Course Profiles / Colonial Country Club
Course Profile

Colonial Country Club:
what wins here.

Charles Schwab Challenge · 8 editions, 2019–2026 · 3,206 rounds analyzed

Course-fit weights
OTT 24% · less decisive
APP 26% · rewarded
ARG 26% · rewarded
PUTT 24% · less decisive
Derived by regressing finishing position on strokes gained at this course, measured against the tour-wide baseline, then tested on seasons the model had never seen. Based on 492 player-events.

How it plays

Not what the scorecard says — what this course does to the same players, measured against everywhere else they play. Built from 3,206 rounds across 8 editions, and ranked against every course in the archive.

MeasureVersus elsewhereWhich meansAcross the archive
Driving distance −4.8 yds shorter off the tee here 18th shortest of 89
Fairways hit −4.2 pp harder to find 17th hardest to find of 89
Greens in regulation −4.8 pp harder to hit 12th hardest to hit of 88
Scrambling +2.8 pp easier to save par 11th easiest to save from of 81

Scoring. These players average 0.35 shots more per round here than they do elsewhere.

Plays most like. Bay Hill Club & Lodge, Oakdale Golf &, TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course) — the closest courses in the archive on those four measures together.

A record of what happened, not a forecast. Estimates are shrunk toward the tour mean by how much evidence each course has, and every baseline leaves the course itself out, so a venue cannot define the average it is measured against. Split-half reliability 0.888. Weather is not controlled for.

What it has taken

The numbers the week has actually demanded, edition by edition, counted from the scores rather than from anyone’s summary of them. The cut line is the worst halfway score that still saw a Saturday.

-12
typical winning score
Range -15 to -8 across 8 editions.
-5
to reach the top ten
The tenth-place score, median of 8 editions.
+1
to see the weekend
Where the cut fell, median of 8 editions.
YearFieldCutTop 10Won with
2026 131 -2 -9 -12
2025 134 0 -7 -12
2024 129 +2 -4 -14
2023 120 +1 -4 -8
2022 119 +1 -5 -9
2021 119 +1 -6 -14
2020 148 -2 -11 -15
2019 118 +2 -5 -13

The week, round by round

Scoring average for each round of the tournament, drawn against this course’s own four-round average. Round 2 has played 2.55 of a shot easier than round 4, the widest gap in the week.

hardereasier
ROUND 1
-1.13 avg
ROUND 2
-1.46 avg
ROUND 3
+0.22 avg
ROUND 4
+1.09 avg
Longer to the right is easier scoring than a typical round here; longer to the left is harder. Built from 2,320 rounds — every player who completed an edition at this course, counted in all 4 of his rounds. Only finishers are in it, because Thursday is played by the whole field and Sunday by the half of it that survived the cut: compare those as they fall and every course on tour looks like it eases off for the weekend. Weather is not controlled for, so a single storm-hit afternoon is in these numbers along with everything else.

Who has played above themselves here

Strokes gained per round at this course against the same player’s own average everywhere else. Being a good player is not enough to appear on this list — the comparison is with himself, so what is left is the part that belongs to the course.

PlayerRounds hereHereElsewhereGap
Kevin Na 14 +2.09 +0.37 +0.63
Davis Riley 16 +1.17 -0.28 +0.58
Jordan Spieth 26 +1.57 +0.57 +0.52
Mac Meissner 12 +1.97 +0.43 +0.51
Gary Woodland 22 +1.40 +0.35 +0.51
Pierceson Coody 14 +1.24 +0.10 +0.42
The gap is pulled toward zero by how few rounds sit behind it, so a player seen four times here does not outrank one seen twenty. Read it as a record, not a projection: players who keep coming back to a course are partly the ones it has already suited, and that selection is inside these numbers.

What the data says

Across 8 editions (2019–2026), approach play is the category that most separates players who contend here from those who do not — 26% of the model's weighting, against 24% for putting.

The spread is narrow, which is itself the finding: this course does not strongly favour one kind of player. Weights this close to even mean the field sorts mostly on overall quality, and any course-fit edge here is small.

The winners tell a partly separate story: in 3 of the last 7, the champion's best category for the week was approach play. That matches what the model weights, which is the cleaner case: the same skill that separates the field also tends to decide the tournament.

How the winners won

Strokes gained per round for every champion here since 2019. The highlighted figure is that winner's best category for the week. A dash means the category split is not published for that event — only the total is.

YearWinnerTo ParOTTAPPARGPUTTTotal
2026Russell Henley-12+0.77+2.07-0.37+0.54+3.00
2025Ben Griffin-12+0.56+0.54+0.60+1.62+3.33
2024Davis Riley-14+0.92+1.96-0.02+1.48+4.33
2023Emiliano Grillo-8-0.05+1.17-0.12+1.86+2.86
2022Sam Burns-9+0.71+0.97+0.18+1.26+3.12
2021Jason Kokrak-14+1.54+1.30-0.50+1.38+3.72
2020Daniel Berger-15+0.28+1.36+0.25+1.29+3.19
Method. Weights come from regressing top-20 finishes on players' strokes gained in each category, using only rounds played before each event, and comparing each course against the tour-wide baseline — so a weight measures what this course rewards more than golf generally does, not simply which skills help. Weights are kept only where they predicted results out of sample; where they did not, we say so. We tested our previous method, found it did not predict, and published that too: how the model works.

The field, ranked before they play.

Every tournament week we score the field on course fit and player quality. Lab Notes lands every Tuesday with what the numbers say, free.

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