It’s On To Crooked Stick

Now that the Ryder Cup business has been taken care of, we can get back to the FedEx Cup and golf’s playoff. The top 70 players will now move on to the BMW Championship, which will tee up on Thursday morning at The Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel Indiana. With his win at The Deutche Bank on Monday, Rory McIlroy comes to the BMW Championship with the FedEx Cup points lead. He is also  the PGA’s leading money winner, and is of course, Number one in the World Golf Rankings.

Crooked Stick Golf Club is a Pete and Alice Dye golf course located in Hamilton County Indiana , near Carmel. It’s 7516 yard layout plays to a par of 72, and has a course rating of 76.9. This Private Club was established in 1964, and played host to the 1991 PGA Championship which was won by John Daly. It hosted the 1993 US Women’s Open won by Lauri Merten, The 2005 Solheim Cup won by Team USA, and the 2009 US Senior Open won by Fred Funk. Crooked Stick is listed in Golf Digest and Golf Week Magazines as a top 100 Golf Course.

Members at Crooked Stick include Payton Manning, John Irsay and other players from the Indianapolis Colts football team. The golf course has a trees, water hazards and some very fast Bentgrass Greens. This will be a challenge that all players will face as the BMW Championship pares the field to only 30 players that will advance to the Tour Championship next week in Atlanta.

Crooked Stick has a generous amount of Dog Leg left holes which will favor players who work the ball right to left such as Zach Johnson. I don’t think Zach can play a fade if he tried. It will not favor the likes of Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson(Phil likes to hit a draw, but he’s left handed).

The 456 yard par 4 Eighth is the number one handicap hole, and is a Dog Leg left with a pond that follows the entire left side of the fairway, which continues around the the back of the green. The monster on the back nine is the 483 yard par 4 14th hole. Like the eighth hole. it is also a dog leg left with water running down the entire left side of the fairway.

After one navigates their way around all of the obstacles to get to the green on this beautiful golf course, the real trouble begins on some of the fastest greens on tour. This is where the the Big Boy Golf is located. This is what will determine who will move on to Atlanta.

With $8 Million Dollars on the line and only 30 spots advancing, this should be an interesting weekend of golf. There will be no more posing for the Ryder Cup, and players at the bottom of the list will have to take some chances if they want to post a score that will get them to Atlanta next week. Justin Rose who won at Cog Hill last year, is your defending champion.

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