What to Watch For at the Wyndham Championship

When I think about Sedgefield Country Club, a Donald Ross design and the host of this week’s Wyndham Championship on the PGA Tour, two key characteristics stand out in my mind:

1. Dense trees line nearly every fairway, assessing one of the highest penalties on tour to wide misses.

2. Many of the fairways narrow at driver distance.

The confluence of the two factors above results in a diversity of club selection and shot selection off tee boxes at the Wyndham. Sedgefield yields one of the widest driver-rate spreads on the PGA Tour. During the third round of the Wyndham last year, Si Woo Kim and Rory Sabbatini each hit driver on twelve holes. Also in the third round, Will Zalatoris and J.T. Poston hit just four drivers apiece.

The dimensions and features of the course allow accurate drivers to make up distance on the longest hitters in the field. It’s difficult for Tom Kim to make up ground on Will Zalatoris at Torrey Pines because all of the tee shots call for driver from both players. At Sedgefield, the bold, accurate driver has an advantage over a player who sprays it off the tee. Tom Kim won the Wyndham by five last year despite starting the tournament with a quadruple bogey.

So this week, watch how players choose clubs off the tee. Pay attention to the players who rip driver off most tees; they’re probably going to be among the most accurate drivers on tour.

I can guarantee you that Si Woo Kim, one of the betting favorites entering this week, will rip driver all over the golf course. That has been his strategy in the past at the Wyndham, and it’s the same tactic he uses on nearly every course he plays.

Si Woo won the Wyndham in 2016 and finished in the top five in 2019, 2020, and 2021. If the driver cooperates this week, he’ll gain significant strokes on the field from tee to green.