2022 Sanderson Farms Championship: Top 10 Power Rankings
The Sanderson Farms Championship has gone by plenty of names and has been held at various courses across Mississippi since it debuted on the PGA Tour in 1968.
It’s been at its current home in the state capital at the Country Club of Jackson since 2014.
CCJ has 27 holes on property with holes from the Dogwood and Azalea courses comprising the 18 used for the tournament.
John Fought redesigned these holes for the composite course in 2008. They measure 7,400 yards for a par-72. There is a good variety of medium to long par-4s and par-5s.
Short rough lets bombers thrive at the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Putting surfaces are Bermuda grass. This is a common sight throughout the southeastern U.S.
There is a field of 144 players competing to make the standard 36-hole cut of top 65 and ties.
The Sanderson Farms Championship generally attracts weak fields given its spot on the schedule. A lot of big names are in the midst of their offseason or are decompressing from last week’s Presidents Cup.
Four top-50 players from the Official World Golf Rankings are here, including defending champion and the lone representative from the American Presidents Cup team, Sam Burns. The International team has some representation in the field, but 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship winner Sebastian Munoz was a late withdrawal.
Some will return next week in Las Vegas or later in October at the guaranteed-money events like the CJ Cup or Zozo Championship.
Weather for the week is warm and dry with temperatures in the 60s-80s and winds creeping into the low double digits miles per hour.
Let’s dive into the 10 players with the best chance to win the PGA Tour’s lone event in the Magnolia State.
If you would have told me Sepp Straka would be ranked 36th in the world at this time last year, I would have been perplexed.
Perhaps he’d keep his card and contend in a tournament or two, but it was hard to see his meteoric rise from No. 214 in the world at the end of 2021 to top 40.
Straka won his first PGA Tour event in March at the Honda Classic. He collected four more top-10s, including a solo second at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. That paved the way for the 29-year-old Austrian to make it to the Tour Championship where he finished in seventh place and hauled in a cool $1.75 million in FedEx Cup cash.
Another year like this and Straka will find himself on the European Ryder Cup team. He already got to represent his home country at the 2021 Olympics.
Unfortunately for this week, Straka can’t credit any of his career success to the Sanderson Farms Championship. He’s missed all four cuts at the Country Club of Jackson.
Take that with a grain of salt for the journeyman who only recently unlocked his potential.
The former Georgia Bulldog ranked 39th on the PGA Tour last season in strokes gained putting (.285). Straka also gained strokes off the tee (.023).
After nearly a month to rest up after a long season, I like Straka to pick up where he left off at East Lake by contending in his 2022-23 season debut. That missed cut streak is about to end.