A relatively weak but highly motivated field is at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, this week for the Wyndham Championship. The event precedes the beginning of the FedEx Cup Playoffs next week. Below, we look at the 2021 Wyndham Championship odds and make our PGA Tour picks and predictions to win.
The top 125 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings after this week will advance to The Northern Trust at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey. That will begin the three-week playoff stretch culminating with the Tour Championship from Sept. 2 to Sept. 5. There’ll then be just a one-week interlude before the start of the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.
Louis Oosthuizen was the top player in the field at No. 2 in the Golfweek/Sagarin world rankings, but he withdrew Wednesday evening due to a neck injury. He entered the week at No. 8 in the FEC standings and is safely in the playoffs.
Some of the biggest names in the field in need of points in order to advance to The Northern Trust include Rickie Fowler (130), Tommy Fleetwood (136), Justin Rose (138) and Francesco Molinari (140).
Also see: Fantasy golf power rankings
2021 Wyndham Championship picks – Favorite
Odds provided by Tipico Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds a full list. Lines last updated Wednesday at 9:23 a.m. ET.
Will Zalatoris (+2000)
No one is in greater need of a win this week than Zalatoris. Despite racking up 1,270 points that would have him ranked 26th in the season-long standings, he won’t qualify for the playoffs without a win under Special Temporary Membership status.
The 24-year-old’s accomplishments this season include a T-6 finish at the 2020 US Open, a runner-up at the 2021 Masters and a T-8 at the PGA Championship. He tied for eighth at last week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational and will face a much weaker competition at Sedgefield.
Zalatoris missed the cut in this event in 2018, but he averaged 1.06 Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee per round and lost 1.28 strokes per round on the greens.
2021 Wyndham Championship picks – Contender
Mackenzie Hughes (+6000)
Hughes struggled to a 50th-place finish at the Olympic Golf Competition in Tokyo, but he previously tied for sixth at the British Open to extend his streak to four straight made cuts. He didn’t play this event last year; however, tied for 22nd in 2019 and for 66th in 2018.
The Canadian struggles with accuracy off the tee, but he’s as good of a putter as there is on Tour when he’s on. He’s an excellent value at these odds in one of the weaker fields he has competed against this season. He has four top-10 finishes since the beginning of the fall swing and enters the week 67th in the FEC standings.
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2021 Wyndham Championship picks – Long shot
Camilo Villegas (+20000)
Villegas is 129th in the FEC standings despite rising from 404th to 249th in the Official World Golf Ranking since the end of last year. He enters this week on a streak of five straight made cuts and finished in a tie for eighth against a stronger field than this at The Honda Classic earlier this year.
He has played 26 career rounds at Sedgefield CC with an average of 0.92 strokes gained on the field per round. He tied for 16th in his last appearance here in 2017 while ranking fourth among all golfers who made the cut with 2.15 SG: Putting per round.
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