By Andy Lack

2023 Wyndham Championship Course Breakdown: Sedgefield Country Club

The Basics 

• Course: Sedgefield Country Club
• Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
• Designer: Donald Ross (1926), Kris Spence renovation (2007)
• Length: Par 70; 7,131 yards
• Hazards: Water comes into play on 6 holes
• Fairways: Bermuda-grass, averaging 29 yards wide
• Rough: Bermuda-grass, 2.5 inches
• Greens: 6,000 square feet, featuring Champion Bermuda-grass and running 12 on the stimp

The Wyndham Championship has been a staple of the PGA Tour since 1983 when it was founded as the Greater Greensboro Open. It had been annually played in April or May until a schedule change in 2003 moved it toward the end of the season. The tournament has been hosted at a number of courses over the years before a permanent move to the Donald Ross-designed Sedgefield Country Club in 2008. The Wyndham Championship is the final PGA TOUR event before the FedEx Cup playoffs, meaning it will be the last chance for players to crack the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings and continue their season next week in Memphis.

We are in the midst of a bit of a Donald Ross portion of the schedule, with Detroit Golf Club in the rearview mirror, and Sedgefield and East Lake both on the horizon in the next month. Sedgefield features all of the staples of a true Carolina course, and the slick Bermuda-grass greens should provide a worthy challenge this week if conditions remain dry. Last year, Sedgefield ranked 23rd out of 38 courses in scoring difficulty, and it usually ranks middle of the pack to on the easier side in this category.

Sedgefield is the third-shortest course on the PGA Tour, and it features the fourth-shortest set of par fours and par fives on the schedule. While two of the par threes play over 220 yards and rank as the sixth- and fifth-hardest holes on the course, Sedgefield still featured the fourth-easiest set of par threes on the PGA Tour last year. Both of the par fives are incredibly benign as well, featuring over a 50% birdie rate and playing as the two easiest holes on the course. They played as the third-easiest set of par fives on the schedule last year. The fifth hole is truly more of a long par four, yielding a scoring average of 4.36, featuring a 56.1% birdie rate and a 6.3% eagle rate. Sedgefield also features a ton of short- to medium-length par fours, which explains why nearly two-thirds of all approach shots come from 125 to 200 yards. A whopping eight par fours measure between 400 and 450 yards on the scorecard. I would imagine that there will be a temptation to look at par four scoring (400-450 yards), but that I don’t believe we can use that as a legitimate predictive metric. I can provide a Ted Talk on the “hole-by-hole yardage stats” and how absolutely useless they are, but that’s for another day. What we can say definitively is that short- to middle-iron play will be of the upmost importance this week. With an absence of truly long par fours, players will have a maximum of about five long-iron approaches on this course. Even the par five fifth hole is a middle iron for most pros these days. Webb Simpson, the number one player in strokes gained total at this event over the last decade, described the course aptly, “It goes back to the point of the golf course. Bay Hill, Tiger won so many times. Akron (Firestone) produces long hitters winning there. Depending on the golf course, you can kind of create your own pool of winners that are usually going to win there, whereas this course, like I said, it favors nobody. Most everybody in the field has a legitimate chance to win whereas you know, maybe you go to San Diego, I can’t remember the last time somebody who didn’t bomb it winning there. That’s a place where you take out 50% of the field from the start of the week.”

Simpson is not wrong. Sedgefield falls into the category of other short, positional, often Bermuda golf courses such as Harbour Town, Waialae, Sea Island, TPC Sawgrass, TPC River Highlands, etc. that the shortest players have a far easier time competing at than the aforementioned Firestone, Bay Hill, or Torrey Pines. For this reason, a large degree of my model is dedicating to identifying the players who have performed the best in this style of golf. Many players such as Webb Simpson, Kevin Kisner, Russell Henley, Brendon Todd, Mark Hubbard, Andrew Putnam, Chris Kirk, etc. that do not have the benefit of over-imposing power off the tee, will have their stats hurt by when they are forced to play longer golf courses that are unideal fits for their game. Yet when they travel to Sedgefield or any of the aforementioned short, positional golf courses, they find that their accuracy off the tee, wedge play, and putting becomes far more crucial than some of the driver-heavy, long-iron-intensive, execution style of golf courses that we typically see players such as Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy find success at.

There’s always an added element of drama with the Wyndham being the last opportunity for players to qualify for the lucrative FedEx Cup playoffs, but I would not allow an unquantifiable narrative such as “motivation” to affect your decision-making process too heavily this week. My stance on players who need to perform to continue their season is that they are in a do-or-die position right now because they haven’t been good enough this season, and often if they can turn it on, they would have already done so. It should not come as a surprise that NFL teams have a losing record against the spread in “must-win” spots, and we can often capitalize on bettors thinking that because a player or team has to play well, they will. This has proven to be an incorrect line of reasoning time and again. With that being said, the FedEx Cup bubble is always enjoyable to monitor this week, and we will surely see a few players who have struggled this season stamp their ticket to the playoffs with a strong performance in Greensboro. Let’s dive into the stats.

Stats 

• Off the Tee 
  • Last year, 21.0% of strokes gained at Sedgefield came off the tee, which is well above the Tour average of 15.3%. The event average falls closer to 18.4%, which is still well above Tour average.
  • Last year, Sedgefield ranked 28th out of 38 courses in strokes gained off-the-tee difficulty, and each of the last five years, it has ranked on the easier side in terms of strokes gained off-the-tee difficulty.
  • Driving accuracy at Sedgefield has been historically right around Tour average (62%), while driving distance has been a touch lower than Tour average. The Ross design features the seventh-most narrow fairways on the PGA Tour, and it is not a golf course where driver is required. There is very little benefit to bombing away with the big stick, as the unpredictable Bermuda rough has been known to present problems. Henrik Stenson won on this golf course without even carrying a driver!
  • Last year, Sedgefield ranked fourth out 38 courses in missed fairway penalty, eighth out of 38 courses in fraction rough penalty, and 12th out of 38 courses in fraction of missed fairways that result in a penalty stroke. There is not a ton of water or true hazards on this course, but Sedgefield did rank second out of 38 courses in re-loads per round.
  • It’s fairly important to play from the fairway here, as it is far more challenging to control out of Bermuda rough than Blue-grass. This eliminates a lot of the value in a bomb-and-gauge strategy and explains why we’ve seen so many shorter hitters and fairway finders experience loads of success at this golf course. That is not to say that hitting driver often is an ignorant strategy, but accuracy still reigns over power. On shorter courses with a large delta between scoring from the fairway and the rough, I always find it valuable to identify the players who gain the most strokes off the tee on shorter, positional golf courses. The best drivers of the ball on these types of golf courses over the past two years have been Sungjae Im, Keith Mitchell, Kevin Yu, Cameron Davis, Russell Henley, Chris Kirk, Luke List, J.T. Poston, J.J. Spaun, and Austin Eckroat. 
  • Playing from the rough at Sedgefield is far from ideal, but being in the trees or pine-straw is an abject disaster. As someone who played exclusively Carolina courses in college, I can adamantly vouch for this. While there is not a tremendous amount of water in play at Sedgefield, the trees at Sedgefield seem to act as their own hazard.
  • I was able to find a large correlation between success at Sedgefield and driving accuracy. While it’s still possible to play well here without hitting a ton of fairways, players who find the short grass on a consistent basis have proven to gain a huge edge. In 2019, Webb Simpson and J.T. Poston ranked first and second in driving accuracy percentage and finished first and second on the leaderboard. In 2020, Jim Herman won this event ranking fourth in driving accuracy. Third-place finisher Doc Redman ranked third in driving accuracy, and only Sam Burns was able to crack the top-15 that year with below-average driving accuracy. In 2021, Kevin Kisner broke a bit of the trend by ranking middle of the pack in accuracy, but five of the top 10 on the leaderboard still ranked in the top 10 in that category. Last year, Tom Kim ranked fourth in driving accuracy. Nine of the last 11 winners of the Wyndham Championship have ranked inside the top 15 in driving accuracy percentage. The most accurate drivers of the ball in the field this year have been Russell Henley, Ryan Armour, Aaron Rai, Ryan Moore, Satoshi Kodaira, Lucas Glover, Adam Long, Brendon Todd, David Lingmerth, and Si Woo Kim. 

• Approach
  • Last year, 32.0% of strokes gained at Sedgefield came on approach, which is below the Tour average of 34.7%. The event average number falls to 31.2% historically.
  • Last year, Sedgefield ranked 34th out of 38 courses in strokes gained approach difficulty, and the prior year, it was the easiest course on the PGA Tour in approach difficulty. Sedgefield is absolutely one of the most straightforward approach courses on the schedule.
  • It featured the third-easiest greens to hit on Tour last year, and it ranked 32nd out of 38 courses in approach difficulty inside 150 yards and 34th out of 38 courses in approach difficulty from greater than 150 yards.
  • Considering Sedgefield is so easy on approach, does that deem iron play non-essential? Not entirely. There are an incredible amount of mid to short irons on this golf course, and it is nothing like a St. Andrews where it’s a lot of driver-putter either. However, the degree of difficulty on most of these approach shots is incredibly low, so I do believe that worse iron players might feel a little more comfortable approaching the greens. The sheer volume of short-iron approaches on this course leads me to value wedge play greatly, but I do not believe that one must be an elite iron player to win at Sedgefield, especially if they can putt.
  • Still, in 2020, every single player in the top 15 of the leaderboard gained over a stroke on approach, and the winner does generally have a very strong iron week. Tom Kim was rock-solid on approach last year, but his putter still remained his number one key to success. Kevin Kisner was even less impressive with his irons, but the prior five champions all ranked in the top five on the week in strokes gained approach.
  • The proximity range that we really want to focus on at Sedgefield is 125 to 200 yards. Last year, 20.6% of approach shots came from 125-150 yards, which is above the Tour average of 17%. 21.0% of approach shots came from 150-175 yards, which is above the Tour average of 20.3%, and 20.9% of approach shots came from 175 to 200 yards, which is above the Tour average of 17.5%. The best mid- to short-iron players in this field have been Hideki Matsuyama, Gary Woodland, Justin Thomas, Ryan Moore, Akshay Bhatia, Russell Knox, Si Woo Kim, Carl Yuan, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, and Ryan Armour. 

• Around the Green 
  • Last year, 13.8% of strokes gained at Sedgefield came around the greens, which is below the Tour average of 14.5%. The event average falls even further to 12.5%.
  • Last year, Sedgefield ranked second out of 38 courses in around-the-green difficulty, and it has actually ranked inside the top 10 in this category each of the last five years. Sneakily, Sedgefield has proven to be one of the most challenging short game courses on the PGA Tour.
  • Last year, Sedgefield ranked third out of 38 courses in around-the-green difficulty from the fairway, first out of 38 courses in around-the-green difficulty from the rough, and 15th out of 38 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers.
  • Like all courses that feature a high greens-in-regulation percentage, players who are relying on their short game at Sedgefield are unlikely to be in contention to win the tournament. In 2020, the top three players on the leaderboard were slight losers around the green. In 2021, six of the top 10 players on the leaderboard lost around the green, and last year, Tom Kim lost over a stroke around the green en route to victory. With that being said, much of what makes Sedgefield so tricky around the greens is the unpredictable Bermuda rough and closely mown Bermuda short-grass. The players who have found the most success around the green on Bermuda courses are Matt Kuchar, Justin Thomas, Chris Kirk, Byeong-Hun An, Danny Willett, Rory Sabbatini, Mackenzie Hughes, Aaron Baddeley, Ben Griffin, and Brendon Todd. 

• Putting 
  • Last year, 33.1% of strokes gained at Sedgefield came with the flat-stick, which is below the Tour average of 35.5%. The long-term event average, however, is higher than Tour average.
  • Last year, Sedgefield ranked seventh out of 38 courses in putting difficulty, and each of the last five years, it has ranked as one of the most challenging courses on the PGA Tour from a putting standpoint. Sedgefield is actually a fairly easy course from tee to green and a very challenging course on and around the greens.
  • Last year, Sedgefield ranked 24th out of 38 courses in putting difficulty inside five feet, 14th out of 38 courses in putting difficulty from five to 15 feet, and third out of 38 courses in putting difficulty greater than 15 feet, so Sedgefield actually remains one of the toughest lag-putting courses on Tour, not entirely unexpected for a Donald Ross course. The best approach putters in this field over the last year have been Eric Cole, Nico Echavarria, Sam Burns, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Nate Lashley, Beau Hossler, Sam Ryder, Aaron Baddeley, Michael Kim, and Andrew Putnam. 
  • In 2019, the entire top 22 on the leaderboard gained strokes putting. In 2020, under easier scoring conditions, the entire top 25 on the leaderboard gained strokes putting. In 2021, 17 of the top 20 players on the leaderboard gained strokes putting, and last year, under more challenging tee-to-green conditions, the top three players on the leaderboard still gained over four strokes putting. Sedgefield walks the line of a putting contest in the sense that there is an extremely high greens-in-regulation percentage, and weaker tee-to-green players can absolutely compete here. Sedgefield still gives players more of a challenge from tee to green than Detroit Golf Club, a Donald Ross design we saw just a few weeks ago. Experience on similar short, positional courses, accuracy off the tee, and middle- to short-iron play is incredibly important here, but it is also undeniable that the putter will need to cooperate as well. It’s less seldom that we see members of Team No-Putt have a ton of success here. Hideki Matsuyama and Sergio Garcia come to mind as notable exceptions, yet still, elite long-term putters such as Billy Horschel, Kevin Kisner, Webb Simpson, Patrick Reed, J.T. Poston, Denny McCarthy, Kevin Na, Brendon Todd, and Zach Johnson seem to often populate the leaderboard. Sedgefield features particularly fast Bermuda-grass greens, a far cry from what even what we saw last week in Minnesota. After a bit of a Bent-grass swing, we are back to identifying players who specifically raise their baseline on Bermuda-grass greens. The best Bermuda-grass putters in in this field over the last two years have been Martin Trainer, Taylor Montgomery, Sam Burns, Brian Gay, Andrew Putnam, Ben Taylor, Matt Kuchar, Alex Noren, Harry Hall, and Sam Ryder. 

• Scoring Stats 
  • I’ll cover this more extensively during the comp course section, but Sedgefield is one of the shortest, most strategic courses on Tour where all types of players can compete. There are certain players who consistently seem raise their baseline on these positional types of courses. The best players in this field over the last two years on shorter courses have been Russell Henley, Hideki Matsuyama, J.T. Poston, Denny McCarthy, Sungjae Im, Eric Cole, Keith Mitchell, Ben Griffin, Andrew Putnam, and Taylor Montgomery. 
  • Sedgefield is also a Bermuda course from head to toe and features very similar agronomy to what we have grown accustomed to in Florida and the Southeast United States. There are some players who are simply more comfortable with this type of rough and green style than others who are more prone to success on Bent-grass and Poa. The best players in this field over the last two years on Bermuda-grass tee-to-green courses have been Sungjae Im, Justin Thomas, Ben Griffin, Sam Burns, Matt Kuchar, Hideki Matsuyama, Taylor Moore, Thomas Detry, Chris Kirk, and Alex Noren. 
  • Sedgefield features easy enough scoring where I still want to identify players who can make birdies in bunches. Despite somewhat more challenging scoring conditions over the last two years, the Donald Ross design is still a course where players need to be in the mindset of getting themselves to 20-under par. The players in this field who make the most birdies per round have been Eric Cole, Adam Scott, Nicolai Hojgaard, Denny McCarthy, Taylor Montgomery, Sungjae Im, Vincent Norrman, Brandon Wu, Akshay Bhatia, and Harry Hall. 
  • On any course that features easy scoring conditions and a great deal of short-iron approaches, I want to identify players who generate the most birdie looks per round. The players in this field who give themselves the most birdie looks per round inside 15 feet have been Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama, Chez Reavie, Chris Kirk, Ben Martin, Ludvig Aberg, Ryan Palmer, Luke List, Kevin Yu, and Davis Riley. 

• Comp Course/Course History 
  • Sedgefield does feature some of the more predictive course history on the PGA Tour. It’s not as predictive as Waialae or Harbour Town, but there is certainly some nuance to these Donald Ross green complexes, and the same players seem to always perform here year after year. On the other hand, it is worth noting that Tom Kim did win last year on his debut appearance, while Ben Griffin, Taylor Moore, and Max McGreevy all finished in the top five on debut as well. I would certainly not discredit talented first-timers, but the best players at Sedgefield over the past five years have been Webb Simpson, Sungjae Im, Billy Horschel, Russell Henley, Si Woo Kim, Zach Johnson, Brandt Snedeker, Ryan Moore, Denny McCarthy, and Hideki Matsuyama. 
  • Sedgefield falls right into the bucket of short, positional golf courses where accuracy trumps power. Two of the most accuracy-biased golf courses on Tour are TPC Potomac, former host of the Wells Fargo Championship and Quicken Loans, and TPC River Highlands, host of the Travelers Championship. While both courses differ from Sedgefield in their agronomy, they do a solid job (particularly TPC Potomac) of emphasizing the importance of precision on the first shot. The best players in this field at these short, positional, yet Northeast Bent-grass courses have been Chez Reavie, Ryan Armour, Kevin Streelman, Ryan Moore, Mackenzie Hughes, Russell Henley, Stewart Cink, Webb Simpson, Stephan Jaeger, and Charley Hoffman. 
  • TPC Sawgrass, host of the Players Championship, immediately comes to mind as another shorter Bermuda course where finding the fairway is imperative. It should not come as a surprise that players such as Webb Simpson, Si Woo Kim, Kevin Kisner, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, and Hideki Matsuyama have all finished top-three at both tracks. The best players in this field at TPC Sawgrass have been Hideki Matsuyama, Si Woo Kim, Justin Thomas, Adam Scott, Shane Lowry, Justin Suh, Adam Hadwin, Sungjae Im, Ryan Moore, and Alex Noren. 
  • East Lake, host of the Tour Championship, is another obvious reference point given the Donald Ross connection and similar agronomy. East Lake is more challenging than Sedgefield, but both courses emphasize accuracy off the tee and feature tricky green complexes. There’s a strong leaderboard crossover here as well, with Ryan Moore, Henrik Stenson, Russell Henley, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Billy Horschel, and Justin Rose all finding success at both tracks. The best players in this field at East Lake have been Justin Thomas, Ryan Moore, Luke Donald, Chris Kirk, Russell Henley, Billy Horschel, Adam Scott, J.T. Poston, Zach Johnson, and Sungjae Im. 
  • Sea Island, host of the RSM Classic, also checks the box of a Bermuda course that places an emphasis on accuracy off the tee, wedge play, and similar scoring conditions. Once again, scanning through the leaderboards at the RSM Classic, and it’s many of the same names. The best players in this field at Sea Island have been Webb Simpson, Denny McCarthy, Adam Svensson, Chris Kirk, Luke List, K.H. Lee, Robert Streb, Billy Horschel, Russell Henley, and Taylor Pendrith. 
  • Harbour Town, host of the RBC Heritage, is a bit more visually claustrophobic, but it asks the same type of question off the tee as all of the aforementioned courses. Looking at the 10 best players in this field over the last five years at Harbour Town, none of these names should surprise us. The best players in this field at Harbour Town have been Matt Kuchar, Cameron Davis, J.T. Poston, Webb Simpson, Shane Lowry, Alex Noren, Russell Henley, Sam Burns, Rory Sabbatini, and Joel Dahmen. 
  • There are still many other accuracy-biased courses that deserve mention (Waialae, Innisbrook) but I did not find as strong of a connection with as the aforementioned tracks. Ultimately, identifying the players who raise their baseline on this style of golf course remains absolutely paramount.

Model 

• Off the Tee (15%)
  • Strokes Gained Off the Tee: Short Courses (7%)
  • Driving Accuracy Percentage (8%)
• Approach (19%)
  • Recent Approach Play (7%)
  • Proximity 125-150 yards (4%)
  • Proximity 150-175 yards (4%)
  • Proximity 175-200 yards (4%)
• Putting (14%)
  • Strokes Gained Putting: Bermuda (9%)
  • Approach Putting (5%)
• Scoring Stats (22%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Short Courses (6%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Bermuda (5%)
  • Birdies or Better Gained (5%)
  • Opportunities Gained (6%)
• Comp Courses/Course History (18%)
  • Sedgefield (6%)
  • TPC Potomac (2%)
  • TPC River Highlands (2%)
  • TPC Sawgrass (2%)
  • East Lake (2%)
  • Harbour Town (2%)
  • Sea Island (2%)

Model Top 20 

1. Hideki Matsuyama
2. Sungjae Im
3. Chris Kirk
4. Denny McCarthy
5. Russell Henley
6. Si Woo Kim
7. Brendon Todd
8. Eric Cole
9. Shane Lowry
10. Matt Kuchar
11. Adam Hadwin
12. Sam Burns
13. Cameron Davis
14. Justin Thomas
15. Christiaan Bezuidenhout
16. Mark Hubbard
17. Alex Smalley
18. Brandon Wu
19. Kevin Yu
20. Aaron Rai