Weather Conditions, Not Renovations, Remain Greatest Determining Factor of Scoring

Two weeks ago, the world’s best golfers convened at Aronimink Golf Club for the first time since 2018 and just the second time since a Gil Hanse/Jim Wagner restoration the previous year.

With generous fairways and negligible rough, the consensus pre-tournament assessment was that birdies would be readily available, perhaps rendering the PGA Championship to looking something more like a regular PGA Tour stop.

“I think in this day and age, I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag,” Rory McIlroy said beforehand. “Strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent. It’s basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there.”

Common sentiment was that a score in the mid-teens under par would win on this par-70 venue, with some even suggesting that it might be closer to that BMW Championship total of eight years earlier, when 20-under reached a playoff.

Spoiler alert: Aaron Rai triumphed with a score of 9-under, which was three strokes better than anybody else.

Now let’s assess last week’s festivities at TPC Craig Ranch. After a dominating CJ Cup Byron Nelson performance from Scottie Scheffler last year, when he posted three rounds of 63 or better and reached 31-under for the week, Lanny Wadkins was entrusted with a reported $25 million renovation which was expected to place more of an onus on “strategic shot-making” and was sure to confound even the best putters on tricked-up green complexes.

“If they wanted the winning score here to be 5- to 10-under par, I think they could do it,” Scheffler offered prior to the opening round. “I think a lot of it just comes down to setup.”

Fair play to the world’s No. 1-ranked player, who also suggested that if the powers-that-be didn’t set it up with pins close to the enhanced slopes on these greens, there could be similar scoring to the previous year, though again common sentiment advised that the course was decidedly more difficult than it was before.

Another spoiler alert: Wyndham Clark won with a 30-under total, just one stroke off the pace of Scheffler the previous year.

Of course, there’s a common bond between each of these.

Over the most recent fortnight, there’s been plenty of discussion about restorations and renovations and how they’ll play and why they’ll impact scoring and just what that winning score might be.

We all get sucked in, especially here in the prognostication niche of this universe, as we attempt to make educated guesses as to what we’re going to witness for the four rounds of competition.

These last two events, though, should be another reminder that there’s only one presence who can truly affect how a golf course is going to play for elite-level professionals – and it’s not Hanse or Wadkins or even Scheffler or McIlroy.

No, we’re talking about Mother Nature.

At the PGA Championship, the opening round kicked off in cool, damp conditions which over the course of four days alternatively became windier, hotter, drier and left players competing on a different golf course than the one they’d seen in early-week practice rounds. Not only was the course tougher, but plans of attack were forced to be adjusted as that transformation continued. It was a perfect storm, so to speak, of weather conditions to test every aspect of a player’s game.

By contrast, the CJ Cup Byron Nelson received none of that. The early portion of tournament week was marred by heavy rains which left the course softer than intended, even if that weather pattern is hardly unexpected in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in mid-spring. Throw in the fact that on a course built to be played in strong winds, it never blew, essentially giving competitors ideal conditions in which to go low.

Therein lies the answer to all of those pre-tournament questions. It often doesn’t matter how much money is dumped into a golf course or what the setup suggests. If the wind blows and the conditions get faster and firmer as the week progresses, it’ll always be a tougher test than four consecutive rounds in an inconsequential breeze on softer turf.

Collectively, we’ll look back over the last two weeks and come to the following conclusions: Aronimink showed off as a brilliant test of golf, while it was back to the same ol’ TPC Craig Ranch following that renovation.

It’s a simple conclusion and I certainly wouldn’t argue against either of those assessments. As Tiger Woods has so often defiantly explained specific situations, “It is what it is.” There are no couldas, wouldas or shouldas here – we can only describe what we watched.

While it’s easy, though, to marvel at how one course can stifle the world’s best at less than 7,200 yards all weekend, while mocking another for pouring millions into a toughening-up that yielded almost identical scoring, we should understand that the main takeaway for the past two tournaments is that Mother Nature remains the greatest determining factor in scoring, no matter how a course is set up.