Scouting the Routing: 2024 WM Phoenix Open

Ian McNeill's free comprehensive course preview of TPC Scottsdale for the 2024 WM Phoenix Open. In this piece, Ian overviews every key metric and trend you need to make an informed decision on this week's betting board.

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 17 years, this event has seen EIGHT 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

• 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
• 2018 - Gary Woodland (-18) over Chez Reavie (playoff)

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. This mark is only bested by Sea Island's Seaside Course (10.3%); however, it should also be noted that the average fairway width around Sea Island measures 10 yards wider than the fairways here in Scottsdale. This means that from a gross standpoint, Scottsdale ranks as the most treacherous driving course on the entire PGA Tour.

Last year, players averaged a whopping 0.70 penalty strokes per round for the tournament, and in 2019, that number ballooned up to 0.75 strokes per round. 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, it's been nearly 20 years since a player's won here without gaining at least half a stroke per round with his driver (Phil Mickelson, 2005). I would be extremely weary of anyone coming into this week with legitimate 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 23.6% of historical approach shots)
  • 175-200 yards (21.7%)
  • 200+ yards (21.3%)

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 five 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.

Justin Thomas

I've admittedly been a bit hesitant to fully buy into JT's 2024 comeback story, but after yet another stipe show around Pebble Beach en route to his fifth consecutive top-six finish, it's getting harder and harder to ignore Justin Thomas as one of the hottest commodities in the game.

In seven rounds at the AmEx and the AT&T to start his season, Thomas has shot a cumulative total of (-40), and has yet to record a round worse than 68. He's ranked second and sixth in each event from tee to green and now gets to tackle a venue where he's logged five straight finishes of 13th or better.

In this field, Thomas's Scottsdale track record may only be surpassed by the man who's won here each of the last two years (and also projects to come in at 1/3 of the outright number). Since making his debut in 2015, JT has never lost strokes on Approach around TPC Scottsdale (gaining an average of 4.02 strokes per start), he hasn't lost strokes off-the-tee since 2016, and has also recorded the third and fourth best putting weeks of the 2020 and 2021 seasons right here in the desert.

Given their similar agronomy, the heavy emphasis placed on mid/long-iron play, and risk/reward nature, it's no surprise that Thomas has experienced similar success throughout his career around TPC Sawgrass. His game is tailor-made for these ball-striking contests, and with the recent frailties shown by many at the top of the projected odds board (Scheffler, Xander, Hovland, etc.), there isn't anyone in this field who can match Thomas's combination of incoming momentum and prolific course history. I'd be comfortable laying upwards of 12-1 on JT this week.

Jordan Spieth

For a player with such a prolific track record around Pebble Beach, last week's AT&T Pro-Am was a frustrating endeavor for Jordan Spieth and his supporters. He lost nearly two shots to the field in an even-par round at Spyglass Hill, and over the next two days, couldn't quite capture the consistently magic touch he's historically had around Monterey's iconic seaside links.

Spieth did play his final two rounds in six-under par (fractionally beating the field average in that time), but the most positive signs for his future projections came in the underlying ball-striking splits. Jordan gained over 2.1 shots between his driver and iron play in Round 3 (ranking 10th out of 80 players), and if not for a balky putter (-2.94 over his last 36 holes), he could be coming into this week with a lot more fanfare.

Of course, Scottsdale has proven to be an ideal get-right spot for Spieth on more than one occasion throughout his career. In 2021, he entered the WM Open on a horrid string of 10 consecutive starts without a top-35 finish. He would go on to finish fourth around TPC Scottsdale -- logging his best iron week in nearly three years in the process, and catapulting him on a run that thrust him back as one of the top players in the game.

Spieth also entered last year's WM Open on the back of a disappointing 63rd-place finish around his beloved Pebble Beach. He followed that up with a sixth-place result here in Scottsdale (his fourth top-10 here in seven starts) -- inevitably leading to another white-hot stretch of golf from March to June.

This year, his 39th-place finish at Pebble Beach looks more like a one-week hiccup than an indicator of more turbulent times in the already eclectic career of Jordan Spieth. Prior to last week, Jordan recorded finishes of sixth and third in star-studded fields at the Hero World Challenge and Sentry Tournament of Champions, and gained strokes in each of the three tee-to-green categories.

It's only a matter of time before Spieth converts one of these contending efforts into a long-awaited marquee victory. Now, at a venue where he's recorded four of the best 16 approach weeks of his entire career, and in a field that's far less prestigious than he's used to facing around Scottsdale, this week could be the best chance we've seen for Spieth in some time.

Si Woo Kim

After my staunch support of two marquee names in Thomas and Spieth, I'm taking a slightly more tentative approach to the back of this week's oddsboard. Names like Matsuyama, Fowler, and Sungjae will undoubtedly draw attention based on their illustrious histories around TPC Scottsdale, but between the three of them, there aren't a ton of recent data points to suggest they're in anywhere near the type of form required to contend at this type of demanding venue.

Instead, my attention has turned to one of the most mercurial talents on the PGA Tour: Si Woo Kim. As he's proven on multiple occasions around the likes of TPC Sawgrass, Muirfield Village, and Augusta National, Kim has proven more than capable of contending at some of the most demanding venues this Tour has to offer when his game finds its form.

Looking at his last three starts, that form could well be closer than his current market valuation would indicate, as Kim has gained a total of 13.2 strokes between his driver and iron play over eight recorded rounds at Waialae, Pebble Beach, and PGA West. He ranked third in last week's marquee field from tee to green, and has noticeably raised his baseline around Scottsdale over his last two starts -- logging career-best finishes of 26th and 23rd.

Of course, Kim has already built up an extensive resume at TPC Sawgrass, one of my main stylistic comps to Scottsdale, and rates out inside the top 15 in both my long-term Total Driving model and my two-year weighted Proximity model. There aren't many players in this field who carry a greater ball-striking ceiling at a price >60-1. If he's going to be regarded as an afterthought in this relatively underwhelming field, I'd have no problem taking a shot on him to add another big-name title to his CV.

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