As far as the actual golf course goes, Muirfield Village is Jack Nicklaus’ magnum opus, and he deserves all the credit in the world for what he was able to accomplish with this event. Muirfield Village is a wildly better golf course than Valhalla and is one of the best tests of professional golf that we will witness all season. There will still be some similarities to Valhalla in the design philosophy, and Nicklaus has a specific ethos to his golf courses that we can generally rely on.

He generally tends to design golf courses that are easy off the tee and very difficult on approach and around the green. He also tends to design courses that favor a fade, as that was his predominant shot shape. Yet Muirfield Village has some differences in the sense that while the fairways are wide, it’s not an easy golf course off the tee because the rough is so thick. Muirfield Village does follow this in the sense that it might be the most challenging approach course on the PGA Tour.

The thick rough lining the fairways and around the green totally define the nature of this golf course. It seems like Nicklaus’ goal was to create Augusta National with thick rough, and he has been steadfast in his belief that thick rough should remain a part of championship golf.

This rough is responsible for one of the highest missed fairway penalties on the PGA Tour and the best golf courses to look at in comparison to Muirfield Village, are the other golf courses that feature extremely high rough penalties such as Oakmont, Los Angeles Country Club, and really the most underrated comparison to Muirfield Village, TPC Sawgrass. Due to the missed fairway penalty, Muirfield Village actually plays far more like TPC Sawgrass these days than Augusta National, especially off the tee.

For the rest of Andy’s preview article, click here.

The KLM Open in the Netherlands returns to The International for the third year in a row, as well as also hosting back in 2019. The International is a short 6,914-yard par 71 with four par 5’s and 5 par 3’s. It is a modern course that is very open and exposed to the strong winds that have been prevalent here.

The land is very undulating with mounds littered throughout the property and between each hole, while the greens tend to be elevated with significant fall offs and slopes. I think the greens are Poa (just an educated guess though, couldn’t confirm) and while the general rough is pretty minimal, there are areas of very thick fescue rough that has caused plenty of lost balls here.

Last years event was impacted by high winds throughout the week and the occasional downpour. It played to a very difficult +1.67 scoring average with a -11 winner and only two players reaching -5. The 2024 event was still windy but nowhere near as severe, with a +0.73 scoring average.

The winner was again at -11, but there was a much more bunched leaderboard with 24 players reaching -5. The 2019 event was played in September rather than June and featured much calmer conditions with a -0.38 scoring average and a -18 winning score. It also played as a par 72 in 2019 before a drivable par 4 was converted into a short par 3 for 2024.

To read the rest of Bexico’s preview, click here.

Last week at the Charles Schwab, I took the reigning US Open Champion in JJ Spaun. For most of the tournament, Spaun was one of the favorites to take home this event. He caught a cold putter and ended up finishing T6, netting me $322,988. It sucks because a T6 in a non-signature event does not move the needle that much.

This week in OAD, I am selecting Ludvig Aberg.

The winner of the Memorial will be taking home 4 million dollars and this is the biggest purse remaining on the season. I have been saving Aberg for this spot all year. He has some of the best form leading into Muirfield Village. Over the last 36 rounds, Aberg is statistically the best approach player in the field. He is one of the best overall drivers of the golf ball in the world too.

He has finished inside the top 25 in NINE consecutive starts. Of those nine tournaments, he has finished inside the top 7 in SIX of them. His current form is hard to ignore and a win is coming soon for Aberg.

If you are looking to get different, I was thinking about taking a shot on Tommy Fleetwood, coming off a missed cut at the PGA Championship. I also thought about Patrick Cantlay due to his course history and he is hitting his irons very well in recent weeks. I think Cantlay could get steamed this week and would rather just take Aberg, even though he is going to be chalky.

I am currently just outside the money in the Rick Run Good OAD pool and 2nd place behind Andy in our staff pool. It’s time to hit a winner and one of the biggest tournaments of the year.

2026 OAD Total: $10.4 milllion

It still surprises me that the college golf championships aren’t more popular as they are right now.

There’s two components of the golf NCAA championships. There’s the individual tournament and the team format, which are both intertwined. For the individual tournament, there’s a cut after the first three rounds. The cut finalizes the top 15 colleges that will make it to the team competition. In the fourth round, whatever player has the lowest score wins the individual championship. 

After we crown an individual champion, who was Preston Stout of Oklahoma State this year, then the team competition starts, which is a bracket style match play event. 

This year, the team competition has been headlined by Oklahoma State and Auburn, who have one of the best amateurs in the world and future PGA Tour star Jackson Koivun. Auburn actually took down Oklahoma State yesterday and will be playing UCLA in the championship. 

When my brother and I were watching some of the team competition yesterday, all I could think about is why isn’t this more popular and marketed efficiently?

Many golf fans have been demanding that the PGA Tour brings back match play. Fans love to watch the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup because of the team format, the strategy with pairings, and its match play. There’s a lot of similarities to these tournaments as the team competition to crown a NCAA Golf Champion. 

The college talent is growing and growing every year. With the PGA Tour University program, it's easier for these young studs to make it on the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour right after college. 

The bracket style match play format is so cool and fun to watch. It would be great for the NCAA to try and strategically have the championship over a weekend and not during the week. The style is very popular and I believe the team championship deserves more love in the golf space. 

College Golf won’t ever get to the grand stage that men’s football and basketball is on, but one week out of the year, these players deserve the spotlight.

Why Golf Needs To Bring Back Pitch & Putt Courses

Since moving to New York City back in the summer of 2022, my Instagram and TikTok algorithms have turned into mostly New York golf content. I see all of the short form videos about all the courses you can play in a two hour commute radius of the city. My roommate and I have taken many of those trips and are starting to compile a list of courses we want to play that are somewhat accessible. 

One of the courses on my list isn’t an ordinary one, but rather the type of courses that we need to bring back to grow the game, in my opinion. 

I have been wanting to play the Flushing Meadows Pitch & Putt course for a while now. It’s roughly a 45 minute commute from Manhattan, and it’s a very easy subway ride as the 7 lets you right off Citi Field/US Open Complex before a short walk to the course. 

I decided to ask some of my friends to make the trek for my birthday last month. I thought this was a great thing to do with them to fulfill my wish to play golf on my birthday with my closest friends and also the opportunity to teach them the game I so dearly love. 

The experience at Flushing Meadows was amazing. The course was in pretty good shape for not having much rain in the northeast this spring. All the holes were mostly 50-60 yards away, with only two holes being 80 yards or more. The holes were obviously very generic but having the distances not being long (i guess hence the name of a pitch and putt) made it possible for my non-golf playing friends to reach the greens. 

We had a group of 8 of us so we did a 2 man scramble and made pairings based on skillset and experience. Every 6 holes, the scramble pairs switched groups so everyone could play with each other. We had some Modelo’s while playing and had brought a speaker to bring some fun vibes. 

It was a great friendly competition and did indeed get very competitive at the end. With the banter after the round, I believe my friends have found the golf bug and hopefully will want to play head back to the pitch and putt this summer. 

This leads me to my next point about pitch and putts and par 3 courses. I haven’t been to a pitch and putt in 10+ years, but I believe the golf business industry needs to reinvest in this type of golf. As a kid, my dad grew up getting dropped off at the pitch and putt and would hack around with his friends. Another friend of mine told me she used to go to her local par 3 course all the time growing up. 

There’s always a lot of chatter about growing the game. I believe pitch and putts, par 3 courses, and short courses achieve that goal to introduce more people into golf. It's pretty daunting for people who want to get into golf to pay $80+ to play a public course that the round lasts 5+ hours while not wanting to be the person to hold the entire group up. 

Pitch and putts are the perfect casual atmosphere for beginners to swing the club. There’s no pressure to perform at a high standard. Just bring good vibes, have fun, and maybe sink a long putt or two.

We had an incredible content week at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Twitterless Steve had another great tournament of round scores. He went 20-5 on round score unders on Thursday.

On our Wednesday Night Premium show, aka Ball Knowers After Dark, Andy had a very strong stance on why he cored Russell Henley and faded a very popular Rickie Fowler. Additionally, Andy’s DFS pool killed it as 19 of his 20 players made the cut. Finally, Eric Cole who finished runner-up to Russell Henley was our number 1 value play at $7,200.