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What started with a Joaquin Niemann victory in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, 11 months ago morphed into a 2019-20 PGA TOUR season unlike any other. Tiger Woods’ record-tying 82nd career victory provided a jolt of electricity in late October, but when the pandemic struck in March it led to a shocking blackout.
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For three months the PGA TOUR went to the sidelines along with every other professional sports league and it was anyone’s guess how, when and whether the 2019-20 season would be completed.
Yet here we are, two months into the TOUR’s return, on the precipice of the 14th edition of the FedExCup Playoffs. We’ve completed 33 tournaments in the abbreviated regular season, and now 125 players have qualified for THE NORTHERN TRUST at TPC Boston, week one of a frenzied three-week run.
When you consider the lineup of courses in this year’s Playoffs – Olympia Fields, 35 miles south of Chicago, will host next week’s BMW Championship, and East Lake GC in Atlanta will again be the stage for the TOUR Championship in two weeks – TPC Boston is a proverbial young ’un.
Having opened in 2002, TPC Boston cannot match East Lake (est. 1904) or Olympia Fields (1915) for rich history. But it doesn’t have to shy away, either, because TPC Boston has hosted 16 tournaments, 12 of them FEC playoffs, and the flavor runs deep.
Here are nine things about THE NORTHERN TRUST and TPC Boston:
1. The defending champ is either Reed or DeChambeau: Patrick Reed shot 67-69 on the weekend to hold off Abraham Ancer (68-69) by one at THE NORTHERN TRUST last August.
Ah, but hold on. That tournament was held at Liberty National in Jersey City, New Jersey.
So does that make the defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, who won the last time a FedExCup Playoffs event was held at TPC Boston, back in 2018? Though he was lighter and not as long off the tee, DeChambeau was plenty explosive to capture the final Dell Technologies Championship.
Seven back through two rounds, he made 13 birdies over the final 36 holes to finish 16 under and beat Justin Rose by two. It was DeChambeau’s fourth career win, and his second straight Playoffs triumph because the week before he had captured – are you ready? – THE NORTHERN TRUST at Ridgewood C.C. in Paramus, New Jersey. (From 2007-2018 there were four playoff tournaments, but these days THE NORTHERN TRUST rotates between Boston and the New York area.)
2. They know how to put together a guest list: When the TOUR added TPC Boston to its schedule in 2003, the powers that be, including Jay Monahan (then the Championship Director, now PGA TOUR Commissioner) had a keen eye for talent. That first year they reached out to a couple of 23-year-olds – Adam Scott and Justin Rose. Scott had played in 33 PGA TOUR tournaments since turning 20 in 2000 but did not have his card here. Rose had played in just 15 PGA TOUR tournaments since 1999.
After the first round (Rose shot 63, Scott 69) they hung around the TPC Boston short-game area for nearly two hours, just playing “chippy-putty.” It was a wild and crazy Friday night. When Scott shot a second-round 62, then added 67-66, he earned his first TOUR win and a cool $900,000. Rose finished solo third and earned $340,000. It was the week they became PGA TOUR members.
Two years later, sponsor invite Olin Browne, who at 46 was more than 25 years removed from days when he used to practice at The Country Club in Brookline and work at New Seabury CC on Cape Cod, came to TPC Boston as the world’s 214th-ranked player. Then he stared down the likes of Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Fred Couples, closing with a 67 to capture the last of his three TOUR wins.
These days the guest list at TPC Boston is merely 125 of the best players in the world.
3. The cream rises: While it’s not a prerequisite to be rated in the upper echelon of the Official World Golf Ranking to get the biggest check here, it has been a common denominator with the 16 tournaments held at TPC Boston. The top-ranked player in the world has won here twice (Tiger Woods, 2006; Rory McIlroy, 2012), while on 11 occasions the winner was ranked inside the top 15.
Only twice (No. 214 Olin Browne in 2005; No. 132 Charley Hoffman in 2010) has a winner at TPC Boston been ranked outside the top 100.
4. Hanse’s team made it great: When John Mineck was putting together a project that would morph into one of the country’s coolest golf courses, Boston Golf Club, he was asked who his designer going to be.
“Gil Hanse,” he said.
“Haven’t heard of him,” a friend replied.
Mineck nodded. “You will,” he said.
Boston Golf Club in Hingham, Massachusetts, was introduced in 2005 to critical acclaim and PGA TOUR officials took note. As Mineck had envisioned, offers came Hanse’s way, among them the request to tweak and improve TPC Boston, which had opened in 2002. Hanse and Jim Wagner took on the assignment, got input from eight-time TOUR winner Brad Faxon, and when the FedExCup Playoffs were introduced in 2007, players were greeted by a more aesthetically pleasing TPC Boston.
Hanse and Wagner worked wonders. They grew fescue, provided a rustic New England look to many of the holes, and added great flavor to the bunkers at the 7,261-yard, par 71. It was transformed into a picturesque course that required a stricter attention to course-management skills.
The field average was slightly over par in the first four years of the tournament, but has been under par in each of the 12 years it has staged a FEC playoff since 2007. An advocate of layouts that provide players with different options but require them to think their way around, Hanse succeeded beautifully.
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Source: PGA tour
