By: Field Level Media
PGA Odds: Wyndham Championship Odds for the Weekend
Collin Morikawa’s familiarity with TPC Harding Park was on full display as the 23-year-old former Cal star charged to his first major title at the PGA Championship.
Players often build their schedules around marquee events, courses that suit their games and those they are intimately familiar with.
This week’s Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Sedgefield, N.C. doesn’t qualify as a marquee event for most of the field. But it does represent the final opportunity for players outside of the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings to qualify for the first leg of the playoffs next week, and for others to improve their chances of advancing beyond The Northern Trust.
Webb Simpson is not only the top-ranked player in this week’s field at No. 6 in the world, he is also from nearby Raleigh. The 2011 champion has seven top-10 finishes in 11 starts at the Wyndham, including runner-up last year.
Simpson is understandably the favorite at most sportsbooks, including bet365 and BetRivers, who are both offering him at +1000. He was responsible for 10 percent of the handle and five percent of the outright winner bets at DraftKings by midweek.
Right on his tail is Brooks Koepka. Now No. 7 in the world after watching Morikawa leapfrog both him and Simpson, Koepka is grinding it out while playing for a sixth consecutive week.
His form has been better of late with a T2 and T29 the past two weeks. However, Koepka (+1100 at both books) is notorious for posting mediocre results in standard tour events. He admittedly uses them to work on his game and more enjoys the mental focus required in majors, which is why his has four major titles but a modest seven PGA Tour victories on his resume.
While bettors flocked to the action on Koepka when he was struggling and offering longer odds, only three percent of the outright winner bets this week have been placed on him at DraftKings. Koepka is also making his first start in the event since 2015.
PGA Odds a Gamecock Can Tar the Event in North Carolina
More action has been flowing toward the likes of Kevin Kisner (five percent). The South Carolina native has made the cut in all five previous starts at Sedgefield, including a pair of top-10s. He offers more enticing odds at +3300 at bet365, although he had been bet down to +2800 at BetRivers by midweek.
Another popular bet has been Brendon Todd (+3500, +3300). Already a two-time winner on Tour this season, Todd was tied for the first-round lead at the PGA Championship before finishing T17. He still climbed four more spots to No. 44 in the world and was a junior golf rival of Simpson’s down the road.
The local ties angle runs too deep to overlook.
J.T. Poston has one career PGA Tour victory. That came when the North Carolina shot a blistering 62 on Sunday to edge Simpson by a stroke last year, becoming the first player since Lee Trevino in 1974 to win a 72-hole event on the PGA Tour without carding a bogey or worse. Poston finished T75 last week, but did open with a 67.
Brandt Snedeker is from Nashville, but he has certainly shown a fondness for the Wyndham Championship, where he has earned two of his nine career PGA Tour victories (2007, 2018). He hasn’t shown solid form since the PGA Tour resumed in mid-June with his best result in six events being a T41, but Snedeker does entice as a +50000 longshot at bet365 and BetRivers.
Wyndham Championship Odds for More of an International Flavor
Of course, there are plenty of world class golfers to look at beyond the locals and previous champions.
Tommy Fleetwood made the trip to the United States after quarantining in England to ramp up for the busy slate of big events that began last week and continues with the playoffs.
He is playing for the fourth consecutive week and has steadily improved from a missed cut to T35 and then a T29 last week, where he flashed with a second-round 64. Fleetwood has yet to win on U.S. soil, but he was knocking at the door almost weekly before the coronavirus shut the game down for three months.
Fleetwood is one of the pre-tournament favorites at +1800 at bet365 and BetRivers. He was also second only to Simpson with six percent of the handle at DraftKings, where Fleetwood was also responsible for four percent of the outright winner bets.
Spain’s Sergio Garcia will be playing for the seventh time since the Tour resume, but he is coming off a missed cut at Harding Park and needs a good week just to continue his season. Garcia sits at No. 134 in the FedEx Cup standings and must finishing inside the top 125 to qualify for next week. He is +4500 at bet365 but has much shorter odds at some books like BetRivers (+3300)
England’s Justin Rose is 103rd and will play next week. But if the world’s 17th-ranked player wants to reach the second leg, he has two events to charge up the standings.
Rose has been inconsistent since parting with his long-time swing coach. However, he overcame some really poor shots to stay in contention deep into Sunday last week and enters the Wyndham as one of the pre-tournament favorites (+2200/+2000).
One more former major champion to keep a close eye on is Patrick Reed.
One of three top-10 players in the field, Reed finished T13 last week. He was also T10 at the Memorial last month and earned his first PGA Tour victory at the Wyndham in 2013.
Reed is +1400 at bet365 and +1600 at BetRivers, making him the third betting favorite at both behind only Simpson and Koepka.
–Field Level Media
