Wyndham Championship Predictions: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

Good news for professional golfers whose current points-list status has rendered them proverbial bubble boys: You’re not going to lose your job this week.

Not officially, at least.

For years, the Wyndham Championship – the final regular-season event on the annual PGA Tour schedule – served as the last-chance saloon not only for players jostling for playoff positioning but those attempting to retain their full playing privileges, as well. Sure, the Korn Ferry Finals and subsequent Q-School served as further opportunities to keep a card, but any player with designs on having a fret-free fall needed to be within the top-125 after the final round of this one.

That drama has now been pushed into autumnal events, which previously served as the beginning of the next season, but it hardly means the festivities in Greensboro won’t be pressure-packed once again.

Whether vying for a spot in the playoffs, trying to qualify for the Presidents Cup or attempting to keep a job, there will be plenty of underlying narratives here.

Let’s get to the selections fueled by plenty of these storylines

Wyndham Championship Outright Bets

Conservative: Ben Griffin (+8000)

This week might offer the most palatable outright market that we’ve seen for a PGA Tour event all year. On Monday morning – and these things change, of course; often rapidly – Sungjae Im opened as the favorite at 14/1 and nobody else was shorter than 25/1. That suggests some value at the top of the board, but the reality is that it permeates throughout the entire field. At an event that has seen four winners in the past half-decade who were priced between 35/1 and 100/1, averaging just over 60/1 (which excludes the ultimate outlier in Jim Herman, who cashed from 600/1 in 2020), there’s some rationale behind the idea of eschewing those faves, most of whom usually have an eye toward the impending FedEx Cup playoffs anyway.

All of which has me looking further down the list for my first outright this week, as the number next to Griffin’s name is too good to pass up. The story is the stuff of a too-good-to-be-true Hollywood script: Just a few short years ago, Griffin had given up on professional golf, working as a loan officer before deciding to give his dream one last shot. The fact that he’s back in his home state of North Carolina this week would give this tale a perfect ending should he win, an idea which isn’t as far-fetched as the rest of the plotline. The UNC grad has now gained strokes with his irons in eight consecutive starts, a span which includes a pair of top-five finishes.

Aggressive: Matthew NeSmith (+15000)

It can be stated that every non-Scheffler (and perhaps non-Schauffele) event is an opportunity to delve deeper into the odds, but this one feels especially wide open, which should have us landing on some triple-digit options in the outright market. By all measures, it’s been a fairly unimpressive campaign for NeSmith.

His approach play has dropped from a ranking of 11th on the PGA Tour in 2021 to 30th in 2022, 56th last year, and a below-average number of 109th this season. For a player who relies on strong iron play to retain his status each year, this sharp decline has left him in limbo, currently ranked 120th on the points list. It’s still a much better place than he was at just a month ago, prior to a playoff loss at the ISCO Championship and a T-9 at the 3M Open.

His approach play was much improved at each of those events, but it was a hot putter which really impressed, even showing out during an MC at the Barracuda Championship that was sandwiched by those top-10s. His record in Greensboro isn’t much to shout about, but a Southeast course with Bermuda greens should be as much in his wheelhouse as we’ll ever see.

Wyndham Championship Top-5 Bets

Conservative: Eric Cole (+1100)

It took a while, but it now appears Cole is back. The man who took a circuitous route to the PGA Tour before earning Rookie of the Year honors last season, he opened this campaign in much the same way, posting four top-25s in his first eight starts. A guy who plays as much golf as anyone on the PGA Tour, he didn’t reach that checkpoint in any of his next 13 starts, a period which included seven missed cuts.

Just as suddenly, though, he turned things around, with back-to-back top-10s at the Rocket Mortgage and John Deere and a pair of made cuts in Scotland. The ball-striking numbers look solid once again and the putting numbers have improved extremely. Like most of the finishing position plays in this preview, I also don’t mind him for an outright, as 66/1 is a decent price.

Aggressive: Mackenzie Hughes (+1400)

Those of us who attempt to prognosticate golf tournaments on a regular basis tend to weigh ball-striking statistics heavier than short game and putting because the former has been proven more sustainable from week to week than the latter. There are exceptions to this rule, however, and Hughes is amongst them – a player whose wedge game and putter remain at a consistently high level.

Despite MCing in each of his last two appearances at this one, it feels like the Canadian is building up to something, with six top-20 finishes in his last 13 starts. His baseline tee-to-green game is often about field-average, so it might be too much to expect a Scottie Scheffler-like ball-striking performance, which means we’ll need that red-hot putter to go absolutely nuclear. If anyone can do it, it’s Hughes, who’s gained strokes with the flatstick in 12 of those aforementioned last 13. 

Wyndham Championship Top-10 Bets

Conservative: Jordan Spieth (+333)

I know what you’re probably thinking. Spieth?! The same Spieth who hasn’t posted a top-10 since before the Masters? The guy who went from being the world’s best putter to looking like the third-best in your Sunday morning foursome? That guy? Uh-huh, that’s the one – although truth be told, I’m hoping he putts a little better than your buddies this week. Whether it’s a lingering wrist injury or a focus on gaining more length off the tee, there are parts of Spieth’s game that have been severely lacking in recent months.

Since that last top-10 – which, oh by the way, was merely a T-10 at the Valero Texas Open – he’s posted just a single top-25 in a dozen starts, but that one came at The Open Championship a few weeks ago, where his numbers started to look better across the board. The reality is that things aren’t nearly as bad as they seem – at least from a performance-based perspective, if not results-oriented – but he’s going to need to make a few putts to get his name back onto a leaderboard. The ball-striking looks decent enough and the number feels tempting enough in this type of field to take a chance here, if not also as an outright play.

Aggressive: Max Greyserman (+550)

You can accuse me of chasing here and you wouldn’t be wrong, as Greyserman’s last five results have improved from T-31 to T-26 to T-21 to T-13 to runner-up at the 3M Open just a few weeks ago. It’s not only the results which show a growing confidence in his rookie campaign; he was recently a guest on my SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show and sounded like a player who knows he belongs at this level.

With above-average numbers in driving distance and putting, Greyserman could be the next to follow the Wyndham Clark model of hitting it a long way, making a lot of putts and challenging for titles when the 12 clubs in between also cooperate. That’s exactly what’s happening for the Duke product right now and once again, like others I’ve mentioned here, he makes sense as an outright in addition to a top-10 this week.

Wyndham Championship First-Round Leader Bets

Conservative: J.T. Poston (+6600)

I can confirm that this is undoubtedly the first-ever Wyndham Championship betting preview that I’ve written in the past decade which hasn’t (until now) included the words Webb and Simpson. Perhaps that’s a poor omission by me, considering his record in Greensboro includes a win, two runners-up, and 10 top-10s in 15 career starts. Instead, I’m going to take a chance that Poston takes over that home-stater dominant role. He won this event in 2019 and finished T-7 last year. It’s his opening rounds, though, in which I’d like to invest, as his seven career starts here include two 65s, a 66 and a 67.

Aggressive: Justin Lower (+12500)

In his last four starts, Lower owns a first-round scoring average of 66.5, which includes a 64 at the Scottish Open and nothing worse than 68. For the season, he ranks 108th in second-round scoring average, 110th for third round and 94th in the final round, but 12th on Thursdays, which suggests more than just a coincidence. With three scores of 67 or better at Sedgefield in just six career rounds, there’s a decent chance he can start off with another low one this week.