WYNDHAM: The final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season gets underway this week in Greensboro, North Carolina, a city that has been a regular stop on the circuit since the 1930s. This tournament, long known as the Greater Greensboro Open, used to be a prominent event that attracted the Tour’s top players, with a list of past champions that includes names like Snead, Nelson, Player, Ballesteros, and Floyd. In recent years the fields haven’t been quite as strong, but the tournament is still critically important to a handful of guys due to it being the final event before the year-end money-grab known as the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The top 70 in the rankings following play this week will qualify for next week’s FedEx St. Jude, the first Playoff event, so Bubble Boys like Eric Van Rooyen (ranking: 64th), Emiliano Grillo (66th), Matti Schmid (70th), Nicolai Hojgaard (71st), and Adam Scott (85th) have a lot on the line. It adds a little spice to what otherwise could be a pretty ho-hum event.
The course, Sedgefield Country Club, is a classic Donald Ross design that was lengthened and modernized in the early 2000s and has played host to this event since 2008. A par-70 that measures just over 7,100 yards, it’s still rather short by Tour standards and isn’t terribly penal off the tee, but the sticky Bermuda rough must be avoided if the players hope to keep pace in what is always a green-light birdie fest. If you’re putting the ball in the fairway Sedgefield is pretty much target practice with wedges and short irons, and though the green complexes do have some Ross-inspired trickiness and subtlety, they aren’t able to provide a stern enough defense against the world’s best players. The winner of this tournament has reached 20-under or better in 7 of the past 9 years, though Aaron Rai fell just short of that mark last year at 18-under.
Rai was hot coming into the tournament and was trading at a short-for-him 42.0, and you have to go back to Jim Herman’s stunning victory in 2020 for the last true “longshot” victory here. It may be wise to study the mid-market very carefully this week… anyone between about 30.0 and 70.0. If history is any indication, the winner will likely emerge from that group. With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Denny McCarthy (48.0)- After a disappointing missed cut at the Open, McCarthy returns to more familiar grounds and a tournament he’s competed in for 7 straight years. He’s had some good performances in that span, cracking the top-10 here in 2020 and finishing 15th the following year, and he rarely plays poorly at Sedgefield, as only twice in those seven appearances has he finished worse than 36th. McCarthy was playing quite well before heading overseas, with a T11 at the John Deere earlier this month and a T12 at the Travelers the week prior, and he found the top-10 at the PGA Championship in the not-too-distant past. He’s very capable of firing some low rounds this week and playing himself into contention, and though he’s yet to win on the big tour, it’s got to be coming soon: a guy who putts like he does won’t be held out of the winner’s circle forever. McCarthy is a smart bet this week at nearly 50/1.
Jackson Koivun (75.0)- Though still an amateur, the 20-year-old Koivun is the next up-and-coming phenom in American golf and should be regarded as a serious threat on a course like Sedgefield, a Bermuda-covered, shortish, friendly track that will be extremely similar to the courses he regularly sees in the Southeastern Conference as a member of the Auburn golf team. Koivun’s accolades are numerous: last year he became the first player in collegiate golf history to sweep the sport’s four biggest awards in the same season, the Hogan Award, the Haskins Award, the Jack Nicklaus Award, and the Phil Mickelson Award, and last month he officially rose to No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. He made his PGA Tour debut at the 2024 Memorial, where he made the cut but faded over the weekend, and the experience should help him as he faces a challenge this week that is much more doable, with a weaker field and easier course. Koivun has the game to get it done this week, and we need only think back to Nick Dunlap’s victory at the American Express last year to remind ourselves that just because you have an “a” next to your name doesn’t mean you can’t win on the PGA Tour. I’m happy to take a chance on Koivun at the current price.
Rico Hoey (85.0)- A grinder who spent nearly a decade in pro golf’s wilderness before finally securing a PGA Tour card in 2024, Hoey has made a nice comeback after a rough start to this season and is currently playing his best golf, with a pair of top-15 finishes this month, including a T8 at the Barracuda two weeks ago. He’s been striking the ball beautifully, ranking 2nd on Tour in strokes gained off the tee and 28th in strokes gained on approach, so he should be able to set himself up nicely for plenty of birdies this week. Hoey made his debut at this event last year and acquitted himself well, posting 10-under for the week and finishing 22nd, so he knows his way around Sedgefield and should have plenty of confidence entering this week. He’s a terrific value at a price like 85.0.
