Northern Trust Open Preview and Picks

Course vitals
Yardage:
Par: 71
Designed by: George Thomas (1926). Re-designed by Tom Fazio (2008).
Bunkers: 60.
Water Hazards: None.
Green speeds: 12-feet.
2010 difficulty rank: 20 of 52.
Course record: 61, Ted Tryba (1999).
Defending Champion: Steve Stricker -16

Key Back Nine Holes

315-yard par four 10th -- Aside from the par-three sixth hole with it's bunker in the middle of the green, the 10th is one of the most iconic on the hallowed greens at Riviera. While the idea of having a risk/reward drivable par four may almost be mandatory in today's course design, that wasn't exactly the case in the 20's when Riviera was built. A year ago it played slight under par -- at a stroke average of 3.932 -- and was the 12th hardest hole on the course, which represents a slight increase -- 3.851 and 16th in difficulty -- over the past 28 years. It is truly a tremendous design as the green is certainly reachable, but with it's left to right slope and the fact that it is long as opposed to wide, makes it hard to hold the green. To further emphasize the risk/reward nature, last year there nearly twice as many birdies (109) as there were bogeys (56) but there were seven times as many double bogeys or worse (13 doubles, one triple) as there were eagles (two).

475-yard par four 18th -- While the 10th may provide a scoring opportunity if played correctly, 18 is all about survival. A year ago it played as the hardest hole on the course, yielding just 38 birdies in 410 rounds over the four days. The biggest challenge will be the tee-shot as it's semi blind and the fairway runs away from the player to the right. The entire course is lined with Kikuyu grass, which is a tremendous surface to play on -- if you're in the fairway. It tends to be a bit grabby if you find the rough.

Foursome picks

Matt Kuchar, 20-1. Considering how consistent he has been in the past 14 months -- he's missed just two cuts; finished outside the top-25 only three times in 26 tournaments; and posted 14 top-10s, including in all three tournaments his played in this year -- Kuchar is going to be in the hunt in a lot of tournaments by osmosis. Add to that a decent record at Riviera -- T20 last year and T14 in 2008 -- and he's a strong play this week.

J.B. Holmes, 25-1. Coming off back-to-back top-15 finishes -- T5 in Phoenix and T13 last week at Pebble Beach -- J.B. Holmes is a trendy pick this week. There's a little bit more foundation there though as his three most recent appearances resulted in the following finishes: T3, T6, T7.

K.J. Choi, 50-1. It's a bit of a gut pick, considering Choi hasn't gotten off to the greatest start. Still he's had success here before as evidenced by his results in the last few years: T27, T3, T7, T22, T30, T29, T65, T5.

Andres Romero, 80-1. There's a pretty good case to be made that Andres Romero hit his peak in 2007 when he carded a final round 67 at Turnberry to finish solo 3rd in the Open Championship. He's seen his world ranking steadily decline ever since then, even after winning in New Orleans in '08. Still in the past two years he's posted four top-10s and two of them came at Riviera with a T3 in '09 and a T5 in '10. They represented his best finish on Tour all season.

Longshot: Brendon de Jonge, 110-1. In a strange way, de Jonge is sort of like a poor-man's Matt Kuchar. He's pretty consistent, just not quite as consistent as Kuchar. In his past 36 events on the PGA Tour he's made the cut in 27 of them and finished at least T40 in 22. In his only appearance at Riviera in 2009, he posted a T10.