The Wells Fargo Championship has been a staple on the PGA Tour for the last two decades and is annually held at Quail Hollow Golf Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. This tournament nearly always attracts a strong field, but this year might be its best one yet, as the event has been granted elevated status. Unfortunately, the top-two players in the world and winners of the two biggest events of the season, Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, have both opted to skip this event and spend their time preparing for the upcoming PGA Championship at Oak Hill.
Rory McIlroy, three-time winner of this event, will still be in attendance to defend his 2021 Quail Hollow title. He will be met by a worthy crop of challengers that includes Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, Max Homa, Justin Thomas, Sungjae Im, Cameron Young, Jason Day, and Matt Fitzpatrick, amongst others. Many of the top American and International players will be extremely familiar with the task at hand this week, as the President’s Cup was held at Quail Hollow back in September. While course conditions will differ, the George Cobb design always presents a difficult test.
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Wells Fargo Championship: Course Preview
Quail Hollow
The Quail Hollow Club was designed in 1961 by George Cobb but has undergone a number of changes in the last decade by Tom Fazio. The famed architect changed the first hole from a short par five to a long par four and divided the par-five fifth hole into a new par three fourth hole and par four fifth hole. The course now plays as a par 71 and stretches over 7,500 yards on the scorecard, making it one of the longest and toughest golf courses on the entire PGA Tour. All four of the par threes at Quail Hollow traditionally play over par, and the sixth hole can tip out to over 250 yards. Two par fours, eight and fourteen, can be drivable, but the other nine par fours all measure greater than 450 yards! In fact, five par fours measure 480 yards, with the ninth and sixteenth holes both topping out at over 500 yards. Overall, only five holes at Quail Hollow feature over a 15% birdie rate, while 13 holes feature over a 15% bogey rate!
Quail Hollow is a big and brawny golf course, and since the Fazio changes ahead of the 2017 PGA Championship, all four of the champions here, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Max Homa, and Rory McIlroy have averaged over 313 yards off the tee. McIlroy and Thomas both finished top two in driving distance, and Day and Homa finished top 20. Distance off the tee is incredibly helpful at the Cobb track, as is long iron play, as over 50% of all approach shots come from over 175 yards. I will primarily be looking to identify players who average over 310 yards off the tee and are elite long-iron players with a passable short game and a strong track record of success at long and difficult golf courses.
Mexico Open Key Stats
- Proximity 175 yards plus
- Driving Distance
- Strokes Gained on Long Golf Courses
Wells Fargo Championship: Outright Winner
Sungjae Im (+2500) (Bet $100 to collect $2,600) Get the best Sungjae Im odds at DraftKings
I have been riding Sungjae Im for multiple weeks now, and after extremely close calls at the RBC Heritage and Zurich Classic, I see absolutely no reason to hop off. The two-time PGA Tour winner is playing some of the best golf of his career, and he is riding a string of six straight top-25 finishes, including a 16th at the Masters and a sixth at the Players Championship.
I love his fit on this golf course as well, as Im ranks seventh in this field off the tee on long golf courses, sixth overall on long golf courses, fourth in difficult scoring conditions, and 21st in overall long iron play. The 25-year-old gained 4.4 strokes off the tee and 2.8 strokes on approach in his last stroke play event and has done just about everything this season but find the winner’s circle. Quail Hollow is the perfect track for the young Korean to pick up PGA Tour win number three.
Justin Thomas (+2200) (Bet $100 to collect $2,300) DraftKings has the best Justin Thomas odds
By Justin Thomas’ standards, 2023 has been his most disappointing season in years. I still have a ton of reason for optimism given the fact that his ball-striking remains intact, and what better venue to regain form than where he won the PGA Championship in 2017? Even in a down year, Thomas still has seven top-25 finishes in nine starts this season, and he has gained over five strokes ball-striking in three of his last five starts.
While the biggest reasons for his struggles this season include a downturn in iron play and an incredibly shaky flat-stick, he still statistically possesses the best short game in this entire field, and he is driving the ball great as well. The approach play is certainly not up to his lofty baseline, but it is still strong enough to lead me to believe he is close enough to winning golf tournaments again if he can just find himself a positive putting week. I’ll gladly take my chances on one of the best players in the world at depressed odds returning to form at a familiar and welcome venue.
