This post summarizes round 1 of my APBA Golf replay of the 2022 Women’s PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club (Metro D.C.). An earlier post described the replay setup based on conditions for the actual tournament. Round 1 of the replay was conducted using the beta version of Game Caddie 6.1.
Actual Event
In round 1 of the actual tournament, the starting 156-player field’s average score was 75.4 strokes. Of the 71 players who would play all four rounds of the tournament (i.e., qualifiers), their average first round score was 73.1 strokes. Recall that par was set at 72, making the field after round 1 over-par on average.
The lowest score of the day and the tournament was 64 posted by In-gee Chun, 5 strokes better than the next best day 1 competitors, Hye-jin Choi and Pornanong Phatlum (not carded), at 69. The highest score posted for the day and the tournament was 89 by Jennifer Borocz (not carded), who had come off a back injury to compete in this major event.
The top of the actual first-round leaderboard appears below:
The Replay Event
For round 1 of my replay, the pin location was at position 1; the wind was Calm; and course conditions were Soft (-5 FW roll / 0 green roll). This tournament is using Dr. Tom Cline’s hole notes for carry, bounce, and roll (but not alternate tees).
Recall from the setup description described in the earlier post that hole distances were set by subtracting 10 yards for par 3’s, 20 yards for par 4’s and 30 yards for par 5’s. For round 1, the (adjusted) hole distances for pin placement 1 resulted in the 6935-yard layout provided below.
The average score for the 42 replay competitors was 73.5 strokes for round 1. As with the actual field (75.4) and qualifiers (73.1), the average round 1 replay score was over par (72).
For the replay’s round 1, the best scores were posted by Madelene Sagström and Lilia Vu, who both shot a 5-under score of 67. The worst score for the round was a 9-over 81 posted by Inbee Park, who in the actual event, shot a par 72. In-gee Chun, the actual tournament’s winner and first round leader, posted a 1-under par 71 in the replay, ending the day in a 6-way tie for 6th place.
Of the other top 3 finalists in the actual tournament, Minjee Lee came in 1-over par at 73 (T17), and Lexi Thompson shot 8-over par at 80 in round 1. While In-gee Chun and Minjee Lee are still very much in contention, Lexi Thompson would appear to be a longshot at this juncture.
The top of the replay round 1 leaderboard is provided below:
Other round 1 replay highlights include:
- Nelly Korda eagled no. 17 (425-yard par 4).
- Nasa Hataoka, Madelene Sagström, and Céline Boutier eagled no. 11 (465-yard par 5).
- Lizette Salas was the only golfer to hit all 14 fairways (Avg. = 9.5).
- Seven players hit 15 greens in regulation (Avg. = 11.9).
- Madelene Sagström led all players in average driving distance at 262 yards (Avg. = 247 yards).
- Carlota Ciganda and Allisen Corpuz had the longest drives (335 yards).
- Jodi Shadoff sunk the longest putt at 68 feet (on no. 17).
- Andrea Lee had the longest total distance of putts made (164 feet).
- Hye-jin Choi had the fewest putts (23).
- Lizette Salas and Jeong-eun Lee6 tied for most putts (36; Avg. = 30.7).
Editor’s note: Due to an oversight, Atthaya Thitikul’s score and statistics were omitted from the round 1 replay reports. She shot a 74 (+2), putting her in a tie for 21st place.
Real impressive Scott…like it a lot…is this going to be in the total package for 6.?
Thanks, Matt! The upcoming version 6.1 of the Game Caddie will give you the ability to calculate Average Driving Distance for all golfers in a group based on holes you select. In real-life, the LPGA does it differently than the PGA. The LPGA uses all tee shots, except for those on par 3’s. This is the method used for my 2022 Women’s PGA Championship replay. The PGA selects two holes per course based on some fairly complicated criteria. Version 6.1 will let you do it any way you want.