RADIO
Ian McNeill's free comprehensive course preview of the Country Club of Jackson for the 2025 Sanderson Farms Championship. Ian examines the course, giving key metrics and trends to help make informed decisions on the PGA betting board.
After a sporadic September on the scheduling front, October brings with it the first signs of fall and a run of six PGA Tour events in seven weeks!
The start of our stretch run begins in Jackson, Mississippi for the Sanderson Farms Championship: an event that has seen its fair share of variety within its recent catalogue of champions. From Major Champions and top-five players in the world, to multiple 100-1 long-shots. Such is the ethos of the fall swing, and this week in particular, with only four top 50 players present in this field, the possibilities feel as endless as ever on the PGA Tour!
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 the Country Club and of Jackson the 2024 Sanderson Farms Championship!
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The Golf Course
The Country Club of Jackson - Par 72; 7,461 yards
Past Champions
- 2024 - Kevin Yu (-23) over Beau Hossler (playoff)
- 2023 - Luke List (-18) over L. Aberg, B. Griffin, H. Norlander, and S. Stallings (playoff)
- 2022 - Mackenzie Hughes (-17) over Sepp Straka (playoff)
- 2021 - Sam Burns (-22) over Cameron Young & Nick Watney
- 2020 - Sergio Garcia (-19) over Peter Malnati
- 2019 - Sebastian Munoz (-18) over Sungjae Im (playoff)
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):
- Average Fairway Width -- 29.0 yards; sixth narrowest on the PGA Tour
- Average Driving Distance -- 287.5 yards; 15th lowest on Tour
- Driving Accuracy -- 54.6%; seventh lowest on Tour
- Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.28; fifth lowest on Tour
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: 15th easiest on Tour
It’s a stark change of scenery from the rolling hills of Northern Califonia to the Golden Coasts of Jackson, Mississippi, but from a statistical standpoint, there are many through-lines to be drawn between the first two stops of the fall swing. Like Silverado three weeks ago, the Country Club of Jackson features some of the narrowest fairways on the PGA Tour, and its historical driving accuracy rate sits a whopping 8 percentage points below the Tour Average (53.9% vs 61.9%).
Don’t let these narrow landing areas confuse you though, as like the Fortinet Championship, players will receive very little penalty for driving the ball off-line at the Sanderson Farms. At just 0.29 strokes, Jackson CC features the 6th lowest missed fairway penalty on the PGA Tour, and with just 2 water hazards/penalty areas in play off the tee, there aren’t a lot of deterrents standing in the way of players swinging away with driver off of nearly every tee box.
This disregard for Jackson’s off-fairway impediments has been best exemplified by Cameron Champ, who won here in 2018 despite ranking 123rd in Driving Accuracy that week. And last year, 54-hole leader Keith Mitchell and eventual champion Kevin Yu combined to hit just 46.4% of their fairways on the week: a mark that sat a nearly six percent below the field average.
In fact, nearly 40% of Top 10 finishers since 2018 have finished the week below field average in driving accuracy in Jackson, whereas driving distance has taken a much more prescient role in overall predictiveness. Since 2015, nine of ten winners here have rated out above field average in driving distance (average rank of 11.4), and roughly 70% of Top 10 finishers have beaten the field average in distance off the tee.
Although a past champions list of Cameron Champ, Sam Burns, and Luke List paints a clear picture in favor of the bomb-and-gouge strategy, I hesitate to put too much weight on driving as a whole when we’ve seen the likes of Mackenzie Hughes, Ryan Armour, and Peter Malnati also find the winner’s circle here within the last ten years. The three of them combined to lose 1.8 strokes off-the-tee in their respective wins, and of the four strokes gained metrics, off-the-tee still comes in at a distant third in relation to its contribution to Top 5/10/20 finishers.
I will be treating Driving Distance as a key statistic given it's bump in predictiveness here historically, but this course is far from the Torrey Pines's, Bay Hill's, or Quail Hollow's of the world: where certain players can be eliminated from a player pool based entirely on their deficiencies off of the tee. As Ben Griffin (-2.9 SG: OTT) almost proved here in 2023, this week's layout is benign enough to allow the next few facets of this article to mitigate a sub-par off-the-tee performance.
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Approach):
- Green in Regulation Rate -- 70.1%; eighth highest on the PGA Tour
- Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: (+0.013); 13th easiest on Tour
- Key Proximity Ranges:
- 200+ yards (accounts for 22.5% of historical approach shots)
- 125-150 yards (19.3%)
- 100-125 yards (16.4%)
As we move into the second shot and beyond, the formula for success moves swiftly from the “choose your own adventure” philosophy we discussed with the driver, into a more necessary prerequisite. Top five finishers at the Sanderson Farms have gained an average of 3.94 strokes to the field with their approach shots (compared to just 2.16 off-the-tee), and only one winner here since 2017 has managed to capture this title whilst gaining any less than 2.5 strokes on approach.
Anyone who combs through golf statistics on a regular basis will understand the importance of approach play to success on the PGA Tour, so the real question we should be asking is which types of iron players should we be targeting? As is the case with most of the easier venues on Tour, proximity ranges at the Country Club of Jackson fall into two general categories: wedges on the Par 4’s, and long irons on the Par 3’s and 5’s.
With seven Par 4’s this week measuring in at under 450 yards, four reachable Par 5’s, and two Par 3’s measuring over 200 yards, I’d anticipate players to have a wedge or long iron in their hand on 70-plus percent of their approach shots. Proximity to the hole metrics from <150 and >200 will both be integral parts of my modeling process, as will incoming iron form as a whole.
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Around the Greens):
- Scrambling Percentage -- 62.0%; 4.5% above Tour Average
- Sand Save Difficulty -- (+0.049); 2nd easiest on Tour
- Up-and-Down Difficulty (Fairway) -- (+0.004); 15th toughest on Tour
- Up-and-Down Difficulty (Rough) -- (+0.028); 13th easiest on Tour
- SG: Around the Green Difficulty: (+0.018); 12th easiest on Tour
It's a common refrain throughout the swing season, but with the best ball-strikers in this field projected to hit 75-80% of their greens in regulation, it's difficult to make a strong case for the importance of around the green play this week. As a matter of fact, there have been multiple instances of recent leaderboards here in Jackson filled with players who rated out below the field average that week with their short games.
In 2022, six of the top 12 on the leaderboard lost strokes around the greens. And in the three years previous, we saw two Sanderson Farms Champions (Cameron Champ and Sergio Garcia), capture this crown whilst losing strokes in this category.
Like three weeks ago at the Procore, I will be using Par 5 scoring as a bit of a stand-in for around the green play, as a quality short game is one of the most correlative stats to being an elite scorer on the par fives. On the other 14 holes, however, CC of Jackson doesn't present nearly enough difficulty either into or around the greens to warrant a substantial weight on chipping as an independent entity.
CC of Jackson by the Numbers (Putting):
- Average Green Size: 6,200 sq. feet
- Agronomy -- Champion Bermuda
- 3-Putt Percentage: 2.9% (0.1% below Tour Average)
- Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: (+0.001); 15th easiest on Tour
In contrast to it's fellow short-game metric, putting has been the most impactful of the four strokes gained metrics when projecting Top 5/10/20 finishers at the Sanderson Farms (narrowly edging out Approach), and over the last five years, only one Champion of the Sanderson Farms has managed to capture the title whilst gaining less than 2.8 strokes putting.
Agronomically, the greens at Jackson are made up of Champion Bermuda and roll upwards of 12.5-13 on the Stimpmeter, making them some of the fastest greens we’ll see all year. This absolutely contributes to CCoJ being one of the more difficult venues to gain strokes with the putter relative to its spot on the schedule, and it puts even more emphasis on a player’s history on comparable green types.
Historic acumen on similar surfaces will be a key metric in my modeling, as will recent putting splits leading up to this week (Sedgefield, Quail Hollow, and TPC Southwind all feature Champion Bermuda greens and were played in competition over the course of the 2024 season). Unless you carry a truly elite ball-striking ceiling (which is much harder to find in this strength of field), I’ll need some legitimate upside cases to point to when projecting your performance on these greens.
Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):
- Total Ball-Striking: w/ special emphasis on Driving Distance, Incoming Approach Form, and Wedge proximity <150 yards
- SG: Putting on Faster Bermudagrass greens (Sedgefield, TPC Southwind, Quail Hollow, and Congaree are all recent examples of courses with similar agronomy)
- Par 5 Scoring
- Birdie or Better Percentage
- Strokes Gained: Easier Scoring Conditions
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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 UnitsTotal 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 with another long-range birdie putt 🔥#FedExOpenDeFrance pic.twitter.com/LsDBRdnsJl
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) September 20, 2025
A T68 in the first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs may have ended his 2025 PGA Tour season on a bit of a sour note, but Min Woo Lee seems to be poised to get the new year started on the proper foot. The 27-year-old Aussie followed an early playoff exit with 11th and 5th place finishes in two of the DP World Tour's biggest events (Wentworth and Paris), and is rightly priced as one of the favorites for his 2026 debut.
Min Woo's elite distance/putting combination is one that has been utilized by many at the top of historic Sanderson leaderboards, and last week's showing suggests his irons are catching up. He gained 4.28 strokes on approach -- the best single-week performance of his 2025 campaign. Notably, the last time he gained over two strokes on approach in any week (2025 PLAYERS), he won just 14 days later at the Houston Open.
I've long preferred Min Woo on easier, driver-heavy setups with a limited missed fairway penalty (Memorial Park, Detroit GC, etc.), and the CC of Jackson checks many of those same boxes. He'll be facing a much weaker lineup than he has in either of his last two appearances overseas, and with five professional wins already to his name, Australia's No. 2 carries a level of pedigree we don't normally see this time of year on Tour. At prices of 25-1 or better, he's my favorite play at the top of this week's odds board.
Rico Hoey
SHOT OF THE DAY. RICO HOEY. #BarstoolNV5 pic.twitter.com/RGB0NvKmNA
— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) July 28, 2023
Rico may not yet be a household name among casual PGA Tour fans, but golf handicappers have long salivated over his ball-striking numbers. The 29-year-old Manila-native quietly led the Tour in both Total Driving and Green in Regulation rate last season, giving him a ceiling that's practically unheard of outside of the world's top 10 players.
So how has a tee-to-green profile this elite failed to make a significant splash on leaderboards? The answer lies on the greens. Alongside these lofty ball-striking metrics, Hoey endured one of the worst statistical putting seasons in modern Tour history. He lost more than 1.05 strokes per round with the flatstick across 2025 -- a number that only five players have managed to surpass (in the wrong direction) over the last decade.
However, unlike past Rico write-ups, where there's been no tangible reason outside of variance to believe things can turn around on the greens, the Fall Swing has given us a tactile reason for hope in Hoey's projection. Our first event in Napa Valley debuted a change to a broomstick putter for the Filipino Ace, and immediately resulted in a field-average week on the greens and a 9th-place finish.
Time will tell just how sticky these improvements are for Rico going forward, but even a shift from disastrous to average with this new putter would unlock a ceiling few players in this field can match. If this broomstick is indeed the answer, Rico's profile goes from tantalizing prospect to one of a legitimate contender. At prices bordering on 40-1, these are exactly the type of swings worth chasing this fall.
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