Sedgefield Key Fantasy Stats

Wyndham Championship

August 12th – 15th, 2021

Sedgefield Country Club

Greensboro, NC

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,131

Purse: $6.4 million

with $1,257,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Jim Herman

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats from Sedgefield C.C., based on data from last year’s Wyndham Championship, and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2021.
For the second week in a row, the tour plays a course that driving it straight matters a lot, the key to playing well at Sedgefield is to hit it straight and position your drives for the shot into the green. Just like last week at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude, hitting fairways and greens is important A look at the list of champions at the Wyndham since the event went back to Sedgefield in 2008 shows that the list of winners are guys that either hit is short and straight or in the case of hitting it long players like Webb Simpson, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed, Si Woo Kim, and 2017 winner Henrik Stenson. Last year’s winner Jim Herman doesn’t hit it that far, plus he has a reputation of only playing well once or twice a year, and in most cases, he seems to win. Last year Herman was the biggest longshot winner of 2020, strolling into Sedgefield 192nd on the FedExCup point list. In his previous 18 starts, he only made seven cuts and his best finish was T-27th in the winners-only Sentry Tournament of Champions. He hadn’t played in the Wyndham since 2015 but strolled in like he owned the joint. He not only led the field in greens hit with 63, but he was also straight off the tee finishing 4th in driving accuracy. So of course there is no rhyme or reason for how this happened. Just like the clock striking midnight and turning the Princess into a pumpkin, the same happened to Herman as he missed the cut at his next stop at the Northern Trust and this year has only made 11 of 21 cuts. Another incredible story was 2019 winner J.T. Poston. He is a very short hitter, coming into the week T-165th in driving distance. But when he is playing well he hits it straight.
Another important aspect of driving for the long hitters, the holes that dogleg needs players to lay it up to avoid going through the fairway and it’s always best to be in the fairways. The course is tree line and that is more of a hazard than the rough which is not as penal as it could be. This year it has been pretty dry Since mid-July it has only rain three times, on July 19th when 2 inches of rain fell, August 1st with a quarter of an inch, and August 9th when three-quarters of an inch fell. So the rough won’t be as high as last year and the course will be dry and fast with the ball running down the fairways.
Like any other great Donald Ross course the greens are tough, first in hitting them, but if you miss them it’s a hard up and down. The greens are also pretty flat and lots of putts are made, by good and bad putters. So it’s a course that favors short hitters, those that do scramble well, and average putters. Last week was a perfect example, winner Abraham Ancer was able to hit 51 of 72 greens which rank T-5th, and scramble well getting it up and down 18 of the 21 greens he missed to rank 1st and putt well ranking 10th in Strokes Gained Putting. All of this added up to Ancer making 20 birdies, six best for the week. The same will have to happen this week for someone to win. One thing about Sedgefield, it’s a fun course to play and yes it’s challenging. It’s not going to be taxing like TPC Southwind was last week when it played to a scoring average of 69.05, a shot under par. Last year Sedgefield played to a 68.78 average, a shot below par as it was the 29th (out of 41) hardest course on the PGA Tour (which meant that 12 courses played easier on). The bad news for players, this week it’s back to hot, humid conditions with temperatures in the low-90s and a 24% chance of thunderstorms on Thursday and Friday going up to 45% over the weekend.

So in looking at our four categories, we see how much driving and getting the ball on the green makes a difference. So we pick Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green because at Sedgefield putting the ball in play off the tee is very important, probably one of the most important items on this Donald Ross course. Last year’s winner Jim Herman was 4th in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green, as he was 4th in Driving Accuracy and T-1st in Greens in Regulation. Then getting the ball on the greens is important and we all know how hard it is to hit a Donald Ross green. That is why next up is scrambling, because the greens are hard to hit, when you miss the green you have to get it up and down to win. Last year Sedgefield ranked 16th in Scrambling and our winner Herman proved to have his only real problem as he was 4 of 9 for the week ranked 71st in scrambling. Our next stat is Strokes Gained Putting which is important, last year Sedgefield was T-10th in putting average while Herman was 3rd in Strokes Gained Putting, so to play well it’s important to putt well on this course. Last we have birdies, last year 1,850 birdies were made, only three other courses on the PGA Tour last year saw more birdies made. So we are using the Birdie average for our final category.

*Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green: Looks at the combination of length off the tee and accuracy, then getting the ball on the green so it determines who is best at all of these items.

*Scrambler: Who gets it up and down after missing a green.

*Strokes Gained Putting: Look who picks up the most strokes on the greens.

*Birdie average: Players who average the most birdies made per round.

Here are the 141 of 156 players from this year’s field with stats from 2021:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.