes gained per round on hard courses, over the last two years:
Scottie Scheffler
Rory McIlroy
Xander Schauffele
Matt Fitzpatrick
Jon Rahm
Viktor Hovland
Patrick Cantlay
Keegan Bradley
Wyndham Clark
Max Homa
Tommy Fleetwood
Jordan Spieth
Tyrrell Hatton
Hideki Matsuyama
Corey Conners
We can also look at performance versus baseline to see who shows the largest increase in performance compared to their typical scores:
Wyndham Clark
Scottie Scheffler
Keegan Bradley
Adam Schenk
Matt Fitzpatrick
Rickie Fowler
Emiliano Grillo
Chris Kirk
Hideki Matsuyama
Sahith Theegala
Harris English
Jordan Spieth
Denny McCarthy
Corey Conners
Viktor Hovland
Overlap List: names that show up on both lists include Wyndham Clark, Scottie Scheffler, Keegan Bradley, Matt Fitzpatrick, Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth, Corey Conners, and Viktor Hovland.
Scheffler has an incredibly high baseline rating so for him to show up on the over-performance list really shows how much he excels on tougher course setups.
Matsuyama in the Midrange
He snuck into the top 50 (47th) with a T-16 finish in Memphis. He’s gone 12 straight events without a top-10 finish but he does have seven top 25s over that stretch. Matsuyama is struggling to find that top-heavy result but a return to Olympia Fields might be just what the doctor ordered. Back in 2020, he raced out to a first-round lead at the course and also returned to snag a share of the 54-hole lead before settling on a T-3 finish. He’s priced in the midrange on FanDuel this week, which makes him an affordable but not extremely popular option.
Keegan Bradley the Salary Saver
He’s not going to cost you an arm or a leg this week on FanDuel or DraftKings. Bradley will fit into top-heavy or balanced builds when it comes to your preferred method of roster construction. What he does bring to the table is upside from the lower salary range. Bradley has two wins this season and should be able to use his power to put his name back into contention at Olympia Fields CC. He’s been longer than the field average in eight of his last nine starts while also piping more fairways than the field in seven of his last 10 events. Bradley is 12th in the field in top-20 worthy performance on hard courses so tougher tracks do bring out the best in Bradley.
