The race is on for coveted spots in the FedEx Cup playoffs at this week’s Wyndham Championship, which serves as the final regular-season event of 2024.
The final opportunity to qualify has drawn a field chock full of players hovering around the top 70 in the standings who will earn spots in the first leg of the playoffs at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The event begins Thursday at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C., and our golf experts provide their favorite prop picks along with best bets to win this week.
WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIP
Location: Greensboro, N.C., Aug. 8-11
Course: Sedgefield Country Club (Par 70, 7,131 Yards)
Purse: $7.9M (Winner: $1.422M)
Defending Champion: Lucas Glover
FedEx Cup Leader: Scottie Scheffler
HOW TO FOLLOW
TV: Thursday-Friday: 3-6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel); Saturday-Sunday: 1-3 p.m. (GC), 3-6 p.m. (CBS)
Streaming (ESPN+): Thursday-Friday, 6:45 a.m.-6 p.m. ET; Saturday-Sunday, 7:45 a.m.-6 p.m.
X: @WyndhamChamp
PROP PICKS
–Cameron Young to Beat Davis Thompson (+100 at DraftKings): Thompson is the -120 favorite and won just three starts ago at the John Deere Classic following a T2 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and a T9 at the U.S. Open. However, he failed to crack the Top 40 at the Scottish Open or The Open Championship. Young has also enjoyed a solid stretch with a T31 at The Open coming on the heels of consecutive top-10s on Tour, and we’re taking a chance on his solid potential payout.
–Sungjae Im Top 20 Finish (+100 at BetRivers): This should be a relatively safe play, with the South Korean riding a streak of four consecutive top-10s, including three of T7 or better. In his past 11 worldwide starts, Im has posted nine top-20s while missing a pair of cuts at two majors before rebounding with his top-10 at The Open. He also tied for 14th here last year.
–Nicolai Hojgaard Top Nordic Finisher (+165 at DraftKings): Hojgaard will need to outperform three competitors in this prop: Thorbjorn Olesen (+230), Henrik Norlander (+300) and Vincent Norrman (+450). The 23-year-old Hojgaard has a lone top-10 in 17 starts as a rookie, but is coming off a solo seventh at the Olympics, where fellow Dane Olesen finished T14. Olesen is a real threat here, although his has only two top-20s on the PGA Tour this year. Norlander did follow a T11 at the Barracuda Championship with a T12 at the 3M Open, while Norrman has failed to make the weekend in four consecutive starts.
2024 Prop Picks Record: 38-44-1
BEST BETS
–Sungjae Im (+1200 at DraftKings) is the highest-ranked player in the field in the FedEx Cup standings at No. 9. He has finished T12 or better in four consecutive starts, including a T7 at The Open Championship. He is the biggest liability this week at BetMGM, where Im leads the field with 11.1 percent of the total bets and 18.5 percent of the money backing him to win.
–Billy Horschel (+2200) finished T2 at The Open in his most recent start, and finished solo fourth here in 2023.
–Shane Lowry (+2500) is 10th in the FedEx Cup standings. He had a streak of three consecutive top-20s snapped with a T26 at The Open.
–Cameron Young (+2800) is still seeking his maiden PGA Tour victory. He followed up a T9 at the Travelers and a T6 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic with a T31 at The Open.
–Akshay Bhatia (+3000) has a missed cut and T64 in his past two starts. But that followed a pair of top-5s for the winner of this year’s Valero Texas Open. He’s the second biggest liability for BetMGM, having drawn 7.0 percent of the bets and 7.9 percent of the money at +3500.
–Robert MacIntyre (+5000) has won two of his past seven starts and is the second highest ranked player in the field at No. 16.
NOTES
–Nos. 68-70 in the FedEx Cup standings entering the tournament are Emiliano Grillo, Seamus Power and Brendon Todd, while Nos. 71-73 are Victor Perez, Davis Riley and Andrew Putnam.
–Matt Kuchar, the only player who has qualified for the playoffs in every season since its inception in 2007, enters the week No. 111 in the standings. He needs a win in order to qualify for the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
–The field includes eight of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings and 21 of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, led by No. 15 Brian Harman.
–Twenty-one players in the field also competed in last week’s Men’s Olympic Golf Competition, including six who currently are between Nos. 61-90 in the standings: No. 61 Min Woo Lee, No. 67 Grillo, No. 70 Perez, No. 79 Nicolai Højgaard, No. 86 Kevin Yu and No. 88 C.T. Pan.
–Glover, No. 76 in the standings, seeks to become the first player to successfully defend at the event since Sam Snead in the mid-1950s.
–Field Level Media