Sandwiched between the PGA Championship and the FedExCup Playoffs, the PGA TOUR regular season will end this week in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Given the slot on the schedule, big names are usually resting but there is still plenty of drama. This is the week where FedExCup narratives will get tossed out like Tootsie Pops at a parade.
It’s not always never that easy for a golfer to “turn it on” just because his PGA TOUR card is at stake. If a golfer had that ability to flip a switch then they wouldn’t be hovering on the bubble to begin with. That’s a longwinded way to say that we shouldn’t let those narratives dictate our fantasy decisions this week.
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The Course
This week’s host is Sedgefield Country Club. It’s a classical, Donald Ross design that plays just over 7,100 yards as a par 70.
As we often see with these old-school courses, the driver is not a big weapon here. There are at least eight driving holes here where the field is generally forced to keep the ball inside 290 yards off the tee. We even saw Henrik Stenson win this event last year while keeping the driver in his locker for the entire week.
There is water in play on seven holes. It’s certainly in play but not a big concern when you consider this event has ranked 6th-easiest since 2014 in terms of the field avoiding double bogeys. It’s also ranked inside the top 10 in eagle rate and 12th over that time in birdies per 72 holes. Basically, this is a post-major event where they loosen the reigns and let these golfers light up the course. Even as a par 70, the winning score has reached 20-under in three of the last eight years including each of the last two.[[ad:athena]]
The birdie-or-better rate on these par 3s has been 12%, 13%, 18%, and 23%. The TOUR average is around 13% so a few of these are about as easy as it gets. This course has yielded at least one ace in 8 of the last 10 editions (14 overall during that stretch).
Both of the par 5s play under 550 yards so it’s easy to see why birdies and eagles fly off the shelf at such a high clip. Again, distance is not a huge advantage since they are reachable for all. The par-5 5th yields eagles at about 5.6% and the par-5 15th sits around 4.1%. If you are playing DFS this week then getting 6/6 through will be as important as ever, considering the easy scoring environment we have on hand here.
For grass types, we have bermudagrass from tee-to-green as well as the green surfaces.
Course Quotes
Sifting through some past quotes over at the Fantasy Golfanac, let’s try to break down the course to see how they will play...
Webb Simpson: “You know, we’re obviously close to where I grew up. I grew up playing courses similar to this that aren’t too long, hit different clubs off the tee, some doglegs.”
Henrik Stenson: “I think whenever you play a week after a Major championship, which isn’t all the time for me I found in the past you can find the golf courses quite easy when you play the tougher course the week before and you still kind of keep a strong mindset in terms of one shot at a time which, again, you always want to have but probably even more so at the Majors. I’ve had some good success in particular playing in Germany the week after the U.S. Open a lot of times and done well.”
Rickie Fowler: “I really liked the course. Fairly straightforward off the tee. Few blind shots but once you kind of have your numbers and lines dialed in I feel like it’s fairly simple and then the greens are definitely protected and then if you don’t drive it in the fairway you won’t be able to control the ball in the rough. The greens have a decent amount of movement, some with more slope and they’re in perfect shape, running good. Very old school. They’ve got some speed”
Brandt Snedeker: “You definitely have to have a short iron game around here is really, really important. You got to think your way around here extremely well. You got to roll some putts in.”
Jim Furyk: “I forgot how much slope was on the greens. The last time I was here they were bentgrass. Quite a bit slower and you really didn’t have to respect the slope as much.”
Overview: There are a few different ways to say it but most of these golfers tend to say this is a course where you need to manage the course, keep the ball in front of you, and the birdies will flow naturally. Furyk brings up a good point about the green speeds. Before the switch from bentgrass to bermuda, these typically ran around 10.5 on the stimp (SLOW). They’ve averaged 11.9 on the stimp since the switch to bermuda in 2012. That is pretty quick for greens with a lot of slope.
Correlated Courses
Looking at grass types, geography, course attributes, and past performance, here are a few courses/events that I think could prove to be a good pointer this week:
Harbour Town GL
Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course
Colonial Country Club
TPC Kuala Lumpur
Pebble Beach Pro-Am
A common theme here is distance or lack thereof. Most of these courses are either SHORT or they are courses were you often club down, due to the course design. TPC Kuala Lumpur is half a world away but it’s another track where you don’t need distance and birdies/eagles are plentiful. All three of the AT&T Pro-Am courses play under 7,000 yards, some of the shortest on TOUR.
The Weather
Thursday: Sunny with a high near 91 degrees. Calm winds.
Friday: A 40% chance of showers (possible storms) with a high near 90 degrees. Calm winds.
Weekend: Chance or showers with highs in the upper 80s. Calm winds with the potential for some 15 MPH gusts on Sunday.
It’s all very early but it looks like another hot one, similar to last week. Keep an eye on the storm potential as that would be the only way we see some kind of tee-time advantage.
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Golfers to Watch
Sergio Garcia
First time returning to Sedgefield since 2013. He’s on the outside looking in when it comes to the Ryder Cup. His track record would put him high on the list of captain’s picks but a strong finish this week would go a long way toward proving his game is in good enough shape to contribute. Has missed the cut in seven of his last eight PGA TOUR starts (excluding the no-cut WGC-Bridgestone). OUCH! On the bright side, each of his last three MCs were on the number, so his form isn’t too far gone. Plus, he’s finished T13 during his 2005 Wyndham debut, finished solo 4th in 2009, and then won the 2012 edition before posting T29 in his title defense. Given the course history and weak field strength, this should be a good week for a Sergio Slumpbuster.
Henrik Stenson
Played here last year to make sure he reached 15 starts on the PGA TOUR season (to prevent him from losing his status). He admitted as much in his pre-tourney presser but he didn’t let that stop him from competing as he went on to win the event. The most notable part of his win was the fact that he played the entire week WITHOUT a driver. It was by choice since Sedgefield is a course where you don’t need to attack off-the-tee. This year he enters with an injury tag next to him, 13 starts to his name, and (like Garcia) on the outside of the European Ryder Cup qualifications. As the defending champ, we should see a pre-tourney presser which should hopefully provide some answers in terms of his level of health and his concerns/desires to get chosen as a Captain’s Pick. Right now I’m hesitant.
Webb Simpson
Locked in a spot on the Ryder Cup team. Will he be riding high from that news or is it irrelevant? Sedgefield is the site of Simpson’s first career PGA TOUR title. He even named his third child ‘Wyndham.” It’s safe to say he likes it around here.
Jim Furyk
Said last week that his golf game is the third priority right now (behind family and the Ryder Cup). That’s been the case all year as he opted to play with conditional status instead of taking his career-earnings exemption. This is a great course for him but we should continue to temper our expectation for the Ryder Cup captain, at least until next fall. This could be a week where he sneaks himself into contention for a round or two, though.
Harold Varner III
Not the prototype of the golfer you’d expect to feast at Sedgefield but he is a Carolina guy. He opened with a 7-under 63 last year en route to a T10 finish. Also arrives with three straight top 20s. Should be able to really demolish these easy par 5s though. That makes him a worthy fantasy option, regardless of how well you think he does or doesn’t fit the rest of the course.
Chesson Hadley
Another Carolina guy but his results here speak for themselves: MC-MC-MC-MC-T57-MC. Sometimes home-state comfort isn’t enough to get you over the hump.
Seamus Power
If you want to play the “bubble boy” narrative and the local angle, Power fits the bill. He enters the week ranked 123rd in the FedExCup standings and he’s a Charlotte resident.
Si Woo Kim
Making his first start at Sedgefield since his 2016 victory. He skipped his chance at a title defense due to injury last year. Those injuries appear to be a thing of the past as he’s posting the best cuts-made ratio of his young career (20-for-27, 74%) and he has ZERO mid-tournament WDs (six during the 2016-17 season). Kim’s other victory came at TPC Sawgrass and he finished T2 at this year’s RBC Heritage so it’s safe to say he has a “type” when it comes to course fit. He likes these less-than-driver courses with bermuda greens. High upside play this week.
Wesley Bryan
Sticking with that same theme, Bryan is another golfer with a love of less-than-driver courses. He typically loses A LOT of strokes on the tee box but that gets reduced just a bit when everyone is forced to hit into the 270-to-300 yard window like we see on so many holes this week at Sedgefield. He was also “scouting” the course last week through the 18Birdies app. Sure, it may have just been a promo but at least he was thinking about the course and looking into building a gameplan. He doesn’t bring any consistency to the table but he does have top-10 upside this week on a favorable course layout.
Matt Every
A less-than-driver course on bermuda means it’s time to queue up the first-round leader bets for Every. In fact, he was the first-round leader here last year after an opening 9-under 61. Hasn’t posted a top 50 since the Houston Open, 14 starts ago.
Daniel Berger
He’s been struggling with a nagging wrist injury for the past few months but something clicked last week in St. Louis when he led the field in strokes gained approach. Even today he tweeted, "+6 on the font 9 Thursday, wrist bothering me. Stuck it out, -14 the rest of the way for a T-12 finish.” Being #1 in approach is a great sign that his wrist is starting to feel better but the fact that he was still bothered by it last week leaves a bit of a question mark above his head. Could be time to jump back on the train but this is the Wyndham (not a major); will he grind on a Thursday at the Wyndham if his wrist starts to bother him again? Hopefully, we don’t have to find out.
Norman Xiong
I said I’d blindly give him five chances as a pro and so far he is 0-for-4 in getting through the cut. He’s gained 9.4 strokes off the tee in his last three ShotLinks starts. It’s hard to keep missing cuts if you’re gaining off the tee at that high of a clip. I will plop him onto a few more DFS teams this week and hope his elite pedigree finally pops on the big stage.
Ranking the Field
1. Webb Simpson
2. Sergio Garcia
3. Brandt Snedeker
4. Hideki Matsuyama
5. Rafa Cabrera Bello
6. Steve Stricker
7. Ryan Moore
8. Shane Lowry
9. Russell Henley
10. Henrik Stenson
11. Joaquin Niemann
12. Harold Varner III
13. Chris Kirk
14. Nick Watney
15. Jason Kokrak
16. Billy Horschel
17. Jason Dufner
18. Rory Sabbatini
19. Ollie Schniederjans
20. Bronson Burgoon
21. Daniel Berger
22. Richy Werenski
23. Graeme Mcdowell
24. Scott Brown
25. Sam Ryder
Head over to Dave Tindall’s Nordea Masters Preview. Check back on Tuesday afternoon for our Expert Picks and Wednesday for the DFS Dish.
