Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2024 Wells Fargo Championship

2024 Wells Fargo Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

There’s something quite masochistically entertaining about watching two maidens going at it down the back nine on a Sunday.

You just never quite know what’s going to happen….and in the case of the CJ CUP Byron Nelson, one maiden would fall short while the other would stand tall.

Ben Kohles would perform admirably to take a one-shot lead into the final hole, but his rather torturous route to the flag – bunker, rough, heavy-handed chip – left him needing to make a short-range putt to force a playoff with Taylor Pendrith, who would birdie that 72nd hole.

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Kohles would miss, unfortunately for him, and so the Canadian was left to celebrate his first PGA TOUR win and the various perks that brings – not least a place in the field for the Signature Event this week, the CJ CUP Byron Nelson.

As ever, these big bucks tournaments attract a stellar field of the best players on the PGA TOUR – although there’s one major exception this week, with Scottie Scheffler choosing to sit out the trip to Charlotte, North Carolina to stay at home with his heavily-pregnant wife.

That’s good news for everyone else, of course, as it gives the rest of the field a chance to battle it out for the huge cash prize. Wyndham Clark will be our defending champion, while the likes of Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Justin Thomas, and Jason Day – all former Quail Hollow winners – will be hoping that lightning strikes for them again.

But not in the literal sense, of course. There are some thunderstorms in the forecast for Thursday, plus some strong winds, but otherwise the players should have easy enough conditions at a layout that is governed by the weather as to how easy it plays.

McIlroy won here in 2021 with a score of -10, whereas in 2023 (Quail Hollow hosted the President’s Cup in 2022 so skipped a year) Clark won with -19 – six players also bettering McIlroy’s score from two years before.

In benign conditions, Quail Hollow is tameable, although its length – more than 7,500 yards make up its Par 71, with only three Par 5s – is made all the harder if rain falls and softens the going.

Long drives are helpful, then, as are precise approach play from 175-225 yards – some of the Bermuda/Poa overseeded greens feature shelves and tiers, so getting up and down from greenside is not always that easy.

The players we back will also have to show a sure hand on the greens with flat stick in hand – it could take 20 or more birdies to win this week, which don’t come along too easy if you’re missing putts.

It’s a classy field at a quality venue that has previously hosted the PGA Championship, so you would imagine that a thoroughbred flusher will ultimately be crowned champion on Sunday.

Mind you, you’d have got sportsbook odds of around 70/1 on Clark’s triumph 12 months ago, while the then relatively unknown Max Homa was a 300/1 shot when he prevailed here in 2021.

So there’s scope, perhaps, for a long odds winner this week – but who will step up to the plate? Here’s five who might in our Wells Fargo Championship sleeper shortlist.

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Corey Conners – 50/1 – Although not the longest in the game, Corey Conners does gain plenty of strokes off the tee thanks to his medium length and accuracy.

That’s a great platform to build upon at Quail Hollow, where he finished T8 last year, and the accuracy of the Canadian’s approach play will also be useful at the venue’s occasionally tough-to-hold greens.

As we know, it’s putting that remains the achilles heel of Conners’ game. But he’s been putting up reasonable numbers in that department lately, and as we know with these flushers, it only takes marginal gains on the greens to put a winning score together.

Will Zalatoris – 50/1 – 50/1 about a player who finished inside the top-10 at The Masters in his penultimate strokeplay start? Yes please.

Who cares that Will Zalatoris missed the cut in the team jolly at the Zurich Classic, and don’t get too caught up on the fact that he was nowhere at the RBC Classic – Harbour Town is not as track that benefits long and straight flushers.

But Quail Hollow is, historically, and consider the fact that Zalatoris finished T9 at Augusta National despite losing strokes to the field on the greens – that is a remarkable achievement, and evidence of his classy ball-striking form. 

Austin Eckroat – 100/1 – Gaining strokes off the tee has been the foundation of Austin Eckroat’s improvement over the past year or so, although it’s his gains with irons and wedges in hand that ultimately propelled him to the Cognizant Classic title.

Combine those two elements together and you have a world-class ball striker on your hands, with Eckroat himself no doubt keen to take the next step in his development as a high-grade PGA TOUR pro.

With prior form at venues where the greens can be hard to hold, Eckroat can challenge the big boys for supremacy this week.

Matthieu Pavon – 100/1 – Having won at Torrey Pines earlier in the season, and now with a T12 to his name at Augusta National, Matthieu Pavon is developing a reputation for success at layouts where smooth ball-striking is the order of the day. 

The Frenchman should feel right at home then at Quail Hollow, where his length off the tee and classy approach play should enjoy a full payoff.

Making debuts at new venues has been the hallmark of the PGA TOUR rookie’s season, but so far he’s handled the demands of that particularly well.

Kurt Kitayama – 120/1 – When he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year, it marked Kurt Kitayama out as something of a specialist in bomb-and-gouge golf.

That style led him to top-10s at the PGA Championship and Phoenix Open too, although the penny has probably dropped that he will need to add some nuance to his game to really kick on from here.

Maybe it has come recently, because Kitayama found plenty of fairways at the Houston Open and The Masters while only giving away a little bit of length, which in turn enabled him to deliver better results with iron and wedge in hand from the short grass.

Can this smarter strategy take him into contention at the Wells Fargo Championship this week?

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Wells Fargo Championship here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2024)

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