Most of the players in Delaware are not familiar with the layout at Wilmington Country Club. Patrick Cantlay says that Maryland’s last year’s event will have some similarities.
Cantlay was the tournament’s defending champion and won the FedEx Cup. He said that Wilmington Country Club is similar to Caves Valley Golf Club because it’s “extremely distant biased” meaning that players must travel long down the fairways even though they are narrower than last year.
“I don’t believe there’s too much strategy to the golf course. Cantlay stated that he believes the course is “pretty right in front of your eyes” and was similar to last year before defending his title. “The venues last year and this are very similar in style of golf.
The par-71 course measures 7,534 yards. It has three front nine par-4s measuring 490-plus yards. While the two back par-5s measure more than 600 yards.
“I think it is really long. It’s also odd to me that so many courses are added to the length of the golf courses. Cantlay said that it’s quite surprising that no one who hits it far goes to Hilton Head, Colonial, or the small dogleggy, tree-lined courses.
“The only way to reduce distance, and the way that architects seem to believe they want to combat it is to take all the trees out and play it 7,600 miles and then put the tees back. All the par-5s will be at 600 yards. It doesn’t make sense to me.
I’m always surprised when I see a course that has been recently repainted and there is no shaping of the golf shots. It is not about how far you can hit it. Grab your driver and hit it as high as possible on each hole. If you hit it 315 yards you have taken out all the bunkers. However, it’s better to be in the rough with a 9 or 8-iron than in fairway with a 5 iron if you lay up to the fat portion of the fairway prior to the bunkers.
“I’m so surprised that they haven’t figured it out, and it just seems like we’re getting more and more of the same bomb-it-as-far-as-you-can golf courses week after week.”
By: Adam Woodard
Title: Patrick Cantlay questions golf course architecture, lengthy PGA Tour setups ahead of title defense at 2022 BMW Championship
Sourced From: golfweek.usatoday.com/2022/08/16/patrick-cantlay-golf-course-architects-pga-tour-setup-bmw-championship/
Published Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2022 20:01:47 +0000
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