Fantasy Golf Predictions
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2022 Wyndham Championship
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2022 Wyndham Championship
Wyndham Championship Fantasy Preview
Just call him Tony ‘The Killer’ Finau!
After being on the receiving end of taunts and jeers about his ability – or otherwise – to close out wins on the PGA TOUR, Finau has only gone and become the first man to win in back-to-back weeks on the TOUR since Brendon Todd in 2019.
If his previous victory at the 3M Open was revelatory, big Tony’s triumph at the Rocket Mortgage Classic a masterclass in control and poise – in the hunt from the get-go, Finau assumed the lead on Friday and never really looked like giving it up.
Respect goes to Taylor Pendrith, the rookie who hung around manfully and who looks a real prospect, as well as Cameron Young and Patrick Cantlay, who finished fast to give themselves an outside chance at Detroit GC.
But Finau was not to be denied, and a rock-solid final effort of 67 was enough to open up a chasm of a five-shot margin of victory.
A player of undoubted ball-striking brilliance, Finau has – in the space of a fortnight – booked his spot amongst the true elite in world golf right now.
Up to seven in the FedEx Cup rankings, he’ll have another title on his mind before the season’s out – while those hovering around the 125 mark in the standings will know that time is of the essence. It’s that magic number that will press on to the St Jude Championship next week.
So, this week’s tournament, the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club, is a case of all-or-nothing for those looking to prolong their seasons.
Last Week’s Fantasy Results
Unfortunately we didn’t pull the trigger on running back-to-back with Finau but hey, even we get it wrong sometimes.
Our top pick last week was Will Zalatoris, who ended the week T20.
Wyndham Championship Field
The biggest names in PGA TOUR golf are timing their run to the FedEx Cup finals, and so many have chosen to take the week off rather than head to North Carolina.
Will Zalatoris, Billy Horschel and Shane Lowry are three of the most prominent names in the field, alongside Sungjae Im and defending champion Kevin Kisner.
Justin Rose knows what it takes to win the FedEx Cup – he’ll be tuning up at Sedgefield, while a trio of players that lost out in a play-off to Kisner here 12 months ago (Adam Scott, Si-Woo Kim and Roger Sloan) will be hoping to go one better this time around.
Look out too for Joohyung ‘Tom’ Kim, the Korean starlet who has clinched a PGA TOUR card for next season after some outstanding recent performances.
This Week’s Course Preview
We’re tucking into a Donald Ross sandwich on the PGA TOUR at the moment.
He designed Detroit GC, host of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, oversaw the build for Sedgefield and was the brains behind East Lake, home of the TOUR Championship finale in a few weeks’ time.
Ross is a guy who was well ahead of his time, designing courses that would still be used professionally a century later. But even so, he wasn’t able to fully see into the future, and now the players take Sedgefield Country Club apart with ease.
Take the Par 5 fifth, for example. Back in the 1920s, when this layout first opened, it was probably a stiff – but birdieable – test at 529 yards, but fast forward to the 2021 edition of the Wyndham Championship and the numbers speak for themselves: 130 pars, 269 birdies and 51 eagles, with just ten bogeys or worse.
But that’s not to say this track is a complete gimmie, and the stretch between the eleventh and fourteen holes generally plays over par – the eighteenth, a 507-yard Par 4, also poses problems.
But for the most part the players will benefit from well-proportioned fairways and greens, forgiving rough and water in play on just six holes, while Ross must have struggled getting his hands on sand – there’s far less bunkering here than at Detroit GC or East Lake.
Even though there’s only two Par 5s on this Par 70 stretch of 7,131 yards, it will still take a winning mark of -20 you feel if the weather is fair throughout the week.
Weather Forecast for Greensboro, NC
On which note….
There is rain around in Greensboro this week, and the forecast suggests that Friday, Saturday and perhaps Sunday could see a sprinkling of the wet stuff.
If there’s any good news, it’s that Thursday looks to be set fair with sunny spells and temperatures around the 91˚F mark.
The mercury doesn’t look set to drop all that much for the rest of the week, but the threat of ‘isolated’ or ‘scattered’ thunderstorms – to use meteorologist parlance – is clear for any forecast you see for Friday through Sunday.
The wind looks set in the single digits all week, so that shouldn’t propose too much of a problem.
Last Year’s Results from the Wyndham Championship
The 2021 edition of the Wyndham Championship created a slice of PGA TOUR history, with the first six-man play-off in 20 years.
Kevin Kisner, Adam Scott, Kevin Na, Branden Grace, Si-Woo Kim and Roger Sloan were the protagonists of a battle that many thought would run and run.
And yet it could have been over on the first extra hole – Scott sliding a four-footer agonizingly wide, before nobody could Kisner’s birdie at the second additional hole….his fourth PGA TOUR title and his first play-off victory in five attempts.
It could have been so different had Russell Henley not bogeyed four of his final eight holes to relinquish his 54-hole lead, and in the end it was down to the dirty half-dozen to battle it out after reaching -15 in normal time.
Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the Wyndham Championship this Week
With the desperate battle for FedEx Cup points and TOUR cards reaching fever pitch, there are plenty of interesting sub-plots at the Wyndham Championship. But we feel confident in the player profile that can thrive at Sedgefield, and so we’ll be playing these two contrasting contests:
- PGA $350k Drive the Green: There’s $50k to the winner in this $5 contest, and you can imagine that the winning lineup will feature a curveball sleeper or two. So, it’s a wide-open week….you could make your bankroll really sing come Sunday evening.
- PGA $60k Dogleg: If your favorite type of DFS contest is that which is one and done, all or nothing, risk and reward etc, this $60k Dogleg is an interesting proposition. It’s single entry at $33, but the winner – and there’s only 2,120 entries remember – trousers a cool $10k.
SPECIAL DEAL: Use Code GOLFICITY at DraftKings.com
This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the Wyndham Championship
Here’s the SG Approach ranks for the week for the six players that made it to the play-off here last year: 2, 3, 5, 10, 12, 26.
It’s not rocket science, given that there’s stacks of birdieable Par 4s on this layout that offer the best reward to those blessed with quality with iron and edge in hand, and the putting ranks – only two of the half-dozen were inside the top-ten with their flat stick – confirm that Sedgefield is a second shot course in Donald Ross’ grand tradition.
His green complexes tend to have little undulations and peak/troughs though, while the tree-lined fairways need to be missed in the right places….if they are to be missed at all. It’s perhaps why course form has proven so important here – knowing the do’s and don’ts has proven very fruitful over the years.
Note that we switch to Bermuda greens this week for the first time in a while, and ever that will suit some more than others.
As far as correlating courses are concerned, Memorial Park (home to the 2020 and 2021 Houston Open) and TPC Craig Ranch (the contemporary home of the AT&T Byron Nelson) share a number of the same characteristics, while the form of repeat offenders at Sedgefield – think Si-Woo Kim, Webb Simpson, Russell Henley and co – suggests that their other favored events like the RBC Heritage and Sony Open can also be used as a guide.
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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Wyndham Championship
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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the Wyndham Championship
Top Tier Pick #1:
Sungjae Im (Odds: 18/1, FPPG: 73.5, GPFP: 58.80 Salary: $10,500)
The Korean is fast joining the ranks of the more frustrating players to draft or bet on – prodigiously talented, he has just two top-fives to his name all season long.
Happily, that includes a win at the Shriners and T2 in his last start at the 3M Open, where he gave an excellent account of himself before falling just short.
Some golf courses just set up nicely for Im’s tee-to-green game, and of all the surfaces used on the PGA TOUR it’s perhaps Bermuda where he is most at home with the flat stick.
A formline of 24-9-6 at Sedgefield is backed by top-20s at our correlating venues Memorial Park and Harbour Town, and he also ranks nicely for the 200-225 yard bucket on approach – that has generally proven decisive at this layout.
Key Stats:
- Par 4 Scoring Average – 3rd
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 10th
- Approaches from 200-225 yards – 14th
Top Tier Pick #2:
Russell Henley (Odds: 30/1, FPPG: 74.5, GPFP: 88.69 Salary: $9,800)
Sedgefield is one of those courses where the players have to pick and plan their route around, rather than simply bashing their ball and hoping for the best.
Russell Henley springs to mind for such tests, and he heads to North Carolina with plenty of positives. After some rest and recuperation, he returned to action last week with a T10 turn in the Rocket Mortgage Classic – ranking 4th and 7th for SG: Around-the-Green and Approach respectively.
The switch to Bermuda won’t inconvenience him one bit, and a Sedgefield formline of 7-9-31 offers a tantalizing glimpse of what he can achieve here – he really ought to have won 12 months ago, in truth.
Form at the correlating Harbour Town and Waialae only serves to strengthen the bond….
Key Stats:
- SG: Approach – 2nd
- Greens in Regulation – 6th
- Birdie Average – 10th
Mid-Tier Pick #1:
Adam Svensson (Odds: 75/1, FPPG: 59.5, GPFP: 47.57 Salary: $7,500)
The Canadian has offered solid service to his daily fantasy backers of late – banking four top-30s and a solo sixth in his last six starts from the mid-tier range.
It’s success built on a solid foundation of ball-striking too, rather than a hot hand on the greens, and so we’re inclined to stick with the Canadian at a venue where quality iron and wedge play brings plenty of rewards.
Svensson ranked fourth for SG: Approach in his T24 at another Donald Ross layout, Detroit GC, last week, and has done the business previously at the correlating Waialae and Keene Trace, the home of the Barbasol Championship where former Wyndham Championship winners have performed admirably on a consistent basis.
Key Stats:
- Birdie Average – 25th
- SG: Approach – 38th
- Greens in Regulation – 59th
Mid-Tier Pick #2:
Taylor Moore (Odds: 120/1, FPPG: 54.9, GPFP: 43.88 Salary: $7,300)
It’s always interesting when a PGA TOUR pro addresses the main weaknesses in their game successfully.
Taylor Moore has been below par on approach and when putting, statistically, this season, but at the Rocket Mortgage Classic he ranked fourth and 25th in the field for those respective metrics.
That yielded a solo sixth finish – his best of the campaign, and it must feel so good for the confidence levels to start lasering iron shots and dropping some putts.
Generally solid off the tee, Moore is a prolific birdie-maker who will be looking to follow up his successes last week with more of the same at another Donald Ross layout.
Key Stats:
- Total Driving – 46th
- Birdie Average – 49th
- Greens in Regulation – 51st
Low-Tier Pick:
Lee Hodges (Odds: 125/1, FPPG: 55.3, GPFP: 44.20 Salary: $7,100)
It’s a case of close but yet so far for Lee Hodges recently.
Here’s a player who opened up 66-66 to have a sniff of the lead at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, a week after he played his middle 36 holes in -8 at the 3M Open.
These are numbers that should be taken seriously, because Hodges has shown in two top-tens at the Honda Classic and American Express that he can far outperform his generally lowly salary in DFS gaming.
A consistent GIR merchant, Hodges’ putting stroke was in better order than usual last week, and it’s intriguing that both of his top-ten finishes this term have come on Bermuda greens.
Key Stats:
- Greens in Regulation – 21st
- Approaches from 200-225 yards – 37th
- Total Driving – 56th
Sleeper Pick for the Wyndham Championship
Matthew NeSmith (Odds: 125/1, FPPG: 56.0, GPFP: 44.78 Salary: $7,200)
Historically, Sedgefield has rewarded plotters and plodders, and despite his relative youth at the age of 28 we can drop Matthew NeSmith into this category.
He ranks inside the top-50 on TOUR this season for SG: Tee-to-Green and Greens in Regulation, which confirms he’s a solid ball-striker with few weaknesses in his bag.
Well, apart from one – he can’t putt for love nor money. But, many of his best performances have come on Bermuda greens, and how about this to suggest an improvement in confidence….NeSmith has made the cut in eight of his last nine strokeplay starts.
Key Stats:
- Greens in Regulation – 40th
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 41st
- Scoring Average – 65th
Alternative Sleeper Pick for the Wyndham Championship
Austin Smotherman (Odds: 150/1, FPPG: 59.1, GPFP: 47.30 Salary: $7,000)
It’s amazing that a player who ranks 31st on TOUR this season for Greens in Regulation is in danger of missing out on the FedEx Cup playoffs – that offers a clue as to how bad his putting is.
There’s motivation aplenty for Austin Smotherman then, who needs a strong showing at Sedgefield in order to proceed to the St Jude Championship.
He will get full value for his excellent ball striking at this layout, and then it’s all down to the dreaded flat stick – interestingly, Smotherman has gained strokes on the field on the greens in five of his last eight starts. Surely that’s enough of an improvement for him to get the result he needs this week.
Key Stats:
- Total Driving – 22nd
- Greens in Regulation – 37th
- SG: Approach – 40th
This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup
Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only. Be sure to mix-and-match players to best fit individual contests.
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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2021-2022)
Tourneys Played '21 -'22
Season Earnings YTD
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