Matt Cooper looks ahead to the final round of the Wyndham Championship.
Golf betting tips: The Wyndham Championship final round
3pts win Russell Henley at 2/1 (General)
If Hollywood ever returns to golf for inspiration you’d expect it to be the superstars of the sport, or its greatest occasions, which feature – and yet it isn’t entirely out of the question that the 2023 Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club gets top billing.
Because, with 18 holes to play, the top end of the leaderboard is fuelled by the kind of tales of redemption, and the promise of triumph after despair, that movie-makers love.
Billy Horschel and Lucas Glover lead on 18-under 192 after carding 63 and 62 respectively on Saturday. They hold a one-shot advantage over the halfway leader RUSSELL HENLEY who is two blows clear of fourth placed Byeong Hun An.
Stephan Jaeger is alone in fifth on 13-under and Michael Kim is solo sixth on 11-under.
For Horschel, in particular, it has been quite the summer. In early June he carded an opening 84 at the Memorial Tournament and then spoke to the press. “It’s tough right now,” he said. “I’m working really hard, trying to do the right things and it sucked today. As much as I would love to throw in the towel and not come out tomorrow, that’s just not in me. I’m just not one of those players.
There are plenty of those guys out here on tour that would make an excuse about being injured and everything. But I’ll show up, I’ll give it my all like I always do and I’ll move on. I mean, it’s a day and I’ve had plenty of these days this year. Not this bad, but it’s just a day. We’ll get by it."
The next day he added a 72 and on he plodded, dropping a hint that a turnaround was imminent when T13th last week in the 3M Open and he has form at Sedgefield with five top 30s (three of them top six) in his last six visits.
“Since that 84, since that media session afterwards, the game’s actually been heading in the right direction,” he said. “There’s been a lot of positive stuff, a lot more confidence in my ability to strike the golf ball, which has been the biggest issue all year. I’m excited where my game’s going. Still got a long ways to go, but at least we’ve got momentum behind us pushing us forward now.”
He currently ranked eighth for Strokes Gained Tee to Green, on track for one of his best efforts in that category at the event. “I feel very comfortable on this golf course,” he said. “It fits my game, it fits my eye. I love these old-school golf courses that require a little bit more precision. You can be long, but if you’re not accurate and long, then you’re going to pay the price.”
But in Putting he is clear of the field, gaining 9.004 and on track to beat his previous best of 6.939. “I love putting on Bermuda greens, fast, slopey greens,” he said. “Yeah, that’s what I love.”
This week is also, remember, the final event of the regular season. FedEx Cup ranking at the end of the action will determine activity for the next few weeks. Horschel started the week ranked 116th (Glover 112th) with only the top 70 progressing to next week’s first play-off.
“I know I have to win or finish solo second,” Horschel said. “If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I have a trip planned with my kids and my wife to the Abaco Club next week if we don’t get in. It’s a win-win, I either go to Memphis or I go to Abaco with my kids and wife for the week.”
And what about the man he’ll play alongside in the final round? He, too, has had his on-course problems, most notably a putting stroke that hasn’t helped out his very fine tee-to-green game. “He’s had his up and downs in the game of golf,” said Horschel. “Every pro’s going to have an up and down at least once in a career, no one’s ever gone through not having a period of that.”
Glover backed that up. “I was at the end of my rope,” he said after the third round. “It was bad enough to where I went to try the long putter and if that didn’t work, I was going to try left-handed, but it seemed to work. It’s been streaky, but I like the freedom it’s given me mentally."
Just a few weeks ago at the Barbasol Championship he said: “Ten years of legit fighting the yips.” But the broom-stick is working. He reeled off three top sixes in a row after adding it to the bag and it’s making quite a difference this week: he’s visited Sedgefield 14 times, has just one top 10 back in 2010, and has only twice made strokes on the field on the greens. This week he is gaining nearly five.
“I like the course, it’s a special place,” he said. “I came up here in the summer when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old and I remember the swimming pool. It was cool, they had a high dive so it was fun.”
Good vibes and he has a strategy to find fairways and then attack: “Aggressive where you can, smart where you have to and hope the putts are going in.”
Henley’s problems have perhaps been less traumatic than the leaders but he did have a run of five 54-hole leads that he didn’t convert and between his third and fourth PGA Tour wins it was beginning to look like a door that wouldn’t open. He led at Sedgefield by three at this stage three years and missed out on the six-man play-off by one shot.
Asked about losing the 36-hole lead on Saturday he countered: “I was leading by six in Mexico this last fall, that was tough to sleep. I don’t recommend a six-shot lead. I think I’ll sleep pretty good tonight.” Perhaps memories of two years ago, when he closed with a 71, influenced him saying: “You’re going to get lapped if you’re just playing for par.” He ranks behind only Horschel on the greens.
An has similar thoughts (“I need a fast start and keep my foot on the pedal.”) while Jaeger says he’s been in a good mental space this week and won’t look to change a policy of letting his golf play out and see where it leaves him.
Some books can’t split the top three, going 2/1 for each of them. Others narrowly favour Horschel and/or shade Glover or Henley as the outsider. An is best price 12/1 and Jaeger 40/1.
Glover fired a 62 to get into this position and did card a 61 at Sedgefield in 2016 so going low is within him but in terms of weight of low scores he’s behind the other two at this venue.
Horschel has gone 62-63 in his last two laps, and does have three sub-66 scores in his last four final rounds at the course.
Henley maybe edges it though. Ahead of this week five of his last 10 scores at Sedgefield were sub-66. He can creep up on the leaders and pounce. There is a little bit of 9/4 around but 2/1 is widespread.
Posted at 0935 BST on 06/08/2023
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