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Tournament Stats:
BMW Championship
September 9 - 12, 2010
Cog Hill Golf & Country Club
Lemont, Illinois
Par 71 / 7,386 yards
Purse: $7.5 million with $1.35 million going to the winner
Defending Champion: Tiger Woods
Results & Scores 2009 BMW Championship
Box Score of 2009 BMW Championship
Tournament facts:
Tournament Record:262 (Tiger Woods in the 2007 BMW Championship)
54-Hole Record:
199 (Tiger Woods in 2009 BMW, Camilo Villegas in 2008 BMW Championship)
36-Hole Record:
131 (Camilo Villegas 2008 BMW Championship)
Low round of tournament:
62 (Tiger Woods in third round of the 2009 BMW Championship at Cog Hill, Jim Furyk in second round of the 2008 BMW Championship at Bellerive)
Low round at Cog Hill:
62 by Tiger Woods in the third round of the 2009 BMW Championship
63 (Tiger Woods in final round of the 2007 BMW Championship; Tiger Woods in the first round of the 2003 BMW Championship; Nick Price in the first round of the 2000 BMW Championship; Dudley Hart in the final round of the 1998 BMW Championship; John Adams in the third round of the 1993 BMW Championship; Brian Henninger in the second round of the 2000 BMW Championship; Jeff Sluman in the third round of the 1992 BMW Championship; Stephen Ames in the second round of the 2000 BMW Championship.)
Tournament information:
The Western Open was originally founded and run by the the Western Golf Association. First played in 1899, the event is the third oldest professional golf tournament (U.S. Open and British Open are older). Like the other golf tournaments of the time, the Western Open was dominated by visiting professionals from the UK. In its early decades it was widely regarded as a major championshipFrom 1899 until 1961, the Western Open was played at a variety of locations including Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco to name a few. Beginning in 1962 however, the Western Open settled into the Chicago area. It was hosted at different local courses in and around the city.
In 1974, the Butler National Golf Club in Oak Brook, became the annual venue for the Western Open. The Butler National Golf Club remained the host site until shortly after the 1990 tournament, when the PGA Tour adopted a policy of holding events only at clubs which allowed minorities and women to be members.
This resulted in Butler National being replaced by the Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont, Illinois. The Dubsdread Course at Cog Hill played host to the Western Open from 1991 to 2007. With the advent of the new FedEx Cup Series, the PGA decided a change of name was in order. The event is now known as the BMW Championship and the name will remain until at least 2012.
In 2008 for the first time since 1962 the event was not played in the Chicago area as it moved to St. Louis for the year. In a way that worked out great because it gave Cog Hill a year to do renovations. The course will host the event this year and next before being played at Crooked Stick in 2012.
Course information:
The Dubsdread course at Cog Hill is the site of the 2010 BMW Championship. The course held the event for 17 straight years until it took a year off. Right after the last putt dropped in the 2007 BMW Championship, the course was closed and underwent a $5 million renovation.Rees Jones came in and was told to make the course tougher, more fan friendly but most importantly make the course have a look and feel of a U.S. Open course, but at the same time be user friendly for the general public, since it is a public facility.
Cog Hill is part of a four course complex located 30 milles southwest of Chicago. Owned by the Joe Jemsek family who's mission is to provide great golf facilities that are just like a country club for those who can't afford to me a member of a private country club, Cog Hill got its start in 1926-27, when a golf course was built by manual labor and horse drawn equipment. This back-breaking work produced Cog Hill No. 1. It opened on the Fourth of July weekend of 1927. The original No. 2 course opened in the fall 1929. Depite 12 years of the Great Depression, the golf course prospered and the people who had money continued to make their way to Cog Hill.
In 1963, Dick Wilson was hired to build a third course. After completing that design, he was then asked to build a fourth course that would be good enough to hold a national Open or PGA Championship. Wilson agreed, but unfortunately, passed away before finishing and Joe Lee completed the course.
Over the years, Jemsek Golf and Cog Hill have hosted many national championships. Cog Hill hosted the 1970 and 1989 USGA Men's Public Links Championship, as well as the 1987 U.S. Women's Public Links and the 1997 U.S. Amateur Championship. In 1991 the Western Golf Association brought the Western Open to the Dubsdread course at Cog Hill and the tournament has remained here ever since, until this year. In 2008 the event will move for a year to St. Louis and return in 2009.
The Dubsdread Course was built very much into its surroundings. The course is known for its many oak trees that line the fairways, as well as its large, undulating greens. As for the renovations Jones didn't change the overall design of the course but he did redo all 18 greens, putting in a SubAir System which acts as an under-ground vacuum when the greens accumulate too much water. It also can control the water content in the greens itself and control the firmness of the greens. In redoing the greens, Jones added more contour to the greens, given many of them multitude of tiers which will give tournament officials a chance to make each hole play differently with different, more challenging pin placements.
Jones also rebuilt all of the tee boxes and again has put in multiple tee boxes so that holes will be able to play to different lengths. At the same time he redid all the bunkers, putting them more in the driving areas and making them deeper and harder to get out of. One hole that will play differently is the par 4, 7th, a dogleg right. Bunkers use to guard the right side but that has been replaced with a lake to make sure that nobody bites off more than then can chew.
Some other changes will see the 5th hole change from a very easy par 5 to a par 4. Another big change is at the final hole in which the pond at the left of the green now will come more into play as everything slopes in the direction of the water.
The signature hole on Dubsdread will still be the 16th. The 397-yard, par-4, doglegs left in the middle of the fairway. The approach shot is to a four-tiered green that is surrounded by trees.
Over the years, Dubsdread has accrued many accolades. Golf Digest rated Dubsdread as the "Best Public Course" in the state of Illinois for 1996. GOLF Magazine ranked it as the 16th best among the "Top 100 Courses You Can Play in the U.S." for 1998. In the category of "America's 100 Greatest Courses," Golf Digest ranked Dubsdread 59th for 1996, and 40th for 2000.
For this week the course will play to 7,386 yards even thought it can be stretched over 7,600. It will play to a par of 71 and boasts a course rating of 78.1 with a slope rating of 152 from the way back tees. There are 98 bunkers on the course and the average green size is 6,000 square feet, a bit smaller than before the renovations.
The Buzz:
Look for some attention being placed on the renovations of the Dubsdread Course and how these were done to lure the USGA in giving it the 2017 U.S. Open. In the 45 years before World War II, nine U.S. Open's were held on various courses in the Chicago are. With Chicago being the third biggest city in the country it only seems feasible that the USGA would take the premier golfing event of our country to the hub of the central United States. But in the 74 years since World War II, Chicago has only hosted four U.S. Opens, the last being in 2003 at Olympia Fields. In talking with Mike Davies, he would love to go back to the Chicago area, but the only two courses that are capable of holding a U.S. Open Medinah and Olympia Fields have problems. First Medinah has turned into a major player for the PGA of America, holding two PGA Championships in the last ten years and it will host the Ryder Cup in 2012. As for Olympia Fields, the local municipalities were not very helpful in 2003 which makes that course not feasible for the future. Now with Erin Hills getting the Open for 2017 many will wondeer what happened to the Cog Hill bid. In searching for some answers two main reasons were the USGA feel that Erin Hills is the better of the two courses in being able to hold a championship and that again dealing with local municipalities again proved a hassle.It's a big blow for Cog Hill not to be able to host a U.S. Open. Will it change, probably not I see the USGA start talking with Medinah fairly soon so that they could beat the PGA to the punch. So were does this leave Cog Hill? Frankly the course is still well liked on the PGA Tour, it has the infrastructure, room for parking but more importantly is the type of course that fits perfectly for the PGA Tour. After next year the BMW will move to Crooked Stick for a year as the Ryder Cup will give Chicago it's golfing fix in 2012, but I can see this event coming back to Cog Hill in 2013.
Look for any repercussions on Corey Pavin's Ryder Cup picks. Frankly I can't see anyone complain, Pavin made some good choices, but if a Bubba Watson, Brandt Snedeker or a J.B. Holmes win this week, of course there will be the Monday quarterbacking. Last week we had 29 casualties from the Deutsche Bank, with the biggest being Padraig Harrington who was a choice of Colin Montgomerie for a Ryder Cup pick. Now Harrington started the FedEx Cup in 55th position but after finishing T47th at Barclays and missing the cut at Deutsche Bank he dropped out of the top 70 which will start people wondering if either Paul Casey or Justin Rose would of been a better choice.
Some others that won't move on are Lucas Glover, Charles Howell III, Davis Love, Shaun Micheel and Kenny Perry. For Perry he says that he is tried and just wants to get ready for the Champions Tour. Another that finished 70th and got a spot was Scott Verplank, but he is in bad shape with a left wrist injury that has bothered him for months. He was forced to withdraw from the Deutsche Bank and is awaiting the results of a MRI to see if there is structural damage. He is planing on deciding on Wednesday if he can play or not.
Lastly what about Tiger Woods who is the defending BMW Championship winner and FedEx Cup winner. With his good play in Boston he makes it into the BMW Championship, but he has a long haul ahead of him coming into this week 51st on the point list. With that Woods will need a top-five finish to make it to Atlanta and the Tour Championship.
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Here are some things to look for this week:
Here are some of the secrets that it will take to play well this week at the BMW Championship: A favorite course among many on the PGA Tour, Dubsdread is a demanding course that rewards fine shotmaking. Dubsdread was built from the natural terrain and is known for its many oak trees lining the fairways and its large, undulating greens. Some feel that the course hasn't changed with time but that isn't the case, if needed the course could play very tough if the pins were hidden and the rough allowed to grow. It's been a long hot summer in Chicago but two weeks ago the area got eight inches of rain in a day which has made the course very lush and long. With that is thick rough just under five inches in length that will grow another inch or so during the championship, so look for a tough test this year.The signature hole on Dubsdread is No. 16, a 397-yard, par 4, with a dogleg left fairway and great views of the countryside.
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Key stat for the winner:
For years now the course has always had the reputation as a "shotmakers' delight. That is because hitting lots of greens is the key to winning, if you look at the graphic down below you can see of the 17 winners at Cog Hill, four led the greens hit category while only four have not been in the top-four. - How important is putting on the greens of Cog Hill? It's a mix bag but in looking at it historically, good putting isn't that important in winning.
- Another key is the par 5s, before 2004 they were short and low numbers were produced as this chart of the last couple of winners shows. Just remember that in 2004 the course changed the par 5 fifth, which is always one of the easier par 5s, shortening it by 45 yards and changed it to a par 4, reducing the course to a par 71. Now with the tee moved up on the fifth, the tee for the ninth which it shared was moved back thus making that hole play over 600 yards so the par 5s are a lot more demanding than they were before. Still it makes life a lot easier for those who can dominate them.
| How the winners have done in hitting greens over the years: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Year | Player | Greens Hit | Rank | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Tiger Woods | 50 | T4th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | Tiger Woods | 57 | 4th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2006 | Trevor Immelman | 57 | 1st | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2005 | Jim Furyk | 54 | 1st | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2004 | Stephen Ames | 47 | T26th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2003 | Tiger Woods | 50 | T31st | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2002 | Jerry Kelly | 51 | T28th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2001 | Scott Hoch | 53 | T13th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2000 | Robert Allenby | 53 | T10th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1999 | Tiger Woods | 52 | T4th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1998 | Joe Durant | 65 | 1st | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1997 | Tiger Woods | 54 | 2nd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1996 | Steve Stricker | 56 | T3rd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1995 | Billy Mayfair | 48 | T38th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1994 | Nick Price | 60 | 2nd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1993 | Nick Price | 59 | T1st | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1992 | Ben Crenshaw | 56 | T4th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1991 | Russ Cochran | 55 | 3rd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How the winners have done in putting over the years: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Year | Player | Putts per round | Rank | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Tiger Woods | 26.50 | T2nd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | Tiger Woods | 27.25 | T5th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2006 | Trevor Immelman | 29.50 | T54th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2005 | Jim Furyk | 28.25 | T19th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2004 | Stephen Ames | 27.50 | T7th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2003 | Tiger Woods | 26.00 | 1st | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2002 | Jerry Kelly | 27.00 | T5th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2001 | Scott Hoch | 26.75 | T2nd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2000 | Robert Allenby | 29.00 | T42nd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1999 | Tiger Woods | 29.00 | T33rd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1998 | Joe Durant | 30.00 | T66th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1997 | Tiger Woods | 29.50 | T60th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How the winners have done on the par 5s over the years: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Year | Player | How he played par 5s | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Tiger Woods | 10 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | Tiger Woods | 9 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2006 | Trevor Immelman | 6 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2005 | Jim Furyk | 7 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2004 | Stephen Ames | 5 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2003 | Tiger Woods | 13 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2002 | Jerry Kelly | 9 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2001 | Scott Hoch | 11 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2000 | Robert Allenby | 11 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1999 | Tiger Woods | 12 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1998 | Joe Durant | 9 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1997 | Tiger Woods | 8 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1996 | Steve Stricker | 10 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1995 | Billy Mayfair | 5 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1994 | Nick Price | 10 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1993 | Nick Price | 8 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1992 | Ben Crenshaw | 9 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1991 | Russ Cochran | 3 under | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
So with the changes, will any of this change? Of course it will, look for putting to be a lot tougher this year, the greens will have more undulations in them than before. Still the course will be long and should favor the longer hitter but one that hits lots and lots of greens.
Key stat from past winners: One of the rare courses that good driving is rewarded, between 1998 and 2007, six of the ten winners were in the top-ten in hitting fairways. Last year Tiger Woods, who has driving problems even in wins was T15th hitting 41 of 56.
So what will it take to win? Think of this event now as similar to a major in which this course is a new adventure. This brings into play a lot more players as they try to deal with the learning curve of the course, also with the previous event not finishing until Monday it gives the players less time to learn what Cog Hill is about.