Got lost in the tour notes on this one, so I figured I’d pull a few and just drop them in here

anyways, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen this place, here’s an overview from Ron’s preview article.

Castle Pines Golf Club

Featuring manicured parkland-style golf in a rugged mountain setting with awe-inspiring panoramas, Castle Pines Golf Club is a sight to behold. Incorporated into the course environment are ponds, streams, wildlife, and flower beds seemingly everywhere you turn. The club annually plants between 80,000-100,000 flowers. A herd of 250 elk co-exist around the golf course. Other wildlife on the property include deer, bobcats, mountain lions, bears, bald eagles, hawks, and hummingbirds.

While Castle Pines will set a PGA Tour record for length measuring 8,130 yards, the ball travels around 10% further at the course which is 6,300 feet above sea level. Expect ShotLink to pick up some flattering superpower-type distances off the tee this week. In the past, the course has typically played at just over 7,600 yards but the club added 600 yards to lengthen the championship tees. Removing the distance gains from the altitude, Castle Pines will play to around 7,400 yards which is in the average range compared to other par 72 courses on Tour.

How difficult the course will actually play is up for debate. This brings us back to the player with the most experience here, Wyndham Clark, who remarked, “This is probably the most challenging course in Colorado because you first have the altitude, and then you have a lot of elevation change, which can be a challenge. It’s very tough off the tee, and then around the greens you have to be very precise. At altitude where we normally don’t play, that’s going to be difficult,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of us Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, spending a lot of time on the range with Trackmans and all the measuring devices on distance, trying to figure out how far the ball is going.” Both players and caddies will be plenty busy between shots calculating actual shot distances which will add an extra layer of strategy to the week.

Jack Nicklaus disturbed very little earth to create his course here at Castle Pines. It was designed with great care to follow the land’s natural contour and complement its densely wooded areas and rolling hills. The course has 400 feet of elevation change from start to finish. 13 of the 14 par 4 and par 5 holes wind their way through avenues of Ponderosa pines and oak trees. A couple of holes are more expansive and it’s from these holes that you appreciate the scale and delight of the surrounding rugged terrain.

Each set of nine holes starts on the highest areas of the property before working down to the bottom and back to the top to finish out. With a full complement of four par 5s along with all the water hazards, there are plenty of risk/reward opportunities throughout the course.

Fairways vary in width with some expansive and others bottlenecking near the landing zones between 300-325 yards. Judging proper distance and lines off the tee will be crucial considering the numerous uphill and downhill tee shots, water hazards, deep fairways bunkers, and crowned fairways that camber to one side or the other. Early reports have the rough at 4+ inches and growing. The rough is a blend of Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, and perennial ryegrass.

Ten different holes present water danger as numerous ponds and babbling brooks are strategically placed to gobble up errant shots. Deep grassy barrancas also come into play on a few holes, mostly as penal runoff areas to collect errant approaches into these elevated greens.

As for the greens, they are heavily guarded by either bunkers or ponds. They don’t have many steep undulations but are multi-tiered with many sloping from back to front. Agronomically, the greens are 70% bentgrass and 30% poa annua and are set to run at a speedy 13 on the stimpmeter.

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Weather

Storm chances every damn day here, but once you dig in, most of it appears to be scattered showers here and there in the afternoon. The weekend should see higher winds. Still, it’s a 50-man field: tee times are close together enough that I’m not really looking to find an advantage in the weather this week.

Betting

I’ve been out a bit this week and am still trying to catch up, but as always, Ryan Noonan did a bang-up job on the betting show yesterday. I usually try to keep the models we build to just a handful of stats. He took advantage of my absence and went nuts with a big old “Ball Striking” build (you can see the whole thing on site).

You can check out his process on this via the YouTube link here or in podcast form (wherever you find your podcasts).

For me, just one look this week in Collin Morikawa. His ball-striking wasn’t even good last week and he still almost top 20’d. I’ll take his accuracy off the tee combined with pristine iron play at a course like this at 18/1.

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News and Notes

We still have the Tour Championship as well as one swing season event to get through, but we are dangerously close to Presidents Cup time.

• September 24 to 29, 2024

• Royal Montreal (host of the 2007 Prez Cup as well as the 2014 Canadian Open)

• In case you forgot, it’s pretty much the Ryder Cup, except it’s the U.S. vs “all the countries that AREN’T in Europe.”

Congrats are in order, although I’m not sure this was really in doubt over the summers. Last year's winner, Gordon Sargent, finished second in the standings for this.

I love a good dumb golf graphic. Hadn’t really thought about how good Bobby Mac has been getting, but here we are.

Good Phil story from Castle Pines from Mike:

As always, bet responsibly, have fun, and hopefully, someone let you know that this week is at elevation.

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