- Course: Country Club of Jackson
- Greens: Bermuda
- Length: 7,460
- Par: 72
- Defending Champion: Sebastian Munoz
The PGA Tour fall season will continue this week as the tour heads to Mississippi for the Sanderson Farms Championship. Much like last week, this is another tournament that in the past has been played the same week as a WGC but in this modified schedule it will be a stand-alone event which will lead to a few more premier names competing. It will also be offering full FedEx Cup points and the winner will get an invite to the Masters.Â
The field
There is a bit more strength in this field than we saw last week in the Dominican Republic but not by much. Some of the more recognizable names competing are Sergio Garcia, Zach Johnson, and Henrick Stenson. Scottie Scheffler will be making his first start since the great play throughout the playoffs but sadly a positive COVID test forced him to pull out of the US Open. Finally, Sungjae Im will be hitting the course looking to shake off the poor play over the final two months of the previous season.Â
Louis Oosthuizen has withdrawn from the event.
Will Zalatoris will also be playing again this weekend. His top-10 finish at the US Open put him on the map and he carried over that strong play last week finishing inside top-10 again. That finish will allow him to continue to tee it up this week as he looks for a win to solidify his PGA Tour status for the upcoming season.
Last week we saw Hudson Swafford barely hang on to win the title at Corales which was his first PGA Tour win since the 2017 season and will get him into the Masters. These types of breakthroughs continue to prove just how important these fall swing events are to golfers trying to hang onto their tour card and qualify fully for the upcoming season. A number of golfers will be looking to follow in his path this week in Jackson.
The course
The Country Club of Jackson will play host to the Sanderson Farms Championship this week. The course is located in Jackson, Mississippi and should offer a fairly easy weekend for the golfers as the past few years have seen a winning score between -18 and -20 and a cut line that tends to fall around one under par. This course has hosted the Sanderson Farms for the past six years and there have been quite the variety of winners. The biggest difference in strategy that the past winners have utilized is how to play off-the-tee. A few years back, Peter Malnati won the event and barely ever hit a driver. Last year, Cameron Champ won by adapting a more “bomb and gouge†type approach that has become more popular on tour as of late. The main consistencies across all the past winners in solid iron play, strong par-4 scoring, and a hot putter.
CC Jackson offers golfers the opportunity to be aggressive off-the-tee due to the rough being shorter than average in length. Most of the fairways are lined with pine trees but they aren’t very thick and golfers should still have shots at the greens even if they are within the trees. There is water in play around a handful of the holes and some protective greenside bunkers. The greens are soft to medium in firmness which means as long as the golfers are in the fairway or far enough down the hole in the rough, they should not have huge issues getting approach shots to hold.
The par-5s are long in length with three of them playing over 580 yards. These four holes still make up four of the five easiest holes relative to par on the course. Par-4 scoring will be more crucial than normal this week. Most of them are shorter than the normal courses on tour which will put even more emphasis on the ability to hit accurate drivers and wedges. With a couple of the par-3s stretching to 200 yards in length and the par-5s mostly reachable in two, approaches from over 200 yards will also be important to look at. Two of the hardest holes come on 16 and 18 with two long par-4s that should offer a dramatic finish. 18% of golfers bogey the 18th hole as opposed to just 11% of birdies.
One other item of note is that all of the past six winners were first time PGA Tour winners and three of the six were tour rookies.
Notable stats
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee
- Putting (Bermuda)
- Par-4 scoring 400-450 yards
- Proximity 125-150 yards
Outright value
Doc Redmon +2800
Making his first appearance since the Safeway Open a few weeks ago, Redmon comes into this event in great form. He has posted a 3rd place finish in two of his past three starts and just before that he finished 29th at the PGA Championship. His solid stats back up his recent form.
| Average Strokes Gained Summary | |||||
| Tournaments | SG: Total | SG: T2G | SG: OTT | SG: APP | SG: P |
| Last 5 | 4 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 2.4 |
He is posting positive strokes gained numbers in all relevant categories over the past five starts. He also leads this field in par-4 scoring from 400-450 yards, is 3rd in strokes gained: approach, and 7th in proximity from 125-150 yards. His skill set should line up perfectly for this course and at 28/1 I think it is great outright value for Doc to bring home his first career title. He will definitely be a popular bet throughout the industry this week but I think for good reason.
Luke List +5000
Eventually Luke List is going to make a putt and then he will be unbeatable. The former Vanderbilt Commodore drives the ball with the best of them and there is not too much wrong with his irons either. He is the poster boy for the premier ball striking but can’t putt club. List did just post a solid 8th place finish at Corales which is a great start to the season. He has also made six of his last seven cuts which is a great sign for the formerly inconsistent golfer. His stats (outside of putting) line up great heading into this week. He is top 25 in this field in approach, off the tee, par-4 scoring, and long irons. If we want to find at least a little shine of light on the greens, historically, Bermuda tends to be a preferred surface compared to Bent so perhaps not all is lost this week.
He also fits the first-time-winner narrative as he enters his 13th season as a PGA Tour pro. If List can get the putter to even be remotely consistent, he should find himself in the mix come Sunday. I’ll hop on the 50/1 outright odds. A top-5 bet at 10/1 is appealing as well.
Longshot
Talor Gooch +10000
Another golfer trying to make a name for himself on tour is the always inconsistent Talor Gooch. Certain weeks he will gain strokes in all stats and finish inside the top-10. Other weeks he will lose a ton of strokes on approach and putting and miss the cut badly. Some may look at this as a golfer to avoid but to me, this is a golfer who has flashed signs of being able to have the complete game that is needed to compete on the PGA Tour. His past ten events have been pretty neutral as far as strokes gained metrics are concerned but he has made five of his last eight cuts and four of those were top-25 finishes.Â
Over the past 50 rounds, he is in the top-30 in this field in strokes gained: approach, par-4 scoring from 400-450 yards, and proximity over 200 yards. The stats line up too well for a golfer sitting at 100/1 to win. Snag the top-5 finish at 16/1 and potentially the top-10 at +800 as well. Gooch will find his breakthrough victory sometime soon. Hopefully this week in Jackson.
Full tournament matchups
Sungjae Im -124 vs Will Zalatoris +104
The fade of the popular Will Zalatoris almost worked out last week but a brutal Saturday round from Sam Burns and a stellar Sunday from Will Z flipped the script on that matchup. The same sort of logic applies this week for me when it comes to comparing these two golfers. Does Zalatoris have the talent to run away with this event? Absolutely. But he is also on a really long stretch of competitive golf at the moment and that can certainly begin to take its toll mentally and physically. He does have back-to-back top-10 finishes but the field is stronger this week and I believe he is still getting a little too much love.
Sungjae Im was certainly hit and miss on the back half of the season last year (or still this year I should say?) but he was beginning to turn it around in his last few events. The biggest struggle for him throughout the summer was the sudden disappearance of his irons. His approach game had fallen fast but that is what he appears to have gotten back. In his last two events, he gained 4.5 and 5.7 strokes on approach. That’s a great sign for Sungjae fans. A 22nd at the US Open was nothing too shabby either. He played the Sanderson Farms last year and finished 2nd. His outright odds are a little too low for my liking but the matchup market is a great way to pull for Im this week.
The pick: Sungjae Im -124
Adam Long +104 vs Sebastian Munoz -130
A strategy that we continue to exploit when it comes to full tournament matchup betting is fading the defending champion of the event. Last year, Munoz won the Sanderson Farms and is priced up a bit too much by the books coming into this week. He has lost strokes on approach and off-the-tee in his last five events and went on a stretch about two months ago where he missed six out of eight cuts. His most recent finish was a 59th at the challenging US Open.
Adam Long on the other hand looks to set up nicely this week. He is coming off a top-5 finish at Corales and prior to that finished 13th in New York for the US Open. He is 28th or better compared to the field in approach, par 4 scoring, bermuda putting, and approach from 125-150 yards. And even if course history is your preferred metric, he finished with a respectable 23rd at this event last year. I actually like Long as a sleeper pick to win at +3300.
The pick: Adam Long +104 vs Sebastian Munoz
