Wentworth West: a venue profile before the BMW PGA Championship

Every September the DP World Tour comes home. The BMW PGA Championship, the Tour's flagship event, returns to the West Course at Wentworth from 17 to 20 September, and for the players it is the closest thing the European circuit has to a major week.

The West Course opened in 1926 to a Harry Colt design, the same architect behind Sunningdale and much of the finest heathland golf in England. Eight decades on, Ernie Els, a Wentworth member and multiple winner around the place, was handed the job of bringing it into the modern era. The result is a par 72 stretching 7,284 yards: tree-lined, heathland-fringed, and far more demanding off the tee than its genteel Surrey setting suggests.

What makes it a proper test

• All eighteen greens rebuilt to USGA specification, so they hold firm and run true when the Tour arrives.
• Re-bunkering that stripped out clutter and restored much of Harry Colt's original strategic intent.
• A closing stretch that decides tournaments. The par-5 18th, played over water to a green ringed by grandstands, has produced some of the most dramatic finishes in European golf.

How we read it

Wentworth rewards specific skills, and that is where whole-field statistical analysis earns its keep. Driving accuracy through the tree-lined corridors, strong long-iron and fairway-wood play into the par 5s, and the nerve to attack a reachable 18th all matter more here than raw distance. When we build our DP World Tour research around a venue like this, those are the numbers we weigh.

ProPlace covers every DP World Tour event with whole-field statistical analysis. Start a 7-day free trial, no card needed, and see how the model reads Wentworth once the field is confirmed.

Doug Dinwiddie — Founder of ProPlace. Former DP World Tour caddie.

ProPlace is a statistical research product for golf, covering the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. 18+.