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2015 Wells Fargo Championship

Tournament: This years Wells Fargo Championship will take place, as always, at the historic Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event has been moved from its’ regularly scheduled spot, but will still take place in the Spring after the Masters but before the U.S. Open. The tournament was established in 2003 and has been a venue where many of the best names in the game tee it up. An important note here is the change in greens that occured last season. The greens were in such bad shape in 2013, bermuda grass greens were put in to better deal with the summer heat in the area. The golf course has also been lengthened to over 7,500 yards and has almost eliminated short hitters as you can see from the past winners below.

2014 – J.B. Holmes (-14)
2013 – Derek Ernst (-8)
2012 – Rickie Fowler (-14)
2011 – Lucas Glover (-15)
2010 – Rory McIlroy (-15)
2009 – Sean O’Hair (-11)

Field: Not the strongest field on hand this week in Charlotte. We do have world #1 Rory McIlroy but Henrik Stenson and Jim Furyk are the only other top 10 players in the field. Other players of note are Adam Scott, Patrick Reed, and Phil Mickelson.

What to Look For: This is a bombers course without a doubt. Jim Furyk is the only winner to finish outside the top 72 in driving distance in the year of their victory. And Jim is one of the best golfers of his era. A lack of length off the tee is certainly hard to overcome. An interesting angle here is the age and experience of the winners. Rory, Fowler, Anthony Kim, and Derek Ernst all picked up their first PGA TOUR victory here all under the age of 25. Knowing golf, young players are aggressive, and this leads me to believe that this course rewards not only length off the tee, but aggresiveness as well. As far as the course goes, it is still a tough test. Holes 16-18, known as the “Green Mile”, consistently ranks as one of the toughest finishes on TOUR. Young aggressive players with a decent bit of length off the tee seems to be the formula at Quail Hollow and we’ll attempt to stick to that this week. One last note, Derek Ernst is the only champion to rank outside the top 73 in Strokes Gained: T2G in the year of their victory.

Free Pick:

Hideki Matsuyama e/w*: Young. Aggressive. Great tee to green. Hideki checks every box here. He also finished 17th last week at Sawgrass and hasn’t finished outside the top 25 since early February. Matsuyama is 31st in driving distance and 3rd in SG:T2G.

Notes on A Few Others: McIlroy is the favorite here and he should be. He played exceptionally well tee to green last week but at 3/1, it’s hard to win. I will have a way to hedge us against a Rory win because that scenario doesn’t surprise me at all. Stenson is statistically a great fit here but at 18/1 and never finishing higher than 69th in four attempts here, I’m glad to stay away. Lastly, Furyk is the only player to buck the distance trend but with a poor showing at Sawgrass, he may be exhausted after the RBC win, a long week at Matchplay and coast to coast travel so I’ll stay away there too.

Good Luck

Hideki Matsuyama e/w* @ 23.5/1

*If your book does not offer e/w betting, place 1 bet of the stated unit on the golfer to win and 1 bet of the stated unit on the golfer to place top 5

Chris Munney
@munneypicks
www.munneypicks.com