The final event of the 2022 regular season is here as the Wyndham Championship will be the last chance for players to work their way into the FedEx Cup playoffs. There will be many storylines throughout the weekend with players on the bubble trying to qualify.
Many of the top players have taken the week off to get ready for that final stretch of golf, but Will Zalartoris headlines this field at Sedgefield alongside Shane Lowry and tournament stalwart Webb Simpson. It’ll make for an interesting week of DFS as the field quickly falls off into names that we aren’t used to at high prices. There will also be a lot of ownership piling on to just a few players in certain price tiers creating plenty of ownership leverage on other plays. We’ll look to dial in on those as we try to take down the $20 Pitch + Putt.
If you missed it, we added two new metrics in our PGA Models — Perfect% and SimLeverage. You can find an explainer on those metrics here.
The cliff notes version is that you can use SimLeverage to quickly find leverage plays in tournaments, while Perfect% is great for finding the best price-considered plays for cash games.
And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
Now, let’s get into the plays for the week.
Top Tier
Webb Simpson $10,700
It’s understandable from a form perspective, but seeing Simpson projected for single-digit ownership at this tournament is still a bit of a shock. He has absolutely dominated this event with top-10 finishes in each of his last five appearances, with four coming in the top three. Webb loves the Wyndham Championship so much that he named his daughter Wyndham, and even in a year where he isn’t playing his best, I will happily take a shot on him as my high-end leverage play.
Adam Scott $9,100
Scott has started to put together some of the form that we came to expect from him on a weekly basis earlier in his career. He is striking the ball well and took advantage of that to the tune of a top-15 finish in the final two major championships. He carried the ball striking with him last week to the Rocket Mortgage, but a balky putter left him with a middling result.
This week, he returns to the place where he was a part of a six-man playoff last year and had the first opportunity to end it. Unfortunately, his short birdie putt missed and led to him losing to Kevin Kisner later in the playoff. He seems to see this course well, and with the form he is carrying tee to green, he should be in contention this weekend if his putter cooperates.
Mid Tier
Kevin Kisner $8,700
Everyone loves to fade the prior year’s winner going into the new tournament. There are certain obligations that a champion has to fulfill, but a veteran like Kisner should be used to that routine. I’ll be looking to go back to him in large-field contests as it seems like he will carry half of the ownership of Si Woo Kim just above him. I get it — Kim has a record that nearly rivals Webb — but he’s also a volatile player that can struggle to make the cut any given week.
I’ll instead pivot here to Kisner, who has four top-10s of his own in his six appearances, including last year’s victory. He knows he has to perform on certain courses each year, and this is one he can take advantage of.
Taylor Pendrith $8,500
I don’t know if it’s the $1,000 price bump or just an expectation of a hangover from last week’s loss that has people not playing Pendrith this week. He’s clearly playing some great golf, so I’m more than happy to jump on if others are going in another direction. His length won’t be the same factor as last week, but he can still get around here and contend, and with just a 10% ownership projection, he’s a nice contrarian option for lineups.
Value Plays
Scott Stallings $7,800
Once again, Stallings grades out as the top play in this price range in the Bailey Model. He is projected to get ownership, but it’s hard to ignore a player with a rating well above the rest at this price. Stallings is playing great golf and has three straight top 10 results, which is enough to have me looking past his less-than-great Wyndham finishes to see if he can keep it rolling. He will be chalk, but we have pivoted a bunch up top to be able to fit this type of play in this range.
Harris English $7,300
English is the anti-Stallings play this week. He hasn’t had good form since returning from injury at the start of June but has a course history that is too good to ignore at this price point. I’ll take a few shots on English knowing that his talent and course knowledge is too high to pass over at $7,300, as he certainly has the upside to help be a part of a GPP-winning lineup.
Sleepers
Chesson Hadley $6,900
I don’t want to get in this range too much and will do all I can to finish in the above tier. I think the pricing allows us to stay in the $7,000 range at worst, and that’s where we can find some more reliable names.
Hadley was a bit of a letdown as a popular play last week at the Rocket Mortgage, but it certainly wasn’t a shock. He is a volatile player that lacks consistency, which is why we see him in this price tier each week. I’m going back to him partly because I know he needs a good result for the FedEx Cup, and he seems to step up in these moments late in the year. He posted a top 15 last year to help his cause, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it again as he has always had sharp irons at Sedgefield. If he can avoid trouble off the tee, he should be able to make the weekend.
