The Wyndham Championship: Custom model, best bets and more

The PGA Tour continues its journey to the Fed-Ex Cup Playoffs with a trip to Sedgefield Golf Club for The Wyndham Championship. With the first tee time now just under a day away, it’s time to dig into our Custom model.

What goes into building a Custom Model for The Wyndham Championship

The first thing I do is look at stats that correlate to success at the course in question. In this case, we see long par 4’s, gettable par 5’s, and a lot of horrible pine straw and rough. There is going to be a real emphasis on accuracy off the tee and premier ball-strikers this weekend.

From there, I look at those stats over each golfers last 24 rounds, and then those same stats when playing the course in question and others that have similar profiles. I place a value on each stat to bring a combined grade for every golfer in the field.

Wyndham Championship model yields a surprising result

Will Zalatoris may be the favorite, but my model ranks him as the 30th best golfer in terms of value. I’m a huge Zalatoris fan, but this course will punish inconsistent putters from short ranges and as we all know, Zalatoris has struggled in that area.

Instead, the model surprisingly backs Brian Harman (+4000) to win the event. He has a trio of top-30 finishes to his name around this course. Unfortunately, he’s also missed a lot of cuts and is always a volatile play. If you want a safer shot at a top-10, you may want to look elsewhere. But with top-10’s in both of his last two events, Harman could be peaking at just the right time.

There is a trio of golfers who all graded out with an identical T-2 mark this week. Sungjae Im (+1400), Shane Lowry (+1200), and Billy Horschel (+1400). It’s encouraging that three of the top four golfers are also three of the most expensive. a smart way to parlay this would be to bet on all three to make the cut. That way it’s a very plausible outcome and you still have some upside in the parlay without them needing to win for a payout.

A big surprise inbound at Wyndham?

Matthew Nesmith (+10000) and Doug Ghim (+13000) both come in just two strokes back of the winning grade on my model. Outside of losing strokes around the green, Ghim is one of the very few in this field to gain or be neutral in every other metric. He may not win, but he’s a great top-20 shout here. Nesmith is accurate off the tee and a great putter of the golf ball. If he can find some consistency on those longer approaches, he could be set for a great week.

The longest of longshots

Ryan Moore (+30000) is a longshot in every sense of the word this weekend at The Wyndham Championship, but he’s one of the most accurate in the field off the tee. He struggles massively on those longer approach shots, but still grades out 23rd in my model. He’s a lotto ticket play but could prove to be a profitable one.