2024 Wyndham Championship Preview

It’s the final event of the regular season on the PGA Tour. Those looking to secure a playoff spot at the 11th hour will head to Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, NC, for the 2024 Wyndham Championship. As always, here is your early preview of the 2024 Wyndham Championship and a breakdown of what things to look for before betting on the tournament.

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2024 Wyndham Championship Preview

The Golf Course

Often overlooked because of its relatively weak fields, Sedgefield Country Club is one of the finest golf clubs the PGA Tour plays every year. Built in 1925, it is the only Donald Ross-designed golf course played on the PGA Tour.

In its early years, it hosted the Greater Greensboro Open (the traditional name of this tournament), which was dominated by Sam Snead.

There’s a famous story that Sam Snead (who famously buried his money in tomato cans in his backyard), after his seventh straight victory at the golf course, jokingly asked the owner of Sedgefield to dig up his tomato cans and fix up the golf course to make it harder. The owner then banned Snead from the property!

Like many Donald Ross golf courses, years of neglect eroded the quality of the course. Pure Donald Ross golf courses have very challenging greens and green surrounds, and over time, if they’re not properly maintained, their quality and difficulty fade away.

In 2007, the golf course was restored to its original roots by Kris Spence and also lengthened to handle the added length of PGA Tour players. That was enough to convince the PGA Tour to return the Greater Greensboro Open to Sedgefield, where it has been held ever since:

Kris Spence and his team did a great job renovating the golf course to its original Donald Ross roots. While not overly long, the Bermudagrass course presents challenges with rolling fairways and inconveniently placed bunkers tee-to-green.

The greens and their surroundings, however, are what make the golf course special. Spence and his team restored the original contours to the putting surfaces and added collection areas to funnel errant approach shots.

They also fully restored the greenside bunkers. The greens overall are fairly large for PGA Tour standards, but those who miss greens face very challenging up-and-downs for par.

The routing of the golf course is also really good. Hole after hole, golfers tee off in a totally different direction than where they just played. That increases the challenge because of the changing wind direction and sloping of the property from hole to hole.

Despite these challenges, the golf course is relatively easy for the pros overall. The winning score has been at least -20 or better in six of the last seven Wyndham Championships, and the cut line is generally under par every year.

However, when the golf course plays firm and receives some wind, players can have trouble with it, especially on the greens. If they’re dry, they can get really quick over the weekend. So, if those weather conditions exist at the 2024 Wyndham Championship, it’ll play more difficult than it typically does.

Betting Strategies

Here is some general information about Sedgefield Country Club. This will assist in optimizing betting strategies for the 2024 Wyndham Championship.

Par: 70

Length: 7,131 Yards

Sedgefield Country Club is the fifth shortest golf course on the PGA Tour schedule this season. Based on DataGolf’s estimation of the true yardage (aka using measured ShotLink data), it actually plays at about 6,950 yards tee-to-green.

Architect: Donald Ross – 1926

• Restoration: Kris Spence – 2007

Average Green Size: 6,000 sq. feet

The greens are about PGA Tour average in size.

Agronomy: 

• Fairways: Bermuda
• Rough: Bermuda – 2.5″
• Collars & Approaches: Bermuda
• Greens: Champion Bermuda

Other golf courses that utilize Champion Bermuda on the greens:

• TPC Southwind (FedEx St. Jude)
• East Lake Golf Club (Tour Championship)
• The Dunes Golf and Beach Club (Myrtle Beach Classic)
• Pinehurst No. 2 (2024 U.S. Open)
• Country Club of Jackson (Sanderson Farms Championship)

Scoring at Sedgefield Country Club

• 2023: -0.61
• 2022: -0.90
• 2021: -1.19
• 2020: -1.34
• 2019: -1.85

The difficulty at Sedgefield Country Club has progressively gotten tougher over the last five years. All credit is due to how the superintendents have set up the golf course. They’ve allowed the greens to get really glassy and slick during the weekend, and the course has been a lot firmer than it has in past years.

So, while the target winning score remains at about -20, the field has had a tougher time navigating Sedgefield Country Club than in years past.

Off The Tee

Since 2015, Sedgefield ranks 67th out of 92 golf courses in terms of difficulty off the tee. These are its rankings for the last 3 years when compared to other ShotLink-measured events:

• 2023: 24th out of 45
• 2022: 28th out of 38
• 2021: 35 out of 40

While it’s not overly wide fairways at Sedgefield Country Club, the field still hits roughly 62% of their fairways in the tournament. That’s roughly PGA Tour average. The design of Sedgefield Country Club typically leads to many players pulling less than a driver off the tee. Since 2015, the average driving distance of all measured drives at Sedgefield Country Club is only 286 yards. And that number has stayed relatively consistent since 2015.

So, between the lack of length overall at Sedgefield Country Club and the fact that players pull less than a driver to hit targets in the fairway, in terms of sheer difficulty, it’s not a difficult golf course off the tee compared to others on the PGA Tour.

However, there’s a fair amount of penalty for missing fairways at Sedgefield Country Club. Since 2015, Sedgefield Country Club has ranked 23rd out of 92 golf courses in terms of the difference in score between balls that find the fairway and those that don’t. And the penalty has gotten more severe over the last few years. It has ranked as one of the eight most penal places to miss a fairway on the PGA Tour in five of the last six years.

Though only 2.5 inch bermuda, it is long enough to make it questionable how the ball will come out of it. Sometimes, balls come out hot and fly over the green. Other times, it comes out dead.

Bermuda rough is not an easy grass to hit approach shots out of. Considering the high volume of short and mid-range approach shots at the golf course, hitting out of the fairway is a big plus at the Wyndham Championship.

In addition, there are a fair number of areas where players can incur penalty strokes off the tee at Wyndham, whether it be a water hazard or an out-of-bounds shot into someone’s yard. Finally, many fairway bunkers are narrow and have steep faces, a common characteristic of Ross-style bunkers. Players may have to hit a club out of it that they otherwise wouldn’t.

In conclusion, while the tee shots aren’t that difficult, missing fairways at Sedgefield Country Club has a significant consequence.

Approach

Since 2015, Sedgefield ranks 91st out of 92 golf courses in terms of difficulty with approach shots. These are its rankings for the last 3 years when compared to other ShotLink-measured events:

• 2023: 43rd out of 45
• 2022: 34th out of 38
• 2021: 40th out of 40

There’s typically a direct correlation between the length of approach shots and their ease of difficulty when measured on DataGolf: Golf courses with a higher volume of short and mid irons tend to be easier than ones with a high volume of longer approach shots.

Sedgefield Country Club is no exception. Here is the approach shot proximity chart from the 2023 Wyndham Championship (per DataGolf):

There’s a significantly higher volume of approach shots between 100 and 175 yards than at the typical PGA Tour stop. And while there’s a higher volume of approach shots between 200 and 250 yards as well, they’re confined to either the Par 5s or Par 3s. As such, the green in regulation rate is typically between 73% and 75%. That’s one of the highest green in regulation rates on the PGA Tour.

As mentioned previously, there’s a high penalty for missed fairways at Sedgefield Country Club. So, while even from the rough, the approach shot might not appear difficult, it’s difficult to get the ball close to the hole for a good look at birdie. But for those who are finding lots of fairways, they’ll be faced with a fairly easy approach shot.

Around the green

Since 2015, Sedgefield Country Club has ranked 17th out of 92 golf courses in terms of difficulty around the green. This includes ranking inside the Top 10 most difficult golf courses around the green on the PGA Tour for the last eight seasons.

The golf course has made various improvements to the greenside surrounds over the last few years, primarily in the form of short bermuda grass.

Chipping off of tight bermuda is very difficult and something that takes years of experience to master. And as mentioned earlier, trying to gauge how a ball will come out of a bermuda rough lie is also very difficult. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Sedgefield ranks 14th and 11th out of 92 golf courses, respectively, in getting up and down from the bermuda fairways and rough.

With the green in regulation so high, however, players won’t have to scramble as much as they do in other tournaments. But they can’t slack off on this because they’ll waste valuable strokes in the tournament.

Putting

Since 2015, Sedgefield Country Club has ranked 18th out of 92 golf courses in terms of difficulty putting. This includes ranking inside the Top 12 in terms of the most difficult greens to putt on in eight of the last nine seasons.

True bermuda greens are very difficult to putt on. And Champion Bermuda is a little grainier than its cousin TifEagle. In addition, the greens have been allowed to get firmer and faster over the course of the tournament.

And given that Donald Ross’ greens can feature very delicate and quick downhill putts if one is above the hole or big breaking and bending putts if one is pin high, the greens at Sedgefield Country Club are some of the most difficult to putt on the PGA Tour.

Targeting players who excel and are comfortable on bermuda greens is probably a good bet this week. It’s no surprise we’ve seen several players who hail from the Southeast win this event. Keep that in the back of your mind before betting on a player to win outright this week.

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Optimal Player Profile

Here are course fit models, per DataGolf, of the types of players that typically do well at Sedgefield Country Club.

Course Fit

Given how penal it is to miss a fairway at Sedgefield Country Club, there is a high correlation of accurate players off the tee who translate that to success at Sedgefield Country Club. And conversely, there is a much lower correlation of distance leading to success at Sedgefield Country Club when compared to other PGA Tour golf courses.

While most of that can be due to the high penalty for missed fairways, the field composition also might have something to do with that. This event doesn’t typically garner a strong field. In 2024, the best players typically are the longest hitters in the game.

So, with most of the game’s elite choosing not to play the Wyndham Championship, there’s a higher volume of players who rely more on accuracy to keep their tour card than most other events. Therefore, more of those types of players will appear towards the top of leaderboards because of the lack of suitable competition from more talented players.

In addition, there’s a slightly lower correlation between players who putt well and putt poorly and success at Sedgefield Country Club. It’s possible that because the greens are so difficult to putt on and can often lead to players putting defensively, this shrinks the gap between good putters and bad putters overall.

In addition, here are other golf courses with a similar course fit model (per DataGolf):

• TPC Sawgrass
• TPC River Highlands
• Innisbrook Resort
• TPC Twin Cities
• East Lake Golf Club
• Muirfield Village Golf Club
• The Concession Golf Club
• TPC Potomac
• Albany GC
• TPC Deere Run

Horses For Courses

Lastly, here are players who are expected to play the 2024 Wyndham Championship who possess the strongest course history at Sedgefield Country Club (minimum of 8 rounds played):

1. Sungjae Im
2. Webb Simpson
3. Cameron Davis
4. Taylor Moore
5. Billy Horschel
6. Kevin Kisner
7. Zach Johnson
8. Si Woo Kim
9. Justin Rose
10. Denny McCarthy

Targeting these golfers is a decent strategy this week. So, too, is targeting players with similar profiles as these golfers do.