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BMW Championship: Scoring at a premium to open the first round

By Christopher O'Day

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 08: Hideki Matsuyama of Japan looks on from the 15th tee during the third round of the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park on August 08, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 08: Hideki Matsuyama of Japan looks on from the 15th tee during the third round of the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park on August 08, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) /
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The BMW Championship saw scoring at a premium during the entirety of Thursday’s opening round.

If you tuned into the BMW Championship expecting to see some low scores similar to what happened at the Northern Trust, you were likely sorely disappointed.

Where we saw a historic round, a run at the greatest round of all-time by Dustin Johnson, and one of the most dominating and low-scoring rounds of all-time… we have the opposite at the BMW Championship.

In fact, we only have three players that are under par through the first round. The leader, Hideki Matsuyama, shot a 31 on his back nine to get to -3 for the day.

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Along with Matsuyama, there are two other players under par, and ten sitting at even at the BMW Championship.

It shows you exactly how great of a challenge this course is. We have the top 70 players in the FedEx Standings here and only three shot under par. The course was a tail-kicker, and it was a joy to see.

Take a look at the average score for the round. +2.824. So the average score on the par 70 course was nearly 73. Maybe Tiger Woods round isn’t that bad after all.

Another sign of how difficult the course played is to take a look at the blowup holes by players. We are talking about professional golfers, so you wouldn’t expect to see more than a handful of terrible holes. Instead, there were 33 double bogeys, and three “others”, which amount to a triple or worse. Not that it works out this way, but that averages out to every other player in the field having a blowup hole. Again, not what you would expect.

A bright side of a tournament being so difficult to score at is how close together so many of the players are grouped. Ignoring the three players under par, there are 47 players between even and +4.

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As we get into Friday’s round, look for scoring to be difficult again. It doesn’t sound like the course conditions are going to change much, so keep an eye on nearly everyone in the field. A 66 could launch someone from 40th to 4th in a heartbeat.

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