2022 Sanderson Farms Championship – Country Club of Jackson – Course Preview

After a dominating American team performance at the Presidents Cup, the PGA Tour returns to stroke play competition for the second event of the fall’s “Swing Season” in Jackson, Mississippi for the Sanderson Farms Championship.

Played at the Country Club of Jackson for the ninth consecutive year, it is a relatively long and straightforward tree-lined parkland course. Golfers who have added length off the tee and can get hot with the putter on the fast Bermuda greens will have a definite advantage. With minimal hazards and non-penal rough, scores have averaged 19-under par over the last five events.

As is typical for fall events in the Swing season, the field for the Sanderson Farms is quite weak. It is headlined by the defending champion and 12th-ranked player in the world, Sam Burns. He is one of the three participants making the trip from the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow to the Country Club of Jackson. 2019 Sanderson Farms champion, Sebastian Munoz and Christiaan Bezuidenhout are the others.

After Burns, there is a steep drop in class as there is not another player inside the top 35 in the world rankings. There is a decent-sized middle tier with the likes of Seamus Power, Harris English, Keegan Bradley, Sahith Theegala, J.T. Poston ,and Russell Henley teeing it up this week. With the exception of 2020 winner Sergio Garcia, every other past winner will also be playing this week. There are three golfers in the field that natives of Mississippi including Davis Riley, Chad Ramey, and Hayden Buckley. Once again, the field will be full of Korn Ferry graduates looking to make an impression and show off their talent.

Course History

Founded in 1914, the original Country Club of Jackson was a Tom Bendelow-designed course built on 100 acres five miles west of the city’s center. In the late 1950s, the club purchased a 400-acre property northeast of Jackson with famed architect Dick Wilson contracted to design the course which opened in 1962.

While the Sanderson Farms Championship event has had different names over the years, it has been played in Mississippi and has been on the PGA Tour schedule since 1968. As for the course itself, it was a renovation by John Fought in 2008 that prompted its inclusion as a host for a PGA Tour event. The members of the course wanted the layout to incorporate more of a “Golden Age” feel and thus Fought redesigned the course with Donald Ross-type characteristics in mind. The course incorporated a classical parkland style out-to-in routing. The par-3s are well-thought and challenging in nature. The biggest change was to the green complexes, many of which are elevated and slope from back to front as is very similar to other Ross designs.

The Course

Located in a rural setting in the Deep South, the Country Club of Jackson is a long par-72 course that plays just under 7,500 yards. The course meanders through 400 acres of lowland property with very few elevation changes. It features narrow fairways, non-penal 2″ rough and speedy Bermuda greens. There isn’t much danger on the course in the form of water hazards and bunkers. With water danger on only five holes and the ninth fewest bunkers on Tour courses, it ranks as the 17th easiest course at -1.01 strokes under par per round.

Looking at agronomy for the week, golfers will see bermudagrass fairways and greens. The Bermuda/zoysia rough mixture sits at just two inches and has not proven to be that penal to hit from compared to other courses with pure Bermuda rough. The greens are Tour average at 6,200 square feet and run quite speedy at upwards of 12.5 on the stimp. Golfers from the South who have grown up playing on Bermuda grass have an advantage here in Jackson. In interviews, players tend to bring up their comfort on Bermuda greens. And that has played out in this event as each of the past four winners have ties to the Texas/Louisiana area.

The Sanderson Farms Championship layout is a composite course that combines the nine holes from the Dogwood course with the nine from the Azalea. Every year since 2015, scoring has been between 18-under and 22-under. Overall, it is a bland course without much strategic value and an almost complete lack of risk/reward holes.