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Tournament Preview: The 2012 AT&T National

Published

12 years ago

June 26, 2012

This year’s AT&T National Tournament will be held at the Blue Course at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, MD. This track was the site of three U.S. Opens, including Rory McIlroy’s impressive victory in 2011. The Blue Course held the tournament in 2009 and since then it has been lengthened by over 300 yards.

The lengthy course measures 7,569 yards with the 6^th hole now listed as a Par 5, bumping par to a 71. The grass on the greens was replaced with bentgrass about three years ago. It’s a longer track then last week’s Travelers Championship at TPB River Highlands and will be a challenge to a field of notable names.

The forecast this week calls for dry and hot weather – which may result in some challenging shots and concrete-hard greens. There is potential for a little wind, but nothing much to relieve the heat. If these guys could wear shorts this week, they definitely would.

As for the field, it is robust. Jim Furyk, who shared the 36 and 54-hole leads at Olympic two weeks ago, has three top 10s in this event. Keep an eye out for Furyk this week as he has seven top 15s in his last nine starts.

Tiger is back in the mix this week with two wins under his belt this year and a comfortable 4^th place seating on the current FedEx Cup Standings. He ranks second on TOUR in greens hit. We predict Tiger to play a huge role this week – watch out for a top 10 at least. Woods may be trying to outplay Hunter Mahan to earn some ground on the FedEx Cup Standings.

Other notables like Hunter Mahan (who hit a career 61 last week in CT) and Dustin Johnson return to the course this week to continue grabbing PGA TOUR wins in 2012. As always, watch for players like Nick Watney, K.J Choi, and Ryan Palmer to be in the mix as well. A good sleeper pick this week would be Cameron Tringale, who had 24 birdies overall last week in the Travelers with a bogey-free 64 in his final round.