Wells Fargo Championship Tips: Five each-way selections at Quail Hollow
The Wells Fargo Championship is next on the PGA Tour schedule this week at the Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina.
Off the back of his 90/1 each-shout shout at the Mexico Open - which saw Akshay Bhatia place in 4th - golf tipster Jamie Broadhurst has previewed the tournament in Charlotte and selected five tips for the action.
Last week was a refreshing return to form for my selections on these previews.
90/1 Mexico Open pick Akshay Bhatia finished solo 4th to bring home the place money, making it a nice week of profit where punters who follow my usual stake plan would have doubled their stakes for the week having put 10pts on the five selections, and Askhay returning 20pts from his place. Putting the profit tally for this year to +37.20pts.
After a tricky 2/3 weeks at the start of April, the profit/loss total took a bit of a hit, but I am hoping this positive result will be the start of some momentum as we approach some elite events on the PGA Tour.
The eventual winner in Mexico was Tony Finau, who was a best price of 8/1 pre-tournament. All week, he and Jon Rahm were tussling towards the top, with Rahm posting a course record on his third round. But, it was Tony who kept his foot down to win by three strokes on an eventual score of -24.
Wells Fargo Championship
The tour travels north east to the area of Charlotte in North Carolina, where the pros will be competing to become the Wells Fargo Champion at the Quail Hollow Club.
Quail Hollow has hosted some major events in the past. The Wells Fargo has been here nine years going back to 2003; it unfortunately wasn’t here last year. It also hosted the 2017 PGA Championship, and most recently the 2022 version of the Presidents Cup where the USA beat the Rest of the World by five points.
This week is another ‘elevated’ event, meaning the top players in the world on the PGA Tour are obliged to take part. So again, we are in for another stellar field.
Previous Wells Fargo Champions
- 2022 – Max Homa -8 (played at TPC Potomac)
- 2021 – Rory McIlroy -10
- 2019 – Max Homa -15
- 2018 – Jason Day -12
- 2017 – Brian Harman -10 (played at Eagle Point)
- 2016 – James Hahm -9
- 2015 – Rory McIlroy -21 (tournament record)
Quail Hollow
- Par 71, 7520 yards
- George Cobb design, Tom Fazio alterations
- 4 x Par 3s, 11 x Par 4s, 3 x Par 5s
- Par 3s range from 167-249 yards
- Par 4s range from 344-506 yards – 8 over 450 yards
- Par 5s range from 546-592 yards
- Bermuda Fairways/Rough/Greens
- Home of the famous ‘Green Mile’
Whichever way you look at it this week, Quail Hollow is an ex-major championship golf course, and it will surely play like one this week.
Standing over 7500 yards, the course is a brute and always plays into the hands of the guys who have the better-driving statistics on Tour.
Long and narrow fairways, surrounded by thick penal rough. This setup looks like it will again give the players much to think about this week.
Long driver/iron play and scrambling will be at the forefront of the eventual winner's skill set for sure come the end of Sunday.
A course that sits at a similar length to last week, it may be worth having a second look at who faired well Tee2Green last week in the stats for sure.
Stats to focus on this week
- Strokes Gained: Off the Tee/Total Driving
- Greens in Regulation/Good long iron play
- Scrambling on tough courses/bogey avoidance
As I have already stated above, this course is tough and the players who succeed here will need pretty much all aspects of their game to be on point.
So, I have honed in on three/four stats of an individual’s game in an attempt to find the winner.
With it being such a tough track, a lot can go wrong quickly so I have attempted to make it as simple as possible this week.
- Strokes Gained: Off the Tee will be paramount this week, a bad driver of the golf ball will not win this week that is a fact. I will move towards analysing the Total Driving stats this week. This stat on Tour combines a player’s Driving Distance rank with their Driving Accuracy rank to form the Total Driving stat leaderboard. It will be worthy of a look over this as both departments will be called on this week.
- Greens In Regulation is always a stat that I put up on tough golf courses. A player will not optimise his scoring chances if they are not hitting the greens in the right number more times than not. With eight of the Par 4s this week being over 450 yards, this means that a lot of approaches especially on these holes will come from between 150-175 yards. So, a glance over the iron stats of players who do well with approaches from 150+ yards.
- As seen from the previous winners above – other than Rory McIlroy's course record total of -21 which was when the course/weather were in susceptible conditions, every other winning score has been -15 or below. Over four rounds this is not a very high score at all. This means that during the week, players will have to scramble for their lives to save their pars and maybe even to escape holes with just a bogey. A player who does this regularly will be high on the list also.
The Field
As stated at the start of the preview, this week is classed again as an Elevated event. However, a few players are using the one pass they have, to miss an elevated event once a year.
It looks as though this is the case for the following: Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Bill Horschel, Tom Hoge, Russ Henley, and Justin Rose.
Therefore, we are left with just 21 of the top 30 in the Official World Rankings. With World No. 1 and 2 not here in Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, step forward Rory McIlroy as our market leader at 8/1.
Having last been seen missing the cut at The Masters, you would have to think that he has gone away and spent a lot of time on his game.
Across the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour, he has one win and two other top-5 finishes, so he is in some good form.
He comes to a venue where he has won twice in 11 events. The rest of his form here reads: two wins, six top-10s, one Missed Cut. Pretty good right? You can see why he is favourite for sure.
Between Rory and 20/1, we have three guys: Patrick Cantlay (12/1), last week’s winner Tony Finau (12/1), and Xander Schauffele (18/1). These three guys have played here at least once. Cantlay missed the cut at his sole appearance, while both Xander and Tony come here in okay form but not the best for sure.
It looks to be a week to go hunting for some form at 20/1 and above.
Wells Fargo Championship Selections
Sungjae Im
- Recent Form – 7-16-17-6-21
- Course Form – 31-MC
Here we have what I call a classical golfer.
Sungjae starts the theme of the type of players I am taking this week: A steady golfer, who doesn’t hit it miles, but is deadly accurate and is killer with his iron play.
11th for Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and 16th for Strokes Gained: Around the Green looks to compliment his Iron play perfectly for Quail Hollow.
His form this year is as consistent as ever and I really think he is trending towards that big win.
Jason Day
- Recent Form – 39-5-19-10-9-5
- Course Form – 22-9-1-24-MC-15
Talk about a revelation of form this year, Jason Day has been a model of consistency all year and has really found the ball striking he once had in 2015 when he rose to World Number 1.
A former champ here, who is coming here with some unreal form and some really good stats to back that up.
37th for Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 24th for Strokes Gained: Approach, 19th for Strokes Gained: Around the Green, and 13th for Putting is something that shouldn’t be ignored at all, and 25/1 compared to some of those under him in the market looks to be the value this week.
Tom Kim
- Recent Form – MC-16-31-31-34
- Course Form – Debut
First time tipping this young lad, but he is one for the future for sure, and at just 21 he is already a 2-time winner on Tour.
He is not the longest by any stretch of the imagination, averaging just under 300 yards off the tee. But he ranks 2nd for Driving Distance which will indeed come in handy here this week. He also ranks 1st for approaches from 125-150 yards and 4th for approaches from 150-175 yards.
19th for Strokes Gained: Approach overall this year, he looks to have the skill asset to do well here on his debut at Quail Hollow.
Kim won his two matches at the Presidents Cup here in 2022 when he really made a name for himself on the PGA Tour scene. I hope he can draw from those experiences here this week.
Tyrrell Hatton
- Recent Form – 19-34-MC-39-2-4
- Course Form – 42 (37th last year at TPC Potomac)
Want a guy that’s got an all-around game and that will always give you a run for your money in terms of his effort?
Then yes, back Tyrrell Hatton.
Stats wise Hatton is not doing much wrong this season: 9th Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 16th Strokes Gained: Approach, 16th Around the Green and 19th for Putting. Consistency across the board.
He has good solid form across Major championship tracks and looks as if he will go well again here this week.
Emiliano Grillo
- Recent Form – 5-7-53-70
- Course Form – 14-9-42-61
Emiliano Grillo is the typical statistical play of the week based on current trending form and course form here.
The positive this week is that he has opened in the market at 110/1!
Coming off the back of a 7th place finish at Hilton Head for the RBC Heritage and a 5th place finish last week at the Mexico Open; two long tracks that demand positive driving and accurate iron play.
The weakness has always been the putter for Emiliano, however after watching him last week in his third 3rd round he was looking much more solid over the shorter putts that he once struggled on.
Lets hope he has turned a corner and he can perform well again at a place that suits his eye.
