Tour Guide: Checking in at the Wyndham

It’s tough to follow the show we had last week in France for the men’s Olympic competition, but the PGA Tour will try its best this week in Greensboro for the Wyndham Championship. To honor the occasion, this week’s Tour Guide features Joseph LaMagna on what it takes to play well at Sedgefield, and one player to watch. We also look back at the 2015 edition, which featured a rare then (and even rarer now) Tiger appearance at an event not usually on his schedule.

Hit ‘Em Straight

By Joseph LaMagna

We’ve arrived at Wyndham Championship week, the PGA Tour’s regular season finale. This tournament represents the final opportunity for players to play their way into the FedEx Cup playoffs and ultimately lock up status in all of the signature events in 2025. The Wyndham also offers golf fans the opportunity to watch high-level golf at the Donald Ross-designed Sedgefield Country Club, a course with true character that presents a distinct test.

No golf course on the PGA Tour schedule punishes wide misses as harshly as Sedgefield Country Club. The difference between an on-line tee shot and a sprayed tee shot is nearly a full stroke, a higher total than anywhere else on the PGA Tour. Sedgefield is tight and tree-lined, but a key distinction between Sedgefield and other tight and tree-lined golf courses is that you generally can’t get away with hitting the ball outside the boundaries of the tree lines. The trees are so dense that the farther you hit the ball into the tree-lined area, the more jailed your position becomes. This contrasts with courses like Detroit Golf Club, another tree-lined Donald Ross golf course where some loose tee shots can end up in fine locations.

Another notable feature of Sedgefield is that many of the holes are between 390 and 440 yards, distances not highly correlated with power off the tee. In other words, the value of distance is higher on drivable or semi-drivable par 4s and on par 5s than it is on short-medium length holes. Sedgefield doesn’t have any drivable par 4s, and there are only two par 5s. Thus, this is not really a course that you’ll see golfers overpower. The penalty for a long, off-line tee shot is too high, and the reward for additional distance doesn’t justify bashing driver all over the course. This would not be an ideal golf course for Bryson DeChambeau, for example. Many golfers will hit driver just five to seven times each round.

A final course feature worth mentioning: the severity of the greens. The greens at Sedgefield are both pure and diabolical. If you find yourself above the hole often, you’ll likely rack up some three-putts.

When I think about holes at Sedgefield Country Club, the par-3 12th immediately comes to mind. For my money, it is a sneaky wonderful par 3 on the PGA Tour, and it reminds me quite a bit of the par 3s at another (highly correlated) golf course on the PGA Tour schedule. Feel free to take a guess in the comments. The plot below gives an insightful glimpse into the challenge of the 12th hole, which typically plays 190-235 yards.

Shots that come up short of the two-tiered 12th green will roll back down the hill and leave players with a tricky up and down. Long is no bargain either, though, as putting down the hill towards a front pin from the back half of the green can quickly turn into a three-putt.

Overall, success at the Wyndham Championship tends to follow a consistent recipe: keep the ball in play, hit solid short irons, and be tidy on and around the greens. These are all areas of the game in which Webb Simpson excelled during his prime. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Simpson has experienced success here, yet his track record, which includes ten top-10 finishes and a win in 15 starts, never ceases to amaze me. Expectations should be tempered for the nearly 39-year-old Simpson, but his expectations should be as high at this tournament as anywhere else on tour.

Unfortunately, significant rain and wind are forecast for the area, at least for the first couple of rounds of play. A firm Sedgefield presents a unique, reasonably strong test for the best golfers in the world, but a soft Sedgefield loses a lot of its teeth. Once the winds die down on the weekend and the golf course is rendered mostly defenseless, I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone post a 59.

Memory Lane: Tiger’s Small Venue Tour

By Jay Rigdon

2015’s Wyndham Championship is memorable as Davis Love III’s last PGA Tour victory. That’s “last” as in the last time he did it, not his final one, although at this point it’s probably safe to just say “last” in every sense. If DL3 proves me wrong, all the better.) But it’s ALSO notable for who finished T-10: Tiger Woods. (If you were expecting me to say Ryan Moore, also T-10 that year, you’re my kind of reader.)

Tiger was in a fascinating place in 2015. In 2014, Woods had been atop the Official World Golf Rankings again, but required back surgery in April that caused him to miss the Masters. He returned to play that summer, but never really found any form. 2015 was similar; Woods played all four majors, finishing T-17 at the Masters and missing the cut in the remaining three events. Staring down a long stretch without competitive reps, Woods decided to play the Wyndham, giving us what feels like a rare treat in the last ten years of Tiger playing a non-traditional (for him) stop on the PGA Tour.

It went well, too! Woods opened with a 64, firing up the crowd for a tournament that is normally known more for being the final chance for players to earn their way to the FedEx Cup postseason.

After Friday and Saturday rounds of 65 and 68, Tiger was actually in the hunt until a few bad holes on Sunday, when he finished with a 71 and the aforementioned T-10. Just weeks later, Tiger had another back procedure. A month after that, he required a follow-up procedure. He would play just three times in 2016, and then required yet another back surgery in early 2017, a year that saw him tee it up just three times in competition.

That made the Wyndham top-10 result Tiger’s only full-field top 10 across four calendar years, spanning 2014-2017. The next time Tiger managed to do it? The 2018 Valspar, one of the only other times Tiger decided to play somewhere he didn’t usually compete. Getting to see Tiger at what is usually a sleepier spot was a joy in 2015, especially so in retrospect as we had little idea just how rare the sight of Tiger in contention was about to become.

[featured image via PGA Tour]

Tour Guide is a weekly Club TFE feature looking at the world of pro golf, focusing on course details, players to watch, swing analysis, and the occasional light-hearted romp through golf history.