The par-5 15th hole at Sedgefield Country Club holds a little extra incentive for Matthew Wolff this week at the Wyndham Championship. The PGA Tour’s season finale in Greensboro, North Carolina, gives Wolff a last-ditch effort to cash a fat check for a challenge within a challenge that has run the length of this Tour super season.
Wolff is the points leader in the AON Risk Reward Challenge and needs only two more rounds to reach the contest’s 40-round minimum.
So far this season, Wolff has played the designated hole at 10 Risk Reward events in an average 1.105 under par. Cameron Smith (0.920 under par) and Joaquin Niemann (0.914 under par) are right behind him.
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The Challenge is based around chosen holes at Tour stops throughout the year and designed to test a player’s strategy on what are considered some of the most challenging holes a player will face week to week.
Among the holes on the list are No. 16 at PGA West’s Stadium Course (The American Express), No. 18 at Torrey Pines (Farmers Insurance Open), the raucous No. 17 at TPC Scottsdale (Waste Management Phoenix Open) and No. 18 at Pebble Beach (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am).
At the end of the regular season, the player with the lowest average score under par on the Aon Risk Reward Challenge holes captures the $1 million prize. For every participating event, a player’s best two scores on the designated hole counts towards the season-long leaderboard. Aon sponsors the same challenge on the LPGA.
Wolff’s season has been defined by injury and off-course struggles – he laid bare the latter during U.S. Open week as he contended for the title but ultimately finished T-15. It was one of five top-20 finishes in a season during which Wolff made 18 starts, missed three cuts and withdrew from two events.
Should he win the Aon Risk Reward Challenge, the 22-year-old Wolff would pocket an extra $1 million – a nice bonus at the end of a season in which he has earned $2.5 million after making the cut in 13 of 18 events with two top-10s.
In Thursday’s first round, Wolff was over the green in two and after chipping on, had an 8 ½ footer for birdie but missed and settled for par.
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