Even for the pros, golf is hard – and here’s the proof

Golf is hard.

Want proof? Just look at the most recent PGA Tour event.

The WGC-Workday Championship, staged at The Concession Club in Florida last weekend, yielded some rather interesting little nuggets.

• European Tour lines up new ‘Florida Swing’

• Knox: I should have been on Ryder Cup team

• Tiger Woods breaks silence after car crash

The fourth round scoring average, for example, was 72.41 – almost half a stroke over-par. That’s the highest for a final round on the PGA Tour season outside the major championships.

On top of that, there were also 29 triple-bogeys  or worse – twenty-nine! – whilst there were as many double-bogeys (773) as bogeys. Only two courses – the Genesis Invitational host venue Riviera and Grand Reserve Country Club, the host of the Puerto Rico Open – have recorded more doubles or worse on tour this season.

That’s to say nothing of the fact that 90% of the field hit at least one shot in the water. That equates to 64 players out of the 71 who teed it up.

No wonder the members of the host course refer to it as ‘Concussion’.

Unsurprisingly, The Concession has gone straight into the top-10 of the toughest courses the PGA Tour has visited so far in the 2020/21 wraparound season.

Here’s how that list currently looks…

Toughest Courses on the PGA TOUR – 2020/21

1. Winged Foot

Event: US Open
Avg +/- to par: +4.010

2. Torrey Pines, South
Event: Farmers Insurance Open
Avg +/- to par: +1.340 

3. Memorial Park
Event: Vivint Houston Open
Avg +/- to par: +1.025 

• What YOU can learn from Collin Morikawa

4. Spyglass Hill
Event: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Avg +/- to par: +0.788 

5. Riviera
Event: Genesis Invitational
Avg +/- to par: +0.371 

6. Port Royal
Event: Bermuda Championship
Avg +/- to par: +0.151 

• Monty heaps praise on ‘exciting’ MacIntyre

7. Augusta National
Event: The Masters
Avg +/- to par: -0.248 

8. The Concession
Event: WGC-Workday Championship
Avg +/- to par: -0.379 

9. Sea Island
Event: RSM Classic
Avg +/- to par: -0.656 

10. Shadow Creek
Event: The CJ Cup
Avg +/- to par: -0.672