Turning Stone Championship preview: Forward to the past

Back to earth with a bang this week as we return to what the PGA season is like when there’s no FedEx Cup competition around. Only one player ranked in the top 30 and that’s the under-achieving Henrik Stenson. So all you FedEx naysayers would be happy with this week-in and week-out would you? That’s clearly not the case with the legion of honest punters who are staying away in droves - the Betfair winner market is struggling to get into six figures and failing.

For the doughty few that remain there’s problems aplenty. This is a newish course to the PGA so there’s precious little course history. Large undulating greens and generous fairways is the best guide from last year’s BC Open. But word is the course has been toughened up since, I assume by allowing the rough to grow. So maybe the big hitters won’t have quite the advantage they appeared to last year.

Also clouding the picture is the fact that for many it comes after a long layoff enforced by the FedEx Cup, so they may be a bit rusty. Conversely, those that did compete may be feeling a little over-golfed.

Then there’s the jostling to finish inside the 125th place marker on the money list to qualify for next year (plus a minor tussle to stay in the top 30 to qualify for the Masters and other key competitions next year).

So you really need a grade A crystal ball to find a winner among this lot. There’s even disagreement about who makes the best favourite between Carl Pettersson and Robert Allenby. For what it’s worth the exchange prices put Allenby slightly ahead, which strikes me as right. He mostly had a good FedEx Cup and finished 11th last week. Pettersson though does have the advantage of a rest last week after finishing 10th in the more difficult BMW Championship the week before. He has recently been showing flashes of his old self, but is still unconvincing.

The only other name that really intrigues me is Shigeki Maruyama, third here in the BC Open last year. He was an early casualty of the FedEx Cup but had placed 7th in the Wyndham Championship the week before and his stats suggest he is at last finding some of his old game. He needs to because he’s sitting 15 places outside the membership qualifying zone and needs at least $143,000 to make it, a powerful incentive.

Stuart Appleby’s stats cry ‘no’ from a great height, and it’s difficult to know where Sean O’Hair is heading these days. It seems an aeon since he nearly took The Players by storm. There’s some support for Nathan Green, who got steadily better during the FedEx Cup, but his stats are pretty neutral.

That’s the problem, there’s more negatives than positives about most of this crew. You might like to consult the little table I’ve compiled to show where this week’s players fall in the money table. Most of those out in the cold below the 125 line face a Herculean task to earn enough in the next seven weeks to get through. But the stats suggest Eric Axley, Ryan Palmer and Cameron Beckman are among those capable of doing so.