The Wyndham Championship has not seen a successful championship defense since 1956, which means a new champion is most likely set to be crowned this year. Major winners Adam Scott and Martin Kaymer are the big names headlining this event to be held from August 20-23, the last one before the upcoming FedEx Cup playoffs.
However, can a surprise sleeper emerge from the field to take the title this year? Let’s take a look at three potential sleeper candidates and see if they have what it takes to claim the nearly $1 million top prize. Meanwhile, don’t forget to check out our complete Wyndham Championship preview here.
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2015 Wyndham Championship Sleeper Picks and Predictions
Bill Haas
[sc:Golf240banner ]Bill Haas has been a mixed bag recently. The 2011 FedEx Cup winner has missed the cut in three of his last seven tournaments, but has also finished in the top-10 twice. He has four top-10 finishes overall this season, including a win at the Humana Challenge back in January.
Haas (+1,600) is a very decent sleeper pick, though, due to his familiarity with (and success in) the Sedgefield course. He’s finished in the top-10 of the tournament three times in the past six years, and finished tied for second last year, just one stroke back of eventual champion Camilo Villegas.
Carl Pettersson
No Wyndham Championship is complete without Carl Pettersson (+4,500). The 37-year old Swede has played in the tournament every year since 2003. He resides in North Carolina, and has enjoyed quite a bit of a “home-course advantage” in this tournament. In the past decade, Petterson has finished in the top-10 four times.
His best results have come after the tournament moved to Sedgefield, though. In fact, Petterson set the tournament’s aggregate score record of 259 in the very first year at Sedgefield back in 2008, which still stands to this day. He also finished T4 in back-to-back tournaments in 2011 and 2012.
Petterson has not had the greatest 2015 season – he has just two top-10 finishes in 28 events – but both of those have come in his last six tournaments. He finished fifth in the Travelers Championship in late June and T4 in the Quicken Loans National earlier this month.
25-year-old Patrick Reed is having a breakout season in 2015. Reed is currently No. 9 in the FedEx Cup standings on the strength of his win at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in January, already his fourth Tour win in four years as a pro. He almost made it five at the Valspar Championship, but he lost out to Jordan Spieth in a playoff.
Reed is one of the most prolific putters in the game today. He’s ranked second in the entire Tour (behind only Spieth) in overall putting average and is 11th in strokes gained: putting. Reed’s ability to read those greens makes him a definite sleeper pick to claim his second Wyndham Championship. He won his first title at Sedgefield back in 2013, where he edged out – you guessed it – Spieth, again in a playoff.
