The First Tee – Wyndham Championship by Adam Daly

Sorry for the delay in the First Tee this week, but the PGA Championship hangover is a real thing – both personally and for the lucky golfers that are staying in North Carolina this week to take part in the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield C.C.

This Week

THE COURSE

The Wyndham is played at Sedgefield Country Club on the Donald Ross course, and it’s the last gasp for golfers on the bubble of the FedEx Cup to get into the playoffs which makes for an interesting field. Sedgefield is a par-70 that runs a little over 7100 yards, and is unfortunately one of the least exciting events of the year – although the scores tend to run towards easy (from 2012 to 2016 they ranged from -14 to Si Woo Kim’s -21 last year), this is a course with wide fairways that plays easy off the tee and is more of a putting contest than anything else.

The course features seven par-4s above 425 yards and as a par-70, Par-4 Scoring and Efficiency will be impactful; the four par-3s are very straight-forward short affairs, with two of them being around 175 yards and both averaging below par through the years with the other two par-3s around 225 yards and averaging just a tick above par. The two par-5s are reachable in two (both below 550 yards) and saw a combined 57 eagles last year – although they only make up two of the 18 holes on the course, players absolutely have to score on these par-5s to be in contention on Sunday.

From the tees, golfers will be faced with tree-lined fairways that tend to narrow up in the ~300 yard range, so there won’t be much advantage given to longer hitters this week unless they’re deadly accurate; because of the layout, it makes more sense to lay up with a 3-wood or even a long iron to pick a clean spot in the fairway, which has helped make this one of the easiest courses to be accurate on (~71% Driving Accuracy). Rather than looking at Driving Distance or Accuracy this week, check out the Good Drive Percentage the Tour offers or alternatively just Strokes Gained: Off the Tee.

What that less-than-driver set up really means this week is that Sedgefield is a second shot course more than anything, so putting the ball in the right positions off the tee will be incredibly valuable. The greens here are a tiny bit smaller than average but still relatively easy to hit given how often balls find the fairway, and there isn’t much in the way of hazards to contend with – a few bunkers, and a creek that runs around the course can come into play on five or six holes. What that means is that accurate irons to the green are the biggest premium beyond putting, with most approaches coming from beyond 150 yards (just under 69% – nice).

Once the ball is on the Champion Bermuda grass greens, golfers will have to deal with speedy greens (around 12’ on the stimpmeter) and some plateaus and undulation. If the weather stays North Carolina hot, they should be firm and fast with lots of slope, so reading the greens is an essential skill (c.c. Patrick Reed’s brother lying down Spiderman-style) and overall skill with the putter is crucial.

STATS

The Strokes Gained stats to focus on in order (not including Tee to Green):

• Approach
• Putting
• Off-the-Tee
• Around the Green

Counting stats to focus on in order:

• Par-4 Birdie or Better %
• Greens in Regulation %
• Par-4 Scoring
• Scrambling %
• Driving Accuracy %

The Golfers

Kevin Kisner ($11300) – After an excellent performance just a few short miles from Sedgefield at Quail Hollow, Kisner enters this week as the second-highest priced golfer thanks to Henrik Stenson needing his 15 PGA events, and Kisner’s price is well-deserved. The South Carolina native is a Bermuda-grass stud with excellent course history here, making the cut all four times he’s played the event while picking up two top-10s his last two attempts. He’s also sitting on some stellar recent form, having only missed three cuts this season going back to November with a win and two second-place finishes to put him ninth in the Fed Ex Cup standings.

Kisner has been excellent on par-4s this year, sitting T42 in overall par-4 performance and 47^th in par-4 Birdie or Better percentage (17.60%). He’s achieved this mostly be being deadly accurate off the tee (68.47%) and picking great landing areas, because Kisner has never been much of a bomber – his average drive is only 288.7 yards.

Luckily, KIZ also excels from a distance, ranking 17^th, 49^th, and 21^st in approach shots from 150-175, 175-200, and above 200 respectively. With the bulk of shots coming from longer distances this week and with his predilection towards short play off the tee, that sets him up tremendously this week. That will get him to the green where he’s had an overall good year – 18^th in SG: Putting – and although he’s struggled slightly on Bermuda greens, he’s still the 28^th-ranked putter on this type of grass. He’s an expensive play, but well worth blowing the budget up top for as he looks for a second win.

Chez Reavie ($8100): Reavie is currently in the midst of a seven made cut-streak since the Byron Nelson, which includes a T22 in a tough PGA Championship field last week as well as a T4 at the St. Jude Classic back in June. Course history truthers will ignore Chez this week as he’s missed a handful of cuts at this course, but he did finish T9 at Sedgefield back in 2011.

Reavie has shown he can compete in scoring fests this season, going a combined -58 in four easy tests during the fall swing season (from the Shriners to CareerBuilder), and fits the same mould as Kevin Kisner to a smaller degree:

• 5^th in Driving Accuracy (71.66%)
• Excellent in Approaches above 150 (36^th, 79^th, 19^th)
• 26^th in Par-4 Scoring (4.01) and 54^th in Par-4 Birdie or Better (17.32%)
• 8^th in Par-3 Scoring (2.98) and 18^th in Par-3 Birdie or Better (17.13%)
• 1^st in Proximity to the Hole

The one area Reavie has struggled has been with the flatstick in hand, losing 0.940 strokes in 99 events played on Bermuda, but he’s actually had a much better season in that regard; Reavie is 64^th in SG: Putting overall and a spectacular 16^th in 3-Putt avoidance, but he does struggle outside 10 feet.

Value Picks (Below $7600):

• Brian Gay ($7300): On an easy track that basically amounts to a proximity and putting contest, there are few better putters worth a punt than Brian Gay – Gay has gained 1.785 strokes putting on Bermuda (1.663 elsewhere). The major concern from the Texas native is his poor course history here, missing the cut three times since the course converted from Bentgrass greens, but he’s talented enough in other areas to ignore that, on top of the fact that Gay has had an excellent season with three top–10s and is coming into the week off of a T42 at the Barracuda.

One of the main things that has held Gay back throughout his career is his lack of distance, which won’t be an issue, but he’s above average (34^th) in driving accuracy and is absolutely deadly with a wedge. He’ll struggle on the longer par-4s, but expect him to find lots of fairways and score on the shorter holes.

• Zac Blair($6900): The diminutive Mormon is a golfer that will never scare anyone with a driver in his hands, but Blair consistently finds fairways (10^th) and unlike Gay he doesn’t struggle with his approaches from outside 150 yards. He’s not a scoring golfer which can hurt him on a track with as many birdies as this course sees, but he avoids big numbers and excels at putting the ball in the best possible spots – he ranks 37^th in both Par-3 Scoring as well as Par-4 Scoring, but is hurt on par-5s by a lack of distance. Blair is another excellent Bermuda putter (0.869 SG:P) and he does have the ability to go low as shown by his -12 and -10 performances at the Barbasol and Houston Open.

Blair makes a fine play paired with an expensive Kevin Kisner, because he may not finish first but he will stay in contention and should be in line for a top-30 finish.

 

The Fade is still dead.

Good luck this week! You can follow me on Twitter @adalyfrey if you have any questions, and my DMs are always open