The PGA Tour returned to Utah for the first time in 61 years last season with the inaugural staging of the Bank Of Utah Championship and it returns again with young lefty Matt McCarty back to defend his crown.
Key Stats/Skill Set Required
- Birdie or Better
- Strokes Gained: Putting
- Putting Average
- Three-Putt Avoidance
- Strokes Gained Tee To Green
- Par 4 Scoring
The Black Desert Golf Course is a Tom Weiskopf – his last design – that has wide open fairways that only the most stray of drives will have trouble with. Once again we are in for a birdie fiesta with the winning score closer to -25 than -10.
Key Correlation Courses/Tournaments
- The American Express
- Byron Nelson Classic
- Waste Management Phoenix Open
There are few players in the field this week with the pedigree of Kurt Kitayama, a two-time PGA Tour winner who counts the revered Arnold Palmer Invitational on his resume. Kitayama ranks 8th in Strokes Gained: Tee To Green and 10th in Birdie or Better. His form on the correlation courses is good with a 5th at the Byron Nelson this year and an eighth in Phoenix last year. Finished T-25 here last year.
Veteran journeyman Kevin Roy has been playing well of late with five Top 15 finishes in his last 13 starts including a T-15 in one of the key correlation tournaments, the Byron Nelson. Roy ranks 3rd in Par 4 Scoring and 5th in Three-Putt Avoidance so he has a nice profile. Also finished T-18 at The American Express this year.
No player has a stronger profile this week than outstanding putter Taylor Montgomery. He ranks 2nd in Strokes Gained: Putting, 3rd in Putting Average, 6th in Birdie or Better and 10th in Par 4 Scoring. He has been playing well of late with five Top 20s in his last nine starts including a T-6 in the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Finding top class putters is the key to success this week and Sam Ryder has long found himself at the top of the PGA Tour putting stats. This year he ranks 6th in Strokes Gained: Putting and 12th in Putting Average. Ryder finished T-40 here last year and comes off a T-20 in the Baycurrent Classic.
The best days of the nine-time PGA Tour winner are well and truly behind him but Brandt Snedeker’s putting puts him in the mix as a blowout hope this week. Snedeker ranks 10th in Strokes Gained: Putting and 15th in Three-Putt Avoidance. He is the best putter in the field on bentgrass greens.
Taiwanese player Kevin Yu is one of the most underrated players on Tour and is a great bet to be the Top Asian player this week. Yu has finished Top 20 in each of his last two events.
Black Desert is about as wide open a course as you will find and that suits big-hitting South African Aldrich Potgieter, who can swing freely.