2022 Wyndham Championship Betting Picks Preview

In the final PGA Tour event before the start of the FedExCup Playoffs, Sedgefield Country Club will play host to the Wyndham Championship. Located near Greensboro, North Carolina, Sedgefield has been a regular Tour stop since 2008. It is a Donald Ross-designed classical course with a storied history that was built during golf’s “Golden Age”.

The recently updated and preserved Sedgefield course provides a strategic challenge that is rarely found on Tour. It is a course where finding the contoured fairways carries real worth. While scoring has continued to be low over the years, the narrow, tree-lined fairways along with strategic routing and bunkering, and elevated tricky green complexes ensure that Sedgefield will continue to be a fair test of golf.

Similar to last week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, this shorter course does feature an above-average number of wedges with the goal of getting the ball as close to the hole on approach. Dissimilar to last week, however, bombers off the tee do not have that much of an advantage, and many of them do not even bother to show up for this event.

With many of the world’s best choosing to rest up and prepare for the three-week FedExCup Playoffs on their own, we will see another field of mostly mid- to lower-tier players. Those that are not firmly inside the top 125 will be highly motivated this week. And those who are firmly in next week’s FedEx St. Jude field will be fighting for position.

Will Zalatoris and Billy Horschel are the only top-20 players in the Official World Golf Rankings in the field. Other notable names include Shane Lowry, Corey Conners, Sungjae Im, Tyrrell Hatton, and Russell Henley. With 156 golfers playing this week, the field will be cut to the top 65 and ties after Friday’s round.

Keys to Success

Year after year the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club has been one of the easiest events to both model and predict the type of player that will win. There is a very clear recipe for success on this course and it all starts with driving accuracy. While the rough doesn’t seem penal at only 2.5 inches, the simple fact that it is “Bermuda” is the reason why. Having played from Bermuda rough more times than I care to remember on courses in Texas, it tends to wrap around the ball causes all types of mishits and fliers and is very unpredictable. At Sedgefield the GIR rate from the fairway is the easiest on Tour at an astounding 85%. From the rough or fairway bunkers it drops down to 54%.

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The second clear-cut area for success at Sedgefield is approach shot accuracy from between 100-175. 55% of approaches come from this range making it paramount to select players who are positive with their short irons and wedges. With the greens having so many undulations and ridges, proximity to the hole with those clubs is necessary to have any chance of winning this week.

The final ingredient in our recipe for conquering Sedgefield is Bermuda putting. Those who have played a bunch on Bermuda courses will tell you that Bermuda just putts differently from both Poa annua and Bentgrass. For this week, I am deep diving into the numbers to find which players have shown positive long-term putting on Bermuda surfaces. The results of that search in the form of my SG: Putting sub-model is posted on our Discord.

As mentioned above, this is one of those weeks where course history and course fit really matters. Combine both of those with players who are in good overall form and there is a very clear picture for finding success this week. One other topic to mention on that subject of recent form. There are a number of players who missed the cut last week (Denny McCarthy and Kevin Kisner) and others (Davis Riley) who have had a couple of poor events. Do not let that shy you away from those players who are either ultra-talented or who fit this course perfectly. I personally have bets on all three of those players and expect them to rebound nicely this week.

Greensboro, NC Weather Forecast (August 4th-August 7th)

Top 10 Most Important Stats

*In order of importance.

  • Fairways Gained
  • SG: APP (100-175 yds)
  • SG: Putting (Bermuda)
  • Par 4 Scoring (400-450 yds)
  • Birdie or Better %
  • Course History (Sedgefield CC)
  • Bogeys Avoided
  • 3-putt Avoidance
  • Scoring Chances Gained
  • SG: ARG

The Wyndham Championship Final Model

In each preview article and on Discord, I present my final model, which gives a detailed player ranking of the most important stats and splits for the week. My modeling is built around the PGA’s Strokes Gained data, which is divided into SG: Off the Tee (OTT), SG: Approach (APP), SG: Around the Green (ARG), and SG: Putting (P). Learn more about Strokes Gained and why it can be so useful in analyzing the past and predicting future performance. Many of the individual splits will be posted on my Twitter feed, with the final model exclusively published here for subscribers.

Outright Betting Selections

*Lines accurate at the time of publication.

Sungjae Im +2000 (currently +1600)

Im checks all the boxes this week from course history (two top-10s) to recent form (2nd at the 3M) to course fit, where he is an excellent short iron player and the 14th best Bermuda putter in this field. He has never shot a round over par at this course and typically plays well on classical tree-lined courses with Bermuda grass. He looked very sharp at the 3M gaining 10.7 strokes ball-striking and looks poised to get back into the winners circle this week.

(1u) Caesars

Corey Conners +2800 (currently +2500)

Conners is an elite ball-striker who has gained strokes off the tee in 38 of his last 39 events. He has been a much-improved putter over the past few months and Bermuda greens are his best surface. Having not won in a few years, he is long overdue to break that drought this week on a course that he fits very well.

(0.71u) Caesars

Russell Henley +3000 (currently +2500)

Could this be Henley’s Sedgefield Redemption week? Last year he almost won wire-to-wire but ended up collapsing down the stretch. Like Conners, he is still searching for another PGA Tour victory, and if the scar tissue from past failures is strong, this could be the week. He finished 10th in Detroit last week and was spectacular with his tee-to-green performance. He is one of the streakiest birdie-makers in the field, and Bermuda has long been his favorite putting surface. He is also quite fresh compared to many of his fellow competitors. Last week was his first non-major event in the past 3 months. Sedgefield’s shorter “less than driver” layout is also perfect for him off the tee as he is an elite fairway-finder that lacks distance.

(0.66u) DraftKings

Si Woo Kim +3500 (currently +2800)

Kim’s course history at Sedgefield is nothing short of amazing. With a win and three other top-5 finishes he clearly has an affinity for this course and actually has declared this to be his favorite course on Tour. His incoming form is trending upwards, with a 14th place finish in Detroit last week and a 15th place finish at The Open before that. His only weakness of late has been putting, but Bermuda grass is his preferred surface.

(0.57u) Caesars

Alex Smalley +9000 (currently +8000)

Smalley is a native of the North Carolina area and is a member at Sedgefield Country Club, having played the course well over 100 times over the past couple of years. Usually, that is not a narrative I buy into, but this week is different. The correlation between course history and success is one of the highest on Tour at this course. To take it a step further, Smalley is one of the top-20 Tee to Green players in this field with six top-16s throughout the season and is really coming into his own. He is safely in next week’s playoffs at 67th in the FedExCup standings and is playing without any pressure. He has one main weakness in his game – putting. But here is where the “course history” angle comes into play again. He knows these greens better than anyone. He knows where the best spots are to leave his ball on approach as well as the sloping on the greens. In his only appearance here back in 2019, he gained 4.3 strokes putting. At these odds, he is one of the best outright plays on the board.

(0.22u) BetRivers

Other Outright Selections

  • Denny McCarthy +4000 (currently +3500) (0.50u) – BetRivers
  • Davis Riley +5500 (currently +5000) (0.36u) – BetRivers
  • Jason Day +7000 (0.28u) – BetRivers
  • Harris English +13000 (0.15u) – DraftKings
  • Callum Tarren +13000 (currently +10000) (0.15u) – DraftKings
  • Rory Sabbatini +15000 (0.15u) – DraftKings

Finishing Position Picks

Top 10

Top 20

Top 30

Top 40

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Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images