What to Watch for at the BMW Championship

I’ve spent some time recently thinking about the lengthening of golf courses—specifically, how the lengthening of golf courses destroys their strategic value.

This theory gives credit to the brilliance and craftsmanship of the greatest golf course architects. Like a talented chef tastes a dish, absorbs the feedback, and iterates until approaching perfection, golf architects observe shots and tinker until finding the proper playing dimensions.

Today, those dimensions, especially at older courses, have been thrown out of whack.

As the golf ball goes farther and farther because of technological advances (as well as all of the other factors Titleist is more willing to discuss), it doesn’t just just travels farther in one direction, on line with the intended target; it travels farther left and right, too. Yet in counteracting distance gains, we tend to increase the dimensions of championship courses in only one direction, by adding tee boxes. The result is a mismatch between the playing width that the architect intended and the playing width in effect today. Even if the course is as wide as it once was, it plays narrower now because the game has gotten bigger along both the x and y axes.

My “what to watch for” this week is this concept in action at the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club.

Since opening in 1923, the North Course at Olympia Fields has added 700 yards of length. Narrow fairways would have worked nicely when the ball traveled only 240 yards. At Olympia Fields today, however, pros rip 315-yard drives at the 25-yard-wide fairways. There’s not much strategy that can happen within those dimensions. At the 2020 BMW Championship, golfers hit just 51% of the fairways with driver in hand. Under those circumstances, do you really think players are even contemplating, say, favoring the right side of the fairway when the pin is on the left?

This mismatch in playing dimensions is a problem. Given the width of a 315-yard-drive dispersion pattern and the narrowness of the fairways, it’s difficult to hit a fairway at Olympia Fields. Hitting 3-wood or iron off the tee does not significantly increase the chance of finding the fairway on most holes. Thus, driver is often the best club choice.

Once you’ve missed a fairway at Olympia Fields, the penalties for inaccuracy start to blend together. Most holes do not have punishing hazards for extremely wide misses to bounce or fly into, aside from rows of trees located fairly close to the fairways. Thick rough catches most errant tee shots and assesses a similar penalty to the ball that bounced twice in the fairway and rolled into the rough. In this respect, Olympia Fields plays more like Oak Hill or Winged Foot than Augusta National.

Do you see what I see?

The 18th hole at Olympia Fields North (courtesy of Olympia Fields)

That’s not to say that there is no premium on accuracy at Olympia Fields. At the 2020 BMW Championship, hitting a shot on line versus flaring one wide off the tee was worth just under 0.6 strokes. That number is right around tour average.

On the whole, though, Olympia Fields is pretty friendly to the errant driver. It would be a much better test if the dimensions of the course matched modern shot patterns. In 2023, even properly struck drives bring the rough into play, often yield the same penalty as a poorly struck drive. Competitors at this year’s PGA Championship and the 2020 U.S. Open can empathize.

This is good news, however, for Rory McIlroy, a player with a wide dispersion pattern even when striking the driver well. Outside of a few holes at Olympia Fields—like Nos. 1, 14, and 15—McIlroy does not have to fear the consequences of a wild tee shot. The penalties will be close to those for a slightly off-target drive. I expect him to thrive this week. We’re not on the first tee at the Masters anymore…

To be clear, my assessment is not an overall critique of the architecture at Olympia Fields North. I am simply suggesting that accuracy is not tested as much when a course’s playing dimensions and modern spray charts are mismatched.

Moreover, I’m not saying that courses should have to adjust to technology-aided distance gains. We don’t need to abandon history in favor of bigger ballparks. We need people with common sense, courage, and leadership skill to take the reins and regulate equipment properly.