Fifty golfers have made the 284-mile trek from Memphis to St. Louis to compete in this week’s BMW Championship.

The host course, Bellerive Country Club, was designed by Robert Trent Jones and is known to be a bit of a brute.

As a result, it even has its own nickname: The Green Monster of Ladue.

Bellerive has hosted three major championships—the 1965 U.S. Open, where Gary Player completed the career Grand Slam; the 1992 PGA Championship, won by Nick Price; and the 2018 PGA Championship.

2018 was the last time golf fans saw this course, and it was a doozy.

If you recall, that PGA Championship was won by some guy named Brooks Koepka, while some other guy named Tiger Woods tried to chase him down with a 64 on Sunday.

Koepka answered with a 66 and took home the hardware.

Neither of them is in the field this week, eight years later, but man, Tiger’s highlights from that final round are still fun to watch.

 


Brooks won with a score of 16-under that year.

This week, the books are projecting the winning score to land around 262, which would be 18-under since Bellerive will play as a par 70 for these guys—and a par 72 for the rest of us.

Moving from the past to the present, the top 30 in the FedExCup standings after this week will advance to the TOUR Championship at East Lake.

Read: The Minimum Finish Required for Each Player to Earn a Spot in the TOUR Championship

 

Key Stats for the BMW Championship

Based on 2018 PGA Championship data*

  • Prioritize bombers. Bellerive strongly favored longer hitters in 2018, making driving distance and power a much more important filter than accuracy off the tee.
  • Approach play was the biggest separator. Strokes Gained: Approach accounted for 41.7% of scoring variance, well above the TOUR average of 34.9%. Look for players combining length with elite iron play.
  • Don’t over-weight putting or short game. Putting and around-the-green play accounted for less scoring variance than normal. With a 1.05 skill slope, better players also held a modest advantage—pointing toward big-name, high-end ball strikers rather than short-game specialists or pure longshots.

 

The Details

Previous Winners

How to Watch

Featured Groups

ESPN+ has featured-group coverage of the BMW Championship.

→ View all featured groups and tee times here

Weekly Bets: BMW Championship

We’ve partnered with Keith Stewart at Read The Line to share his weekly golf betting picks with the Caddyshanks crew.

If you’re the type who enjoys breaking down matchups, spotting trends, and hunting for value, you’ll feel right at home in the RTL community.

Use code CADDYSHANKS2026 for 20% off.

Keith Stewart’s Picks

Viktor Hovland (+3000, FanDuel)

If anyone can compete with Scottie Scheffler on approach, it is Viktor Hovland.

A proven winner at the BMW Championship in 2023 on a course that draws strong comparisons to Olympia Fields, I’m backing an aggressive player who fell out of contention in Memphis because the driver went awry.

Bellerive gives him a little more room off the tee, and I love the bounce-back potential for the 2023 FedExCup champion.

Hovland ranks fifth in the field on approach over the last few events and fourth in Birdies or Better Percentage.

Firepower, elite iron play, and the overall trend—I’m all in.

Wyndham Clark (+3300, DraftKings)

There’s a ton of talk surrounding Jake Knapp this week.

I’ll take the shorter odds and, in my opinion, a better chance at winning with Wyndham Clark.

Why?

Very few players have beaten the world No. 1 head-to-head this year, and Clark did it at the CJ Cup.

I also like TPC Craig Ranch as a comparison course—albeit with less scoring at Bellerive—and Clark’s approach play this season separates him from many of the other driver-and-putter-heavy players.

Coming off a fifth-place finish at the St. Jude, if scoring and power are what we need this week, Wyndham can win.

Caddyshanks Picks

Hideki Matsuyama (+3000, DraftKings)

I have a friend who reads this newsletter every week just for the picks, and he constantly makes fun of me for how often I pick Hideki.

I don’t care one bit.

He has four top-10 finishes in his last four starts.

That is the definition of knocking on the door.

Si Woo Kim (+2700, DraftKings)

Si Woo has played so well all season but hasn’t been able to cash in.

Besides Scottie, Si Woo has the most top-10 finishes this season.

Can he—or Hideki—finally get one across the finish line?

Scottie Scheffler (+350, DraftKings)

Wouldn’t you know it?

Last week was the first week I didn’t write about the “Bet Scottie Every Week” strategy—which has not exactly been a profitable endeavor—and then he goes out and wins.

He’ll probably go back-to-back now.