PGA TOUR Power Rankings: 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship
A big ol’ rooster trophy is on the line for the lucky winner of this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. That, along with 500 FedEx Cup Points and almost $1.2 million, but who’s counting?
There’s some fowl play going on with this week’s PGA Tour event. A full field of 156 are vying for Reveille the Rooster, a bronze trophy representative of the title sponsor Sanderson Farms, a Mississippi-based poultry company.
The Sanderson Farms Championship has existed in some shape or form since 1968. Its most recent iterations have been as an alternate field event since 2011, but it is now a standalone event early in the 2019-2020 season.
The Sanderson Farms Championship has been at the Country Club of Jackson since 2014.
The course opened in 1914 and features 27 holes. The 18 used this week were redesigned by John Fought in 2008. It’s a 7,421-yard parkland style course with small, difficult greens. Par is 72.
It’s yielded winning scores of -16, -18, -20, -19 and -21. That’s with alternate fields, too, so there will be birdies to have.
One spot of resistance is the 479-yard par-4 16th hole. Outside of the majors, it played as the seventh toughest hole on the PGA Tour last season. Only 8% of players made birdie or better and 25% made bogey or worse. It has water all the way down the left side and guarding the front and left of the green with a bunker on the right.
Driving accuracy was 54.5% last year for the field, which is significantly lower than most weeks. The rough isn’t overly penal and bombers can still do their thing, but shorter players can find some advantages, too.
Approaches from 150-200 yards are common.
Stats to watch include strokes gained off the tee, approach from 150-200, and par-5 scoring.
Player fields in the fall tend to be pretty weak, and that’s especially the case with the European Tour’s BMW Championship taking place across the pond with Americans like Tony Finau and Patrick Reed making the trek.
Nonetheless, defending champion Cameron Champ, 2018-19 Rookie of the Year Sungjae Im and past major champions like Zach Johnson and Jason Dufner will be teeing it up in Mississippi this week.
Last week’s runaway winner at A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier, 20-year-old Chilean Joaquin Niemann, will also be on site.
Here’s a look at 10 who could make enough birdies to hoist the bird on Sunday.