Wyndham Championship Predictions: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

There are bad beats and then there’s what happened at the Wyndham Championship four years ago.

Prior to that one, I’d listed Russell Henley for a top-five in my weekly preview. Things were going swimmingly as he held the 54-hole lead entering Sunday’s final round.

He still held a share of the lead on the 18th hole, but missed a short par attempt to lose by a stroke.

No problem, right? I mean, I only needed him for a top-five that week.

No… problem.

Henley’s miss left him outside the six-man playoff and meant he wouldn’t cash those top-five tickets.

It was the first time since Emanuel Canonica at the 2001 Nissan Open — when Robert Allenby won a six-man playoff that included my pals Dennis Paulson and Brandel Chamblee — that a player on the PGA Tour lost by one and didn’t claim a top-five.

Not that I’m still bitter or anything.

This week’s festivities at Sedgefield CC in Greensboro, N.C., represent a last-chance saloon for those currently outside the top-70 hoping to qualify for the upcoming FedEx Cup playoffs. As I’ve outlined elsewhere, motivation seems like a sound narrative at the final regular season event, but it often hasn’t come to fruition, with the players outside that magic number usually showing there’s a reason why they started at such a position.

The real motivation might be coming from the oddsmakers to the public, as we’re being treated to a board which shows Matt Fitzpatrick as the opening favorite at 22/1, which is as big a price as I can recall in recent memory for the player with the shortest odds.

Of course, there are plenty of others close behind, with nearly two dozen players at the 7,127-yard, par-70 at 50/1 or shorter, all of which hints that the final regular season event is as wide-open – at least from a prognostication standpoint – as any on the PGA Tour this season.

Let’s get to the selections, starting with a player who’s waited long enough for that first victory.

Wyndham Championship Outright Winner Picks

Conservative: Denny McCarthy (+5500)

Anytime the PGA Tour travels to a shorter course with a focus on precision where it’ll take upward of 20 birdies to contend, McCarthy should be an intriguing possibility. A quick glance at his recent results doesn’t suggest he’s trending in the right direction, however it should be noted that MCs in his two latest starts both came overseas, where he doesn’t own a great track record and his advantage on speedy greens is massively negated. Prior to that, he was T-11 at the John Deere Classic and T-12 at the Travelers Championship.

While his putter remains the most dangerous weapon in the bag, McCarthy has gained with his irons in six of his last seven and ranks 65th this season, a number which is just fine when you roll in as many birdie attempts as he does. And while his record in Greensboro is admittedly spotty in recent years, three career top-25s here is enough of a sample size to suggest he can seriously contend for that long-elusive initial victory this week.

Aggressive: Alex Noren (+9000)

I considered Andrew Novak, Bud Cauley and Kevin Yu – each at 66/1 in the outright market – for this category and I’ll likely still buy into a stake in all three, but I didn’t see much of a difference between them and Noren, so I went for the value here in a guy who was more than 20 points longer on Monday. The Swede represents what we’re looking for at Sedgefield – he’s deadly accurate and can get red-hot with the flatstick. He’s coming off a T-7 in Minnesota and while he lost strokes with his irons for the fifth time in his last six starts, he’s a proven winner around the world who’s now spent a long time knocking on the door for his first on the PGA Tour.

At 43 and having missed more than half the season due to multiple leg injuries, the window is starting to close on that possibility, but here’s hoping he can ride that torrid wedge game and putter to another title contention at this one. 

Wyndham Championship Top-5 Picks

Andrew Novak (+1100)

Bud Cauley (+1200)

I like everything about Ben Griffin this week. He’s wrapping up a breakthrough two-win season on familiar turf at a course which suits his game about as perfectly as any on the schedule. Perhaps it’s all a little too perfect. I’ve backed enough “sensible” plays over the years to understand that nothing is ever as easy as it seems. All of which is a long-winded way of explaining that while I can’t find a single reason to dislike Griffin, my hunch here is to bypass the crowded upper echelon at this week’s event in favor of an enticing mid-tier.

For me, this one comes down to the math. Instead of going with Griffin for a top-five ticket, I’d rather back two players in Novak and Cauley whose prices are more than double that of Griffin in this market, knowing that I only need one of ‘em to cash in order to beat any potential ROI on a Griffin play. Ironically enough, Novak was his partner when they won the Zurich Classic earlier this season and while Griffin has deservedly gotten more of the headlines by adding another win at the Charles Schwab Challenge and a runner-up at the Memorial Tournament, I’m not so sure the gap between him and Novak is as large as some would have us believe, especially at the floor.

Cauley has cooled off in recent months, but his numbers remain very solid, as he ranks inside the top-half in every major statistical category and 17th in SG: Total for the season – ahead of players such as Robert MacIntyre, Sam Burns, Viktor Hovland and Chris Gotterup. 

Wyndham Championship Top-10 Picks

Conservative: Kevin Yu (+600)

Much like McCarthy, Yu’s mini-heater was cooled off quite literally when he went overseas for the Scotland/Northern Ireland fortnight. He managed a T-34 at the Genesis Scottish Open – his worst result in four starts at that point – then MC’d at The Open before returning back to the U.S. and missing another at the 3M Open. Even so, there’s reason to believe he returns to form this week. A native of Taiwan who went to school at Arizona State and makes his home in Scottsdale, Yu has enjoyed some of his greatest success in the Southeast, including his lone win in Mississippi last year and a top-five in Myrtle Beach this year. Known as a top-tier ball-striker, it’s the putter which has gotten intriguingly hot lately, as he’s gained strokes on the greens in each of his last half-dozen starts.

Aggressive: Austin Eckroat (+800)

Without a prohibitive favorite this week, there are some decent outright prices at the top of the board, followed by what can only be described as gambling parity, with so many others following closely behind. As a result, there aren’t too many prices which feel too long. My colleague Sia Nejad texted me Sunday night in regard to Emiliano Grillo being 75/1 in some markets and while I don’t dislike that idea whatsoever, I’m a bit skittish that he can roll in enough birdie putts to make it happen.

Instead, my favorite value play is Noren (which is why he’s listed in the outright section above), but Eckroat might be the 1B selection at 100/1. After spending much of the season trying to recapture his game, he’s found a little something over the last month. We’re now getting good prices on a guy who’s won twice in the past 18 months. I’ve listed him for a top-10 here, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if he seriously contends for this title. 

TOP-20

Conservative: Jackson Koivun (+300)

If we’ve learned anything in professional golf over the past year-and-a-half, it’s that you don’t need to be a professional in order to play like one. Nick Dunlap became the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event in more than three decades. Luke Clanton posted four top-10s in eight PGA Tour starts as an amateur last year. Lottie Woad won on the LET and finished T-3 at a major before turning pro and winning in her first start as an LPGA member.

And now comes Koivun, the newest No. 1-ranked stud, who’s finished T-6 and T-11 in his last two starts at the highest level. While picking an amateur to play well in a professional event is often a goose chase for the simple fact that we don’t have much data, we do know that Koivun is a precision player and top-notch putter who should fit this course, which just happens to reside in the familiar surroundings of his home state of North Carolina. I think a top-20 here just might be way too conservative, as it wouldn’t surprise me to see him match that T-6 from the ISCO Championship a few weeks ago – if not even better. 

Aggressive: Nico Echavarria (+320)

I’ve often written that it’s difficult to weigh in on any overrated/underrated discussion in golf, because it all depends on who’s doing the initial ratings. That said, I’ve also maintained that by any measuring stick, I believe Echavarria is among the more underrated players on the PGA Tour right now, having written a few times over the past few months that I believe he’d be knocking on the door to a Presidents Cup berth if this had been an even-numbered year.

He lost in a playoff at the Sony Open to start the year and added his second top-10 at the Rocket Classic last month, but in between there’s been plenty of solid, if not spectacular, results. It might only be a matter of time before the two-time PGA Tour winner puts everything together once again. Ranked eighth in SG: Putting this season, it’s actually been his irons which have spiked recently, as he’s gained in five of his last eight starts, including four performances of more than a stroke per round. This feels like a decent market to back him after he finished T-22 here a year ago. 

TOP-40

Conservative: Eric Cole (+150)

This is a classic something’s-gotta-give scenario. In two career starts at the Wyndham, Cole has a T-14 and T-7, his seven sub-70 rounds leading to a 67.25 scoring average on this course. That said, he hasn’t come close to hitting that level recently, posting a T-60, three MCs and a WD in his last five starts. In fact, Cole hasn’t posted a top-25 since his T-5 result at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in early May. I wouldn’t wholly consider this play some dissertation on course history over recent form, but I do think that if he can turn it around, it would make sense for him to do it on a track where he’s seen some success in the past few years.

Aggressive: Greyson Sigg (+260)

It’s largely been a season to forget, as Sigg owns just a single top-10 in 20 total starts. He missed eight cuts in a row before barely cashing top-40 tickets with a T-39 at last week’s 3M Open. None of which should have us rushing to click his name this week, but on a week when I’ve largely only offered up names from the mid-tier, I wanted to at least note a bigger longshot in this market, with a juicy plus-money number next to his name.

Wyndham Championship First-Round Leader Picks

Conservative: Max Homa (+6600)

One week ago, Homa had a brilliant opening-round performance with his irons, hitting all 18 greens in regulation at TPC Twin Cities, but burned edges all day and “only” shot 66. His game right now is the golf equivalent of plugging holes in a dam. As soon as he stops one flood, another begins. That said, these things often have a way of averaging out, so it wouldn’t be shocking to see Homa ironically – and perhaps exasperatingly – roll in everything he looks at in this week’s opener. After a lengthy run of poor starts, he’s now posted sub-70 scores in five of his last six.

Aggressive: Chris Kirk (+8000)

It’s been a month since Kirk woulda, coulda and perhaps shoulda won the Rocket Classic, instead missing a birdie attempt on the first playoff hole, then missing a short par effort on the second. After perhaps a letdown for a few weeks, he posted a solid T-14 result last week. What’s most notable, though, is his run of fast starts. In his last three stateside events, Kirk has posted scores of 65, 67 and 64. At the Wyndham, he owns a R1 scoring average of 68.11 with four rounds of 66 or better on Thursdays. That’s enough to get me interested this week.