Wyndham Championship Key Fantasy Stats

Wyndham Championship

August 4th – 7th, 2022

Sedgefield Country Club

Greensboro, NC

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,131

Purse: $7.3 million

with $1,314,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Kevin Kisner

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, data from last year’s Wyndham Championship, and data from all the players in the field with stats from 2022.
For the second week in a row, the tour plays a course where driving it straight matters a lot, the key to playing well at Sedgefield is to hit it straight and position drives for the shot into the green. Just like last week at the Rocket Mortgage at Detroit Golf Club, 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 Kevin Kisner doesn’t hit it that far and has been one of the shortest hitters on the PGA Tour. The same with 2020 winner Jim Herman, who not only doesn’t hit it that far, he has a reputation of only playing well once or twice a year. Last year Kisner came into the Wyndham as one of the favorites as he was T-3 in 2020 and had two other top-10 finishes. So it was no surprise to see Kisner win. At the other end of the spectrum, 2020 winner Herman was the biggest longshot winner of 2020, strolling into Sedgefield 192nd on the FedExCup points list. He only made seven cuts in his previous 18 starts, and his best finish was T-27 in the 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 fourth 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 finished T-40 at the BMW. Since winning the Wyndham two years ago, Herman has played in 42 PGA Tour events and has had only two top-20 finishes, a T-20 at the 2021 Barbasol and T-7 in March at the Puerto Rico Open. Another incredible story was 2019 winner J.T. Poston. He is a very short hitter, coming into the week T-165 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, but on three days, it did rain a total of four inches, the last time on Sunday the 31st. Despite that, I don’t think it will have any bearing on the rough, 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 Tony Finau was able to hit 66 of 72 greens which ranked first, and scramble well, getting it up and down on all six greens he missed to rank first. He also putted well, ranking 15th in strokes gained/putting. All of this added up to Finau making 27 birdies, second best for the week.
Last year at the Wyndham, Kisner wasn’t as good as Finau last week, but Kisner was OK. He hit 58 of the 72 greens to rank T-8. In scrambling, he got it up and down on 9 of the 14 greens he missed, which ranked T-20, and he was eighth in strokes gained/putting. All of this helped Kisner make 23 birdies for the week, fourth best.
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 other courses on Tour, last year, Sedgefield was the 17th easiest course on tour in 2021 with a 68.88 average, just a bit more than a shot under par. Historically Sedgefield has played at the 69.99 average. This year mother nature is going to play a part in this. The forecast is for hot, muggy days with temperatures in the low 90s and afternoon thunderstorms on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and each day will have just about a 50% chance of rain.

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 putting the ball in play off the tee at Sedgefield is probably one of the most important items on this Donald Ross course. Last year’s winner Kevin Kisner was 12th in strokes gained/tee-to-green, as he was 31st in driving accuracy and T-8 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 14th in scrambling, and our winner Kisner ranked T-20 in scrambling. Our next stat is strokes gained/putting, which is important. Last year Sedgefield was 12th in putting average while Kisner was eighth in strokes gained/putting, so to play well, it’s important to putt well on this course. Last year 1,825 birdies were made, and 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 133 of 156 players from this year’s field with stats from 2022:

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