Austin Championship: The Punter's Preview

Austin Championship tournament history

This is the inaugural edition of the Austin Championship, which is the penultimate event on the FedEx Fall Series, so time is running out for those ranked outside the top 100 with the Series finishing next week with the RSM Classic.

The Austin Championship is a brand-new tournament and although it doesn't replace any existing or defunct events, the tournament director has specifically described it as bringing PGA Tour golf back to Austin, three years after the now defunct WGC- Match Play was last staged there.

Venue

Fazio Canyons Golf Course at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa, Austin, Texas.

Course details

Par 72, 7,451

Designed by Tom Fazio and opened as recently as 1999, the Canyons Course is framed by oak and sycamore trees, and it features a creek that meanders throughout the course.

The fairways are described as generous, but trouble awaits any really errant drives as several holes feature dramatic canyon carries or steep drop-offs, with the par three seventh played across a spectacular canyon.

Water is in play on six holes in total, including 17 and 18 and the entire course is laid to Bermuda grass.

Constant changes in elevation are a feature of the course and it should provide an interesting challenge.

Weather forecast

TV coverage         

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 19:00 on Thursday.

Other Tom Fazio designs used on the PGA Tour

There are three Tom Fazio designed courses used with regularity on the PGA Tour - PGA National, which hosts the Cognizant Classic, Quail Hollow, which, in addition to hosting the Wells Fargo Championship each year, hosted the 2017 and 2025 editions of the US PGA Championship, and the Corales Course in the Dominican Republic, which hosts the Corales Puntacana Championship.

Conway Farms has hosted three editions of the BMW Championship (2013, 2015 and 2017), Shadow Creek hosted the CJ Cup in 2020, and Eagle Point Golf Club hosted the Wells Fargo in 2017, while Quail Hollow hosted the US PGA Championship, but that's all fairly old form now.

The Fazio-designed Victoria National Golf Club hosted the Korn Ferry Tour Championship 12 times between 2012 and 2023, and Fazio combined two nine-hole courses - a 1929 Colt and Alison classic and a Joe Lee 1973 creation called the Marchside Nine, to create the Seaside Course back in 1999.

The Seaside Course hosts next week's RSM Classic.

Bubble Boys getting close to the wire

Given the Austin Championship is the fifth of six Fall Series events, time is running out for anyone outside the crucial top 100 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings.

There's also an incentive to finish between 51^st and 60^th at the end of the series as that earns you a spot in to both the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational next year.

They're both Signature Events with juicy purses but with just two events to go, the big focus will be on who can finish the series inside the top 100 to secure their playing privileges for next year.

Year after year we see players outside the cut line perform better than they have for much of the year as the Fall Series draws to a close so in an event at which there's no previous trends to go on, that's arguably one of out best angles in.

Look to last week for clues

Over the last three years, last week's event, the World Wide Technology Championship, has proved to be an excellent pointer for the few remaining FedEx Cup Fall Series events, so with little to go on here, that's a great place to look for clues.

Camilo Villegas won the Bermuda Championship at a big price in 2023, a week after finishing second to Erik Van Rooyen in Mexico, and Sami Valimaki followed his second to Ben Griffin last year with victory at the final event of the season, the RSM Classic.

Nobody placed in Mexico won either of the last two events in 2024 but Justin Lower, who finished second to Austin Eckroat, led the Bermuda Championship at halfway before finishing fifth, Joe Highsmith, who finished fifth in the World Wide Technology Championship, finished 11^th in the RSM Classic on his next start, having sat outside the top 100 after round one, and Nico Echavaria, who had led the World Wide Technology Championship with 18 to play (finished tied sixth), contended strongly at the RSM Classic, trading at a low of 3.1511/5 on the back nine on Sunday, having gone off at 90.089/1.

Bookmark Betting.Betfair for golf betting tips every week