Northern Trust Wrap-Up
Dustin Johnson sailed to an easy victory last week at the Northern Trust (his 22nd win on the PGA Tour). DJ was 30 under par for the week, and won with an astounding margin of 11 shots over runner-up, Harris English. The win propelled him to the top of the FedEx Cup standings, 92 points ahead of Justin Thomas and also placed him back atop the Word Golf Rankings, moving past John Rahm. Dustin was showing signs that his game was rounding into form, and after his disappointing finish at the PGA Championship, it was great to see it all come together (particularly in light of the rather prickly remarks that Brooks Koepka aimed at him a few weeks back.) As the FedEx Cup stands now, Johnson, Thomas, and Simpson remain the top three, but Daniel Berger has picked up some ground after a solid 3rd place finish this week.
BMW Championship
This Thursday marks the start of the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields in Illinois—the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. There will be a few conspicuously missing stars this week as the playoff field is reduced to the top 70 in the standings. In addition to Phil, big names who failed to qualify include Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth. With the depth of talent currently on tour, however, there will still be plenty of fireworks with Tiger, DJ, Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau teeing it up against young guns Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler and Victor Hovland. Both Tiger and Rory each commented on the difficulty of playing without the energy of a huge gallery, but perhaps the presence of these young phenoms will give them a little extra juice—we’ll see.
The Course
The BMW Championship is played at multiple venues on a rotating basis, much like the Northern Trust. The north course at Olympia Fields Country Club, about a half hour south of Chicago, will host this year’s event for the first time in its history. Olympia Fields was founded in 1915 and boasts two magnificent eighteen- hole layouts (The North and The South). Each course was originally designed by a legendary architect (Willie Park, Jr designed the North and Tom Bendelow designed the South). Having hosted four major championships, (two PGA’s and two U.S. Open’s), as well as the 2015 U.S. Amateur, the 1997 U.S. Senior Open and the 2017 Women’s PGA Championship, Olympia Fields has a rich history and will provide a wonderful test for the players at this week’s championship. Other venues for the BMW Championship include Cog Hill Golf & Country Club (07, 09, 10, 11), Bellerive Country Club (08), Crooked Stick Golf Club (12, 16, 17), Conway Farms Golf Club (13, 15), Cherry Hills Country Club (14), Aronimink Golf Club (18), and Medinah Country Club (19).
Get the course details at GolfDay.