RADIO
Despite being sandwiched between two "signature events" that have sapped a chunk of the typical star power from Scottsdale, The People's Open remains one of the most highly anticipated events on the entire golfing calendar. With its electric atmosphere, a risk/reward layout that ramps up leaderboard volatility, and propensity for Sunday drama, there isn't another event on Tour that more seamlessly transitions the American audience into the biggest sporting event of the year on Sunday evening.
Over the last 18 years, this event has seen NINE playoff deciders, and only one instance where the margin of victory exceeded two shots (Phil Mickelson, 2013). For golf fans, this event has been as can't-miss as it gets. So get to the Super Bowl pre-game a bit early, skip out on the monotonous pregame shows, and turn on one of the most electric atmospheres in all of sports. If there was ever a time to introduce a friend or significant other to the PGA Tour, the WM Open makes for the perfect gateway drug!
Before we get into the odds board on tap for golf bettors Monday morning, this piece will serve to set you up to make the crucial decisions necessary before the market shifts later in the week. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report on TPC Scottsdale and the 2024 WM Phoenix Open!
The Golf Course
TPC Scottsdale - Par 71; 7,261 yards
Past Champions
- 2024 - Nick Taylor (-21) over Charley Hoffman (playoff)
- 2023 - Scottie Scheffler (-19) over Nick Taylor
- 2022 - Scottie Scheffler (-16) over Patrick Cantlay (playoff)
- 2021 - Brooks Koepka (-19) over Xander Schauffele and K.H. Lee
- 2020 - Webb Simpson (-17) over Tony Finau (playoff)
- 2019 - Rickie Fowler (-17) over Branden Grace
TPC Scottsdale by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):
- Average Fairway Width -- 31.5 yards; 14th narrowest on the PGA Tour
- Driving Accuracy -- 55.9%; 9th lowest on Tour
- Average Driving Distance -- 300 yards; Highest on Tour
- Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.36; 15th highest on Tour
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: +0.019; 9th easiest on Tour
We've spent the majority of the 2024 campaign talking through courses that aim to equalize the haves from the have nots off of the tee. Venues like Pebble Beach, Kapalua, PGA West, and Waialae haven't done the best job of setting the stage for the PGA Tour's preeminent drivers to separate themselves with their elite ability, but all of that changes in the desert this week.
Scottsdale's increased emphasis on elite driving is first exemplified by the fact that seven of the 11 Par 4s around TPC Scottsdale measure over 440 yards. Unlike the positional layout of Pebble Beach that afforded players ample opportunities to club down for position, TPC Scottsdale will put a driver in your hand early and often. This forced aggression will not come without risk either, as Scottsdale also features the second-highest penalty fraction of any course on the schedule.
Since 2015, around 8% of missed fairways have resulted in a penalty stroke, a mark is only surpassed by the Black Desert Resort Course (17.0%), and Sea Island's Seaside Course (10.3%) we saw last fall. However, it should also be noted that each of these courses provided substantially more room off of the tee than the fairways here in Scottsdale. So from a gross standpoint, Scottsdale ranks as the most treacherous driving course on the entire PGA Tour.
Over the last six seasons, players averaged a whopping 0.67 penalty strokes per round for the tournament: ranking as a top 5 course on Tour in penalties per round in three of those years. From the five Par 4s/5s that bring water into play to the ever-present threat of native desert areas spitting your ball into a cactus or an outcrop of boulders, there are very few holes around TPC Scottsdale where a wayward tee shot won't have you staring down the barrel of a sizeable penalty.
As a result, I'll be honing in heavily on players who can separate themselves with both length and accuracy off of the tee. It's no coincidence that names like Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and Patrick Cantlay have continuously populated the top of the leaderboards here while also rating out near the top of the heap in Total Driving and SG:OTT.
In fact, over the last 20 years, only defending champion Nick Taylor and Phil Mickelson in 2005 have found victory lane here without gaining at least half a stroke to the field with their drivers (although Taylor did rank top 10 in Good Drive Percentage for the week). I remain extremely weary of anyone coming into this week with glaring driving deficiencies.
TPC Scottsdale by the Numbers (Approach):
- Green in Regulation Rate -- 65.4%; 15th highest on the PGA Tour
- Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: -0.003; 15th toughest on Tour
- Key Proximity Ranges:
- 150-175 yards (accounts for 24.2% of historical approach shots)
- 200+ yards (21.6%)
- 175-200 yards (18.4%)
Although driving has certainly closed the gap to iron play in terms of predictability around TPC Scottsdale, it is the second shot that still reigns supreme when projecting success in the desert. Top-five finishers have needed to gain an average of 3.5 strokes on approach to attain that position (compared to just 2.4 OTT), and five of the last eight WM champions have been carried by the best or second-best iron week in the field.
In terms of key proximity ranges to hone in on, TPC Scottsdale skews heavily towards mid/long-iron play. Nearly two-thirds of historical approach shots have come from outside of 150 yards here, and with the general firmness of desert turf, approach shots will have to be struck with the utmost integrity to properly control distance.
I will be placing a special emphasis on players who raise their ball-striking baselines on courses with similar approach distributions. Harbour Town, Muirfield Village, and Riviera all fit under this umbrella, as do Olympia Fields and Augusta National. Although we are reaching a point in the schedule where we can begin to rely more on recent form, I'd be careful when attempting to extrapolate approach splits from venues like Kapalua, Pebble Beach, or PGA West. Scottsdale won't be conceding nearly the same number of green-light wedge opportunities as many of our most recent Tour stops.
TPC Scottsdale by the Numbers (Around the Greens):
- Scrambling Percentage -- 59.25%; 1.7% below Tour Average
- Sand Save Difficulty -- (-0.020); 12th toughest on Tour
- SG: Around the Green Difficulty: -0.009; 9th toughest on Tour
With the increased emphasis we're placing on total driving, coupled with the evergreen importance of approach play and putting, around the green play is left as far and away the least important of the four Strokes Gained stats when it comes to projecting top finishes around TPC Scottsdale.
Two of the last six champions of the WM Open have managed to do so whilst losing strokes around the greens, and top-five finishers here in Scottsdale have historically gained just 14.5% of their total shots through their short games.
Much of this boils down to the fact that the greens here at TPC Scottsdale are some of the largest we've seen to date on the PGA Tour. At over 7,000 square feet on average, players who find the short grass off of the tee should have no problem finding the putting surface -- evidenced by a historic GIR percentage of ~65% despite one of the highest penalty fractions on Tour.
One auxiliary short-game stat I would be paying attention to is sand saves. 17 of the 18 holes at TPC Scottsdale are protected by greenside bunkering, and in terms of SG:ARG difficulty, the sand traps are far and away the most difficult spot to leave yourself in a scrambling situation. Last year, TPC Scottsdale ranked as the sixth most difficult course to get up and down from the bunkers (compared to 15th from the fairway and 35th from the rough). There's still not enough of a correlation for me to integrate bunker play as a core metric within my modeling, but it will be my most heavily-weighted around-the-green statistic.
TPC Scottsdale by the Numbers (Putting):
- Average Green Size -- 7,069 sq. feet
- Agronomy -- Poa trivialis w/ perennial rye overseed
- Stimpmeter: 12
- 3-Putt Percentage: 3.03%
- Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: +0.007; 7th easiest on Tour
After two weeks of white-knuckling every three-footer our players come across on the bumpy poa annua greens of California, our trip to the desert presents one of the more benign putting tests on the PGA Tour. TPC Scottsdale ranks as the ninth easiest course on Tour to gain strokes on the greens and surrenders the sixth most makes from outside of 15 feet.
The overseeded ryegrass blend on offer at TPC Scottsdale is most closely related to the likes of TPC Sawgrass or Innisbrook, but in general, this isn't a surface that will preclude anyone from putting well. The greens do tend to run faster than the Tour average, but as we saw at PGA West three weeks ago, these overseeded, carpet-like complexes shouldn't cause any indecision regarding surface inconsistencies.
From a modeling standpoint, I will be devaluing putting as a whole -- especially when compared to my process over the last few weeks. Although the champion of this event will more than likely need to beat the field average on the greens, the emphasis this course has historically placed on more predictable facets of the game (i.e. ball-striking) makes it a much more stable route to take in filtering our betting prospects. If a player meets said ball-striking thresholds, we can then move on to his likelihood of conquering the lesser test on the greens.
Key Stats Roundup:
- Big week for driving stats as a whole. Honing in specifically on Elite Performers in Total Driving, SG:Off-the-Tee, and Good Drive %
- SG:Approach -- particular emphasis on Proximity splits from 150 yards and beyond
- Course History around TPC Scottsdale
- Par 5 Scoring
- Birdie Chances Created
- Elite Ball-Striking ceiling
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The Sunday Shortlist
Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are 2-3 names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.
Scottie Scheffler
Scottie Scheffler is clutch!
He now leads by 2 after the huge par save on 16 @WMPhoenixOpen. pic.twitter.com/TlGfyvTwdZ
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 12, 2023
This may be the first time I've ever wrote up the World No. 1 in a pre-week preview piece, but a ninth-place finish in which he ranked first on Approach and third in Total Ball-Striking wasn't exactly the debut we were hoping for if you were looking to fade Scottie Scheffler off of his nearly two-month injury absence. Now, as we begin a stretch of tournaments he's historically dominated (Phoenix, Bay Hill, Sawgrass, etc.), the case can certainly begin to be made that he's worthy of consideration at even at the lofty odds of 3-1.
The site of his first ever PGA Tour victory, TPC Scottsdale has remained among Scheffler's happiest hunting grounds as he's ascended from plucky underdog into this decade's version of PGA Terminator. Over his last four starts in the desert, Scottie's finished no worse than 7th at the Waste Management, and has recorded two of the best four approach weeks of his entire career here over the last two seasons (+9.5 and +9.2).
Maybe scarier still, the overseeded ryegrass greens in Scottsdale have been a consistent tonic throughout Scheffler's putting adventure, as the Texan has gained 4.2, 5.1, and 6.2 strokes on the greens in three of his last four starts. It's hard to fathom this version of Scottie ever falling short of the winner's circle if these trends were to continue: especially as he also rates out as the second-best driver of the ball in this field in his WM Open history.
Simply put, there isn't a single facet of the game that gives me any pause for Scheffler this week -- only a potential bout of competitive rust should he put himself in winning position Sunday afternoon. Frankly, I could cast many more warranted doubts on the chances for many in the upper echelon of this week's odds-board, and without the necessary conviction in guys like Justin Thomas, Sungjae Im, and Corey Conners, the case only grows that this could shape up as the perfect spot for Scheffler's inevitable return to the top of a PGA Tour leaderboard.
Rasmus Hojgaard
Rasmus Højgaard birdied 4 of the last 5 holes, including 3 in a row to finish, to close with a back 9 of 31, to win the Irish Open by 1 shot from Rory McIlroy. It’s his 5th DP World Tour win at just 23 years of age. Fusher 🔥🇩🇰 pic.twitter.com/dk11yYAItm
— Flushing It (@flushingitgolf) September 15, 2024
If a 3-1 Scottie Scheffler isn't your cup of tea, there are a few guys in the middle of this board that I do see with the upside to topple the status quo. Like last week, Nick Taylor carries in a stellar CV in the desert with a win already under his belt in the New Year, and names like Luke Clanton, Kurt Kitayama, and J.J. Spaun can all be found above 50-1 and each rank among the top ball-striking entities in this field over the last 6-8 months.
However, it is the 23-year-old rookie from Billund, Denmark that most intrigues me most in this current market: Rasmus Hojgaard. Twin brother of fellow Danish pro Nicolai, Rasmus has spent the better part of his first five years as a professional trying to establish himself just as the best player in his family. And while Nicolai was the first to acquire PGA Tour membership in 2024 (most notably coming second to Matthieu Pavon at Torrey Pines), his brother 8-minutes the younger spent the extra year in Europe establishing himself as one of the top young prospects in world golf.
Rasmus's 2024 included six finishes of fourth or better, a jump of over 40 positions in the Official World Golf Ranking, and an iconic comeback victory over Rory McIlroy in the Northern Irishman's home event at Royal County Down. He was the only player on the DP World Tour to rank inside the top 15 in both SG: Tee-to-Green and SG: Putting, and gained over three shots to the field with his iron play in his 2025 debut at Pebble Beach.
Outside of the aforementioned Clanton, I don't see a single name above 40-1 that carries as much upside as this 23-year-old wunderkind. With the Ryder Cup just seven months away, European eyes will be keenly fixed on Rasmus's progression. With his combination of elite gifts and no glaring deficiency, I think it's very possible we see him as a top 10-15 player in the world within 12 months. At 50-1, I'm more than comfortable making a stand on pure ability.
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