Where There's a Wyndham, There's a Way 🏨
Last callI remember... Aaron Rai. Another 2025 Read The Line winner (+3500) who kept the summer weeks hot! Speaking of hot, we are heading from Minnesota to Greensboro, North Carolina. Hello humidity, it's time for the final regular-season event of the 2025 FedEx Cup points race: the Wyndham Championship. A field of 156 entries is competing for FEC points. I know there's $8.2 million in the purse, but that figure pales in comparison to the top 70 on the year-long points list. Or a solid start getting inside the top 50 and earning signature status. It all counts this week as a bunch of names sit outside the top 70 cutline.
Take a look at the OWGR breakdown to compare the significance of golf's version of the playoff chase. Only four of the top 25 in the world ranking are playing against 36 players ranked from 50 to 100! The major season may be over, but we still have tons of drama. Although I get the legacy implications surely are not comparable to winning a green jacket, those in Greensboro have an equal amount of pressure to play under as they fight for their FedEx Cup lives. Wall to wall BermudaWelcome back to Sedgefield Country Club. A par 70 scorecard measuring 7,131 yards, this is the forty-third time SCC has hosted the Wyndham since it started in 1938. A classic Donald Ross design winding its way through the Carolina pines, accuracy reigns supreme over length. Just look at last year's winner, Aaron Rai! The greens are 6,000 sq/ft on average and covered in Bermudagrass. Sedgefield CC is wall-to-wall Bermudagrass. Hot and humid conditions will make that Bermuda rough extra clingy, so make sure you hit the fairway. SCC annually carries one of the highest penalties on the PGA TOUR for missing the short grass. With 70 strokes, the field loses two par 5s and gains two more par 4s. Fifty-three bunkers decorate this Donald design along with his customary devilish green complexes, especially on the par 3s. Do you remember the Wyndham Championship weather last year? Hurricane Debby delayed play on Thursday and Friday by dropping 4.4" of rain on Sedgfield CC. Somehow, tournament officials finished the event by Sunday evening, until Matt Kuchar stopped play due to darkness. Aaron Rai had already won the event on Sunday evening, but the tournament was not completed until the next day. Fast forward to 2025, and the greater Greensboro region has received 9.2" of rain in July. Soft conditions once again will be the theme. Temperatures are predicted in the mid-80s until Saturday morning. A front is moving through on Thursday afternoon, bringing 0.5 - 0.6 inches of rain and some wind into Friday. Weekend temperatures will drop into the high 70s, and it should be unbelievable golf weather. Wyndham Championship starts in...The average winning score at the Wyndham over the last decade is 20 under par. I believe it would be lower if this weren't the last week of the season. A par 70 layout with nine par 4s under 450 yards is not a stiff PGA TOUR test. The last 10 winners have averaged 25 sub-par scores in the event they won, and Las Vegas has set the over/under winning score at 20.5 under par. The average cut line over the past five years is two under par. It will be lower this year. Soft conditions similar to last year (-4 cutline) will promote a ton of scoring. Outside of the usual Sunday pressure to close, these players will have incredible “go low” weather over the weekend. Wyndham is a fun positional test. Guys can make a high score if they find themselves out of position. Even Tom Kim made a quadruple bogey in the year he won. Kim opened the tournament with a quad and still shot 67 that day! Scoring and points will be the coverage theme along with soft conditions. Get ready to play on Bermudagrass as well. Wet, humid Bermuda will be extremely grainy. Players with positive experiences on this southern weed will have an advantage, and we will weigh that into our card. The top 65 and ties make the weekend. There's no doubt this cut is bigger than others, as those outside the top 70 who don't stay through Sunday are done until the Procore Championship the second week in September. You better believe that event is going to accept an all-star cast of Ryder Cuppers two weeks before Bethpage. That will leave just six more fall events for players to secure their top 100 status. Want more weight on the Wyndham? Avoid those 12 holes with water in play and the Bermuda rough. Go low on the greens, and you have a chance to play another week. The PGA TOUR set this up to be dramatic, but it's just a shame we're heading to a “soft” Sedgefield to figure it out. Lie detectorOur last two Wyndham winners are impeccable ball strikers. Tom Kim is a serious accuracy artist as well, if you want to go back three years. Brandt Snedeker, Webb Simpson, Henrik Stenson, and Sergio Garcia have all won here. In summary, you cannot fake your way around this Ross routing. Competitors are forced to hit their spots, for if they don't, then you cannot keep pace with the scoring. So much of your success at Sedgefield is dictated by your play off the tee. Look at that list of names again, those guys hit it STRAIGHT. Add in a Kevin Kisner, Si Woo Kim, and Ryan Moore. These guys were never going to lead a long drive contest, but split the Carolina pines, and they have an advantage. I'm weighing total driving this week, along with strokes gained off the tee. I like the combination because by considering both, we get a more accurate balance between accuracy and length. Sedgefield Country Club is one of the easiest attacking courses on the PGA TOUR. Seventy percent of the approach shots fall under 175 yards. There are four important iron shots over 200 yards. Two par 3s over 220 yards and the two par 5s. Besides those four swings, this is a wedgefest. In many ways, it is very similar to a number of PGA TOUR venues. Where Sedgfield separates on approach is twofold. First, you have to consider the lies. SCC is far from flat. Ross did an exceptional job of laying the holes over the landscape. Holes move up-down, and side to side. There are very few level lies on this scorecard outside of the tee boxes. Avid RTL readers know, great around the green players are excellent off uneven lies. On weeks like Wyndham, I weigh those players on approach who have solid short games above all else. With 12 par 4s, you know scoring on the 4s is a factor. The king of par 4 scoring, Webb Simpson, made a career of playing in Greensboro! We'll be heavily considering par 4 acumen along with these par ranges. Here are the three yardage categories where players have gained the most strokes against the field over the last 10 years by par.
Agronomy is my next major consideration. Only the Country Club of Jackson (Sanderson) and TPC Southwind (St. Jude) have the super grainy style Bermudagrass we will see players play from this week. Many pundits will tell you the greens make a difference, but I also believe predicting lies around the green and from the rough play a huge part in the overall success each guy will gain on the field. Bermudagrass is like a bushy weed. The ball is extremely unpredictable from each type of lie. The more Bermuda holes you have played in your life, the better. We see it every year at Wyndham. Snedeker, Simpson, Glover, etc. Guys who grew up and played a ton of competitive golf in the southeast have a considerable edge. Can a guy with two gloves from England win? Yes, but if you look at the last 10 leaderboards, they are littered with hometown Southeast heroes. Three of the last five winners have lost strokes ARG in the week they won. This is a trick statistic. Thanks to the Bermudagrass rough and super-grainy tightly mown lies, Sedgefield CC is a tougher short game test than the stats let on. I mentioned this alongside approach play, but I will add in ARG touch to my research. Most miss this aspect of Wyndham week, but we will not. Just because a player doesn't "gain" a ton of strokes on the field does not mean they didn't have a great short game week. Of course, experience reigns supreme again as the more shots you have hit off various Bermuda lies, the better your prediction process becomes. That's the trick with all of Bermuda agronomy. The ball can fall to the bottom or sit on top. Two inches of Bermudagrass is the equivalent of four inches of bluegrass rough or more. You can get hot flyers from Bermuda and heavy lies. We are going to see a bunch more of the latter with the wet conditions, but in all cases, the hometown handicap applies. If you're used to this grass, you have an opportunity to differentiate yourself. There's no place where that separation takes place more than on the putting surfaces. The last five winners have gained over six strokes on the field with their flatstick (average). Seven of the last 10 have gained over four strokes. The grain grabs the ball when it loses speed. Therefore, those putts inside 10 feet are the ones that are most affected. Expert Bermuda readers have an advantage, and it shows in their putting history. A guy could spike, but I'm sticking with proven consistency on Bermudagrass greens. A second filter is scoring. Those players who have been converting birdie chances are my first look. We haven't been on Bermuda in quite some time, so this research will go back more than my usual 20-24 rounds. I seldom mention my round reach, but I'll take a moment to address it. I believe in recent form, and as it applies to course history. I know several very successful touts use 36+ rounds. Their success proves it will work under certain conditions as well, but when it comes to building out an entire betting card and DFS lineups, there's a sweet spot around that 20, 22, 24 round number. In my mind, it shows the perfect combination of recent form and sustained consistency. If you always filter for 50 rounds, then Scottie, Rory, Xander, etc. will sit at the top of your list. Cut the length in half, and Scottie will still be #1 (Ha, ha), but you will also start to see more of the Chris Gotterups of the world as they make their ascent. Catching a guy on the climb is the best time to bet him. Look at last week's placements. Christiaan Bezuidenhout would never reach noticeable status for the 3M at 36+ rounds. Run a shorter span, and we hit a nice top 20 (+360). That's enough on the Wyndham. I'm incorporating a couple of those playing for their PGA TOUR lives and proven Wyndham winners. We won here last year during a Tropical Storm. There's no need to reinvent the wheel on one of the PGA TOUR's more predictable venues. Outright Winners - Wyndham ChampionshipImmediate returnsFor the third time in LPGA history, a woman won on her professional debut. Lottie Woad captured the ISPS Handa Women's Scottish Open and another win for Read The Line! Woad will be one to watch as she handled the closing nine on Sunday like a touring veteran. With two wins (Irish Open three weeks ago) and a third place at the Evian Championship, Lottie suddenly has everyone's attention, including the books. When the odds board dropped on Monday for the AIG Women's Open, she was the betting favorite. A better chance to win than Jeeno or Nelly? Who wouldn't like her chances? In the difficult conditions of Dundonald Links, Woad was the only player to score four rounds in the 60s. Since the Scottish Open was a pure coastal links test, that preview for Royal Porthcawl certainly means something. It's our last major championship of the 2025 season. From the west coast of Scotland, we travel south to Wales and Royal Porthcawl. A difficult name to say, the course earned royal status in 1909 thanks to Edward VII. Set along the southwestern coast of Wales, west of Cardiff, and along the Bristol Channel, this seaside links is as harsh a test as one can get for links golf. Good! Why not close the major season with an awesome examination? All 20 LPGA winners are in the field of 144 players. The top 30 in the Rolex Rankings are ready to compete for $9.5 million. Get inside the low 65 and ties to play the weekend, and you will have a chance to capture the $1.4 million first-place prize. A lot is on the line, and all eyes are once again on Lottie. AIG Women's Open starts in...Royal Porthcawl's first impression appears just as harsh as pronouncing the name. No stranger to championship golf, the Curtis Cup (1964), three Senior Opens (2014, 2017, 2023), and a Tiger Woods led Walker Cup team played a match here in 1995 against Great Britain and Ireland. On an interesting side note, all the Senior Opens were won by German players. Does that mean Esther Henseleit is a solid pick? She's an excellent links player, but let's do a little more research. Was Dundonald Links a preview for Porthcawl? Yes, but imagine Dundonald on steroids, and that's what the women will experience in Wales. It’s links golf, so let's start with the weather. We had some harsh weather for the Scottish Open, but this looks worse. Temperatures are forecasted to reach 70, and we shouldn't see any rain until Sunday. The wind will be a different story. Alongside an open waterway, the breeze can build up across the landscape. Steady wind in the 15-18 mph range is expected with gusts in the 20-25 mph zone. LPGA players are not blistering the ball with 175 mph of ball speed. Start hitting drives and approaches into the atmosphere with a 25-mph crosswind, and you'll see very quickly how good your ball striking is. The fairways are wider at Porthcawl than Dundonald, but that's because they have to be. Seaside links are all designed with favorable landing areas off the tee to factor in the wind. Get to the greens, and Royal Porthcawl's putting surfaces are much smaller than the average links. Here's where the test takes place, and where I'll be focused on who can win. The average green size is 6,500 sq/ft. Many of the opening green complexes sit alongside the course boundary, bringing terrible trouble into play. If you get a moment, I suggest watching the flyovers on the Porthcawl website; the layout is stunning and scary. Grass, wind, water, and sand are the obstacles. The wind we mentioned, and the women have four holes to contend with water in play. All types of vegetation surround these fairways and greens, so good luck in the gorse if you get off line. Did I miss one? Oh yes, the sand. Royal Porthcawl has 116 bunkers. Classic, deep, vertically edged traps that take away all hope of making par. The bunkering is brilliant on this course. It is some of the finest I have studied, preparing for a championship week. Fifty fairway bunkers and another 66 sit greenside to elevate the experience. Porthcawl deserves Royal status. A majestic links, I don't think 21 under par is reachable with ten tournament rounds. Between the bunkers and the forecast, I believe eight to ten under would do it. It's always tough to say when the weather plays such an important role, but this beauty is a brutal test and the perfect bookend to our major season. Sand trooperLet's imagine walking up to the eighteenth hole at Royal Porthcawl, preparing to play a tournament round at the Women's Open. Yes, tournament officials have massaged the routing, so the players start on 18 and finish on 17. That may sound odd, but the first hole at Porthcawl tees off across the eighteenth fairway. More logistics than anything else, finishing on a par 5 will be fun, and no matter the routing, you have to play them all! Put the tee in the ground, and what thoughts are going through your mind? What must you do to perform at a high level and contend? The fairways are wide but will be shrunk by the wind. Holes 2, 3, 4, and 6 all ask you to shape the ball right to left off the tee with a left side out of bounds. Ten of the 14 driving holes move right to left off the tee. Since this landscape is vertically barren, you don't have to hit a right to left shot, but you must fit the ball into these fairways. Since the landing areas are generous, if you miss, the penalty is severe. Total driving is an important skill this week. We saw what happened to players down the stretch at Dundonald who could not find the fairway. Looking back through recent Women's Open leaderboards, there are two skill sets that pop up, and we saw them in Scotland. Great iron players excel in links golf. The ability to control spin and trajectory in the wind trumps every other skill. If an excellent iron player can get hot with the putter during one of these weeks, they win. The approach test on paper at Porthcawl is average for a major championship. There are six par 4s over 400 yards, but the fairways will be firm. Lead the field in proximity from 125-150 yards, and you'll be in the conversation come Sunday afternoon. The four par 5s average 500 yards in length. That will allow for some long iron/hybrid play along with the two long par 3s. Those six approaches might just be the opportunity one needs to differentiate themselves. Hitting scoring irons and wedges into these tabletop surfaces in the wind is the ultimate test. I'm following those who have proven they can hit their irons on links layouts. US target golf is great, but I need next-level trajectory artists. The second skill set we see is scrambling. Look at Lydia Ko, Lilia Vu, and others. Great players, but they win because they put the ball in the hole quicker than their competitors. Short game will play a huge role at Royal Porthcawl. You’d better have some serious sand acumen, as those 116 bunkers have surrounding surfaces that pull the ball into the pit. The four par 3 greens are surrounded by 19 bunkers total! Links leaderboards are always covered in great around the green players. Look at Hyo Joo Kim last week. Kim is ranked fifty-eighth on approach and fifty-fourth in total driving, yet third in scrambling and third in par 4 scoring. Porthcawl's greens are not big. With firm conditions, players will miss the putting surface, and then what? Hit a fairway bunker and you need to get up and down from 80 or 100 yards to save par. This is going to play as one of the toughest tests these women have seen all season. Be prepared to save it from the sand (and everywhere else). Lydia Ko gained nearly eight strokes on the greens at St. Andrews last year. Some might say St. Andrews has enormous greens, and that fits the model. Two years ago, Lilia Vu gained 10 strokes on the field with her flatstick. Ashleigh Buhai, the year before Vu gained another seven-plus strokes. Yes, winners putt well, but the AIG rewards a solid stroke better than most. Making those six-footers to save par under pressure while being blown over is a talent, and we're forecasting for it. The greens will be slow, so that becomes a consideration as well. Good links putters are a specific set, and we know who they are after years of data and leaderboards at the Scottish and Women's Open. The truth is, there are not a ton of challenging slopes and swales in these surfaces. Handle the external influences and you can make some sub-par scores. Wrapping my research, I favored par 4 scoring and BoB talent. Manage your birdie to bogey ratio, and you'll probably be contending right next to Lottie Woad! Who knows if she can keep the momentum going but heading into an event as the favorite is another level of expectations. Speaking of which, here is who I expect to compete for the AIG Women's Open title. Outright winners - AIG Women's OpenRead between the linesThe best place to follow news about Read The Line is right here! Do you know what it means to be a member of Read The Line?We provide more outrights, prop bets, H2H matchups, DFS lineups, and One & Done picks. Hit the link above and see for yourself!
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