Best bets
2pts each-way Si Woo Kim @ 22/1
1.5pts each-way JT Poston @ 25/1
1pt each-way Billy Horschel @ 50/1
1pt each-way Adam Scott @ 28/1
0.5pt each-way Justin Thomas @ 33/1
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The tournament itself is nothing special with the highest-ranked player in the field only 20th on the world rankings but there’s more than meets the eye to the Wyndham Championship in North Carolina this week.
Because it’s the final Regular Season event before the FedEx Cup playoffs, this is the last-chance saloon for those on the cusp of the top 70 qualifiers for the chance to get a slice of the $75m jackpot being dished out after the Tour Championship at the end of the month.
Those hovering around that 70 mark, Cam Davis (69th), Austin Eckroat (70th), Englishman Ben Taylor (71st) and Garrett Higgo (72nd), face extra pressure to make the first FedEx playoff at St Jude next week. Will they rise to the challenge or sink without trace? For those who don’t make it, there’s no more golf until mid-September, at least not on the PGA Tour.
But it’s winners we want not qualifiers and if this year’s Wyndham produces as big a story as last year’s it’s going to be a cracker. The 2022 edition was special with Tom Kim, then 20, taking a quadruple-bogey eight on the first hole and still dotting up by five after shooting the lights out with a last-round 61 for his first PGA Tour victory.
Sadly this breath of fresh air won’t be defending the trophy as he suffered a Grade 1 tear in his right ankle during the course of finishing runner-up at The Open. Undeterred, we’ll switch Kims and go for the unrelated Si Woo Kim to make it back-to-back Korean winners and pick up the lion’s share of the $7.6m purse.
This Kim is a real course specialist and must be rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of once again conquering the 7127-yard par 70 Sedgefield course in Greensboro which has been hosting the Wyndham since 2008.
Si Woo took ill during last year’s final round and had to withdraw but look past that and you come to him winning in 2016 (by five!), taking third place in 2020 and just losing out in a playoff in 2021. Stir all that into his 2023 achievements, victory at Waialae at the start of the year, followed by second place at the Byron Nelson and a fourth at Memorial, and you create a lethal combo that could be too hot for his rivals to handle.
Admittedly, his recent form – missed cuts at the Travelers and Hoylake – is a little off-putting but the Sedgefield course at Greensboro, a typical Donald Ross course with small, undulating greens, and Royal Liverpool, have little in common bar 18 flagsticks. Besides, the opposition is considerably weaker.
Its biggest name, last year’s PGA champion Justin Thomas, has reached crisis point with his game and, having missed five of his last seven cuts, the lowlight of which was shooting 82 on day one of The Open, is playing in the Wyndham for the first time since 2016, praying for a result that will safeguard his Ryder Cup place.
If JT has since found the missing piece of the jigsaw – his two scores, 69-71, at the 3M last week suggest he’s not too far away – then maybe now is the time to back him as you won’t see a price like 33/1 for one of the world’s best again.
He’s not the only one struggling with his game: 16/1 favourite Sungjae Im hasn’t posted a top-ten since May and has suffered five missed cuts since. For one of the most consistent guys in the game it has to be a concern. Having been co-runner-up to young compatriot Tom last year, he will itching to show his recent indifferent run is nothing more than a blip. But there is better value elsewhere.
Also at odds with his game for much of the year, Billy Horschel finally got his mojo back when finishing 13th at the weekend. The fact that he came off saying “At last I’ve got something to work on” encourages a small investment at 50/1 for a class act with more-than-decent course form as runner-up in 2020, fifth in 2016, sixth in 2019 and 11th in 2018.
Sedgefield is a birdie paradise – Brandt Snedeker shot a 59 on the way to victory five years ago and it needed a record-equalling 22-under from JT Poston to edge home in 2019.
If Poston’s not too birdied-out after shooting 17 under for a share of second behind runaway winner Lee Hodges on Sunday, this North Carolina native has to go close.
Poston (the JT stands for James Tyree if you’re curious) would have been clear second but for the triple-bogey horlicks he made of the 72nd hole and he’ll have to clear that out of his mind if he is to repeat his 2019 triumph.
There’s a concern this is one tournament too far as it’s his fifth straight week on the road but expect home support to lift their man who hits it straight and putts like a demon. Sixth places at the John Deere and Scottish Open preceded last week’s top effort at the 3M so the form is rock-solid.
One who did look weary last week was Japanese star Hideki Matsuyama. He underperformed and may not be 100% fit. Adam Scott, Match Play champion Sam Burns, Shane Lowry, Russell Henley and newcomer Ludvig Aberg are also on shortlisted. Ace putter Henley can go very low and was fifth and seventh in the last two Wyndhams but 20/1 looks a bit skinny given that his recent form has been no more than steady.
Lowry looks better class than most of these but needs a big week if he is to climb out of 76th place in the FedEx Cup race and must brush up his putting while Aberg has been mentioned as a Ryder Cup wild card and greatly impressed captain Luke Donald who played with him a few weeks back. But surely the 23-year-old Swede, whose fourth at the JDC is his only top-ten, needs to achieve more. Maybe this is the week.
Stylish Aussie Scott went close at Greensboro two years ago, losing out to Kevin Kisner in a six-man playoff. The putter, his bete noire for years, finally seems be clicking so much so that other pros have been copying his method. A week’s rest after his respectable 33rd at windy Hoylake should freshen the 43-year-old up for an assignment he’s well capable of winning.
Best bets
2.5pts each-way Joaquin Niemann @ 16/1
1pt each-way Henrik Stenson @ 33/1
1pt each-way Talor Gooch @ 16/1
The LIV battalions made such an impact on the Masters and provided the USPGA champion in Brooks Koepka but they came down to earth with a bump at our Open where not one made the top-ten and some of their biggest names flopped.
Their Big Three, Cammie Smith (33rd), Brooks Koepka (64th) and Dustin Johnson (missed cut), will be out to restore reputations on more familiar terrain in the tenth leg of their 14-tournament year on The Old White, the best of the three courses that comprise The Greenbrier at White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia.
The Greenbrier is where the first USA v Europe Ryder Cup was staged in 1979 following the expansion of the match from its Great Britain & Ireland. The upgrade enabled the great Seve Ballesteros to play Ryder Cup and though the first encounter under the new title easily went the way of the home side, it was only a question of time until Europe opened its account, the breakthrough coming at The Belfry in 1985.
The floods of 2016 destroyed several holes, but in less than 12 months the rebuilt Old White was back in business. All in all, it has hosted nine Greenbriers but only three since the floods revamp, two of those coincidentally won by LIV members Kevin Na and Joaquin Niemann. Another LIV member Danny Lee has also won there but his victory came the year before the flood damage.
Niemann annihilated the Old White opposition by six shots and more in 2019, a year earlier Na gave a masterclass in short-game wizardry to win by five. I don’t think he is quite the force he was but Niemann, at 24 one of the few major LIV signings to be in his prime rather than past it, is overdue a LIV victory and at 16/1 he’s my man.
The slimline Chilean, world No. 1 amateur for 44 weeks and a two-time PGA Tour winner, the second one in top company at Riviera last year, almost did it on his LIV debut in Boston but had no answer to Johnson’s extra-time eagle.
He followed that with two top-fours towards the end of last year, while this campaign he was fifth in an International League tournament in Oman and 16th at the Masters so nothing better than a pair of eighths on the current LIV schedule is a disappointment. There can be no excuses if he fails to improve on that when revisiting a course (7426 yards, par 70) he tamed so emphatically in the past.
Smith and Koepka are obvious dangers and are priced accordingly, Talor Gooch is gunning for an astonishing fourth LIV victory of 2023 (and fourth $4m pick-up!) and Patrick Reed must surely win one of these soon but at more convivial odds Henrik Stenson holds plenty of appeal on the score of value.
His 13th at The Open was best of the LIV raiders and the 2016 Open champion won on his LIV bow last year. That valiant Hoylake effort followed a sturdy sixth at LIV London and a fourth at LIV Washington so it looks as if at 47 the stylish Swede has rediscovered his mojo.
Just in case you’re a newcomer to LIV, this is a 54-hole tournament with a shotgun start, all the action teeing off at 18.15 our time on Friday. It should be a birdie-fest as Niemann went 21 under when he won there in 2019 but stand by for the odd disruption to play as storms are forecast for the weekend.
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