Who Will Win Wells Fargo Golf 2022
Our Picks:
Aaron Rai, @50/1 EW
Paul Casey, @33/1 EW
Corey Connors, @18/1 EW
Most Firms Paying 6+ Places
Preview:
The Wells Fargo will be taking a one-year break from Quail Hollow due to it hosting the Presidents Cup in September. Golfers will travel to the Maryland-Virginia border less than 20 minutes from the nation’s capital to play TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm in Potomac, MD. TPC Potomac is a par 70 that plays 7,160 yards and was renovated in 2008 and again in 2015. The 2008 renovation resulted in a course that has a natural rolling landscape featuring bentgrass tees, fairways, and greens as well as Scottish style bunkers. In 2015 they made adjustments to the 7th and 16th greens as well as widened the 5th and 6th fairways. The course played host to the Quicken Loans National in 2017 and 2018 so we do have course data to reference.
First off, don’t be fooled by the length and assume this is an easy course, it isn’t. It can become especially tricky if the weather isn’t great. As of now it looks like they could be dealing with some rain, but the winds aren’t supposed to be crazy. It’s worth checking back as it gets closer.
Ball-striking, ball-striking, ball striking. This course tends to reward solid ball-strikers the most out of the different player styles. Past results show the winners here have done substantially better than the rest of the field when it came to hitting fairways and greens. That may sound like common sense, hit fairways and greens and win, but when you look at the numbers you’ll see that GIR% and Driving Accuracy are both a good bit below tour average.
To the naked eye this looks like a short course, then you see that there are 6, count them, 6 Par 4s that will play 450-500 yards. It should then come as no surprise that we can expect to see approach shots from the 175-200 yard range at a significantly higher percentage than tour average. So, we’ll definitely be focusing in on that par 4 distance and that approach distance. It’s also worth noting that 150-175 yard and 200+ yard approach ranges are slightly higher than or equal to the tour average. Moral of the story is that we want guys who can hit their mid-long irons well because they will be hitting a lot of them.
Strokes Gained: Around the Green does tend to correlate to high finishes year so we will take note of that, although I don’t know if I would say that it’s a requirement to win here. A few PGA players have come out and said this course can play pretty tough at times, so I do think I’ll factor in bogey avoidance as well. There are a few holes that can really cause problems so we want guys that can keep their composure and avoid the blow-up scores. Ultimately, I think we really want to look for strong tee-too-green players who are accurate off the tee.
Key Stats
Ball Striking
SG: OTT, Fairways Gained
SG: Approach, w/focus on proximity of 175-200 yards
Par 4 scoring 450-500 yards
SG: Tee-To-Green
Around the Green
Bogey Avoidance
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