Tournament and Course Overview

Always a fan favorite, the TOUR heads up to the Charlotte, North Carolina area to the lovely Quail Hollow Club for the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship. The site of the 2017 PGA Championship is a track that grades out as one of the hardest on TOUR, with the finishing stretch of holes known as the “Green Mile,” ensuring that the week’s champion has earned his keep.

Quail Hollow demands a full test of golf, but when analyzing the stat models this week, pay particular attention to driving accuracy as this course yields nearly 10 percentage points fewer than a TOUR average course when it comes to hitting fairways. It is also a long track, so the proximity of shots from the 200+ yard bucket will factor in big time.

The 2020 installment of this tournament was canceled due to COVID-19, so Max Homa enters as the reigning champ after taking home his first PGA Tour victory here in 2019.

The Picks

All prices through FanDuel Sportsbook.

If you want to throw a few bombs onto the card this week, I suggest Sam Ryder (+31000) is a fine place to start. I like him for a top 20 and perhaps top 10 bets, but the outright number is worth a few bucks also. Ryder finished second at Corrales Punta Cana earlier this year and followed it up with a T8 at the Honda the following week. The Florida native ranks inside the top 10 in this field in both the “Good Drives Gained” and proximity from 200+ over the past 24 rounds.

Sungjae Im (+3600) has been absolutely on fire with his long irons of late but cannot seem to dial up the wedge game to take him over the top. He has been rolling the rock quite superbly this season, which has carried him to six top-10 finishes since the turn of the calendar year. I like the slight inflation on his outright price this week – if he can the shorter irons going and chip even mediocre, we should expect to see him on the first page of the leaderboard this weekend. I also recommend taking his tournament head-to-head matchup against Joaquin Niemann, whose putter is long overdue for some regression to the mean.

At the top of my model this week is none other than Xander Schauffele (+1900), who is long overdue for a win. Schauffele is the owner of seven top 5s (including four second-place finishes) this season and comes into this tournament rested after taking the past three weeks off after dunking one in the water on the 70^th hole at Augusta. Schauffele has obviously won before, so this isn’t a similar “issue” to Tony Finau’s lack of trophies, and I like him to end the drought at a course that rewards the most well-rounded of players.

The Card

Sam Ryder Top 20 (+850)

Sam Ryder Top 10 (+1800)

Sungjae Im over Joaquin Niemann (-108)

Sungjae Im Outright (+3600)

Xander Schauffele Outright (+1900)