Horses for Courses: Major champ, former Wyndham winner Aaron Rai a great fit for Sedgefield

We have arrived at the final event of the PGA TOUR regular season.

The Wyndham Championship is the 34th and final FedExCup event before the Playoffs, once again staged at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro. For golfers sitting outside the top 70 in the FedExCup standings, a big week at the Wyndham is the only thing that will keep their postseason hopes alive.

It’s important to remember that just because a golfer is on the bubble doesn’t make him more or less likely to play better golf because of the circumstances. However, it should be a great time tracking these players as they try to punch their ticket to the postseason.

That journey starts with four successful days at the 7,131-yard, par-70 Donald Ross design.

The beauty of handicapping a tournament at Sedgefield is that we know what to expect from a Ross layout. While every course has its own unique features, there are a few things we can hang our hats on.

The first, and probably most important, is the raised greens that are a classic feature of Ross designs. Golfers who miss short or long will often need a great short game to scramble and get the ball up and down.

Another important feature at Sedgefield is the number of doglegs. Ross liked to make golfers shape their shots, and those doglegs combined with the raised greens create plenty of trouble. Misses can filter into penalty areas or greenside bunkers protecting the putting surfaces.

The way Ross designed his courses also allows for tucked pins in difficult locations. It requires a complete skill set, not just off the tee, but with the irons and wedges around the greens. Ross courses have traditionally rewarded some of the best approach players, and Sedgefield puts more of a premium on driving accuracy than sheer power.

The missed-fairway penalty at Sedgefield is one of the highest among courses regularly featured on the PGA TOUR schedule. Given the lack of length, it’s easy to understand why the list of recent winners includes golfers who aren’t overly long off the tee, such as Aaron Rai (+3000), Lucas Glover (+15000) and Tom Kim (+2500).

I’m putting a premium on driving accuracy this week. Here are the most accurate golfers off the tee over the last 12 months, according to Betsperts:

• 1. Ben Kohles
• 2. Ben James
• 3. Joel Dahmen
• 4. Aaron Rai
• 5. Davis Chatfield
• 6. Zac Blair

Aaron Rai First-Round Leader +4500 (via DraftKings)

Aaron Rai First-Round Top 20 +275

After winning the PGA Championship at Aronimink, it’s safe to say that Rai is a Donald Ross slayer.

Ross courses fit Rai because he isn’t overly long off the tee, but he is one of the most accurate drivers and is extremely talented with his irons. These severe green complexes only accentuate that skill set.

Rai has excellent distance control, which means he isn’t constantly watching his approach shots roll off the back of these raised greens. That control, both off the tee and with his irons, helps eliminate big numbers from his scorecard.

While Rai is a great fit for the course, he is also a surprisingly good first-round golfer. He only has one first-round lead this season, but he has finished inside the top 20 after the opening round in 37.5% of his starts.

He is the type of golfer who goes out, gets his job done and sets himself up nicely for the rest of the week. That 37.5% hit rate is nearly 11 percentage points higher than the implied probability of the +275 price currently available.

Given the length of the course and the premium on hitting fairways, the proximity buckets at Sedgefield are fairly spread out. However, more than 50% of the approach shots will come from 100 to 175 yards.

The biggest portion of those shots will come from 100 to 150 yards, but I want to include everything out to 175 because it gives us a good representation of the best short- and mid-iron players in the field.

Here are the golfers who have gained the most strokes from 100 to 175 yards over the last 36 rounds, according to RickRunGood:

• 1. Tom Hoge
• 2. Austin Smotherman
• 3. Sepp Straka
• 4. Johnny Keefer
• 5. Lucas Glover
• 6. Luke Clanton

When we narrow that bucket to 100 to 150 yards, these are the top golfers over that span with a minimum of 24 measured rounds:

• 1. Tom Hoge
• 2. Mark Hubbard
• 3. Ben Kohles
• 4. Tom Kim
• 5. Austin Eckroat
• 6. Doug Ghim

Best Value on the Board

Blades Brown Top-30 Finish +156

This may be my favorite bet of the entire week.

Brown (+6000) is not inside the top six in either proximity bucket over the last 36 rounds, but he ranks inside the top 10 in both. When we narrow the sample to his last 24 rounds from 100 to 150 yards, he climbs all the way inside the top five.

The youngster has been absolutely electric this season when playing on the PGA TOUR. He has finished inside the top 20 in every PGA TOUR start except the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, where he missed the cut, and the Valspar Championship, where he finished T40.

Outside of those two starts, Brown has built a really impressive resume. He finished solo third at the Puerto Rico Open, T9 at the Myrtle Beach Classic, T14 at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson12 at the John Deere Classic and T11 at the Corales Puntacana Championship.

The Puerto Rico Open and Myrtle Beach Classic were unmeasured events, so it’s difficult to see exactly how he performed from a strokes-gained perspective. However, the overall results were stellar.

What’s fun about Brown’s game is that he is fairly reliable off the tee, hitting fairways at close to a 68% clip. He hit 77% of his fairways at the John Deere and 78.6% at Corales.

As mentioned, he is damn near elite with his short and mid-irons, and he can putt with the best of them.

With a 75% top-30 rate this season, it’s almost a given that I would back him in this market.

The only thing keeping me from betting Brown outright is the amount of golf he has been playing. He has been pulling double duty between the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA TOUR as he tries to either win on TOUR and earn full status or secure his card through the Korn Ferry Tour.

It makes complete sense for him to keep playing, but that is still a lot of golf. At +156 to finish inside the top 30, though, this is a bet that catches my attention. I just hope the young golfer still has some steam left as we head toward the postseason.

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