The PGA Tour regular season closes at the Wyndham Championship, where Joe Jensen breaks down the FedEx Cup bubble week at Sedgefield Country Club with picks on Cameron Young, Aaron Rai, and Emiliano Grillo.
Wyndham Championship Picks
Sedgefield Country Club, Greensboro, North Carolina
Thursday, August 6 – Sunday, August 9, 2026
Purse: $8.5 million ($1.53 million to the winner)
This is it.
Last stop on the PGA Tour regular season before the FedEx Cup Playoffs kick off. The final chance for guys hovering around number 70 in the FedEx Cup standings to punch their ticket to the playoffs. And the final chance for guys sitting comfortably in the top 50 to add a paycheck before the real money starts flying next week.
Bubble weeks are my favorite kind of week to bet.
You get desperate players. You get pressure. You get guys who NEED to shoot 63 on Sunday and know it. And you get a field that’s a whole lot weaker than it should be because half the top guys already made the playoffs and skip this event to rest up.
Let’s talk about who ISN’T playing this week.
Scottie Scheffler? Out. Home resting.
Rory McIlroy? Out.
Patrick Cantlay? WAS in the field, WAS one of the favorites, then withdrew Monday afternoon. Thanks Pat.
That’s the top 3 in the world all sitting this one out.
Which makes Cameron Young the easiest favorite of the year to identify.
Onto the course.
Sedgefield Country Club is a 7,131-yard, par 70 Donald Ross design. It’s short. It’s tight. It doesn’t reward distance. What it DOES reward is:
Accuracy off the tee.
Sharp iron play from 100-175 yards.
And a hot putter for four days.
Cameron Young shot 22-under here last year and won by SIX shots. That was an outlier. In a normal year at Sedgefield, guys are grinding to 18 or 19 under and it’s a battle to the last putt.
The weather forecast is standard North Carolina August – hot, humid, chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Nothing unusual.
Now the picks.
Favorite: Cameron Young (+850)
Look, sometimes the obvious pick is the right pick.
Young is the defending champion. He won here last year at 22-under. He blew the field away by SIX shots to grab his first career PGA Tour win.
Since then, he’s won TWO more times in 2026 – The Players Championship and the Cadillac Championship. He finished solo second at The Open Championship a few weeks ago. And he tied for third at last week’s Rocket Classic after being tied for the lead heading into the final round.
The guy is peaking at the right time.
With Scheffler and McIlroy home and Cantlay withdrawn, the odds board this week looks like Cameron Young at +850 and then a giant crater and then the next tier of guys at +2000 or worse.
Young is playing better golf than anyone on Tour outside of Scheffler right now. He’s the defending champ at a course he clearly loves. And his lack of course-history problems from the last two events (he had no history at TPC Twin Cities OR Detroit Golf Club coming in) doesn’t apply here.
He knows Sedgefield.
He’s proven he can dominate Sedgefield.
He’s playing the best golf of his life.
Sometimes it really is that simple.
Mid-Range Pick: Aaron Rai (+3000)
Rai is the guy nobody’s talking about.
Here’s what he’s done in his last two starts at Sedgefield:
2024: Won the tournament.
2025: T5.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s course fit.
Aaron Rai does exactly what Sedgefield asks you to do – he hits fairways, he’s elite from 100-175 yards, and he doesn’t beat himself. He’s one of the most accurate players on Tour off the tee, which matters more here than any other course on the schedule.
Yes, his recent form is ugly. He missed the cut at both the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship. His last start on American soil was a T30 at the Travelers Championship.
But bettors love to over-punish players for bad results overseas. Fescue and links greens are a totally different game than Sedgefield’s plush American conditions. Rai played terrible on the wrong side of the pond and now he’s back on a course where he’s been top-5 in each of the last two years.
At +3000, this is exactly the kind of number I’m looking for on a mid-tier pick. If Young somehow doesn’t win, Rai is my next best guess for who lifts the trophy on Sunday.
Longshot: Emiliano Grillo (+4500)
The knock on Emiliano Grillo has always been the same. He doesn’t hit it far enough.
Guess what? At Sedgefield, that doesn’t matter.
Grillo’s recent form is quietly one of the best stories in the field. He finished T7 at the 3M Open two weeks ago after gaining more than a stroke per round on approach. He finished T31 at the Rocket Classic last week after gaining nearly a stroke and a half per round with his irons.
That’s five straight starts with a T31 or better finish. That’s consistency.
Here’s why the length concern goes away this week – Sedgefield rewards accuracy over distance. In fact, it PUNISHES bombers. Cameron Young winning last year was an outlier. Historically, this course belongs to accurate ball strikers with sharp wedges, and Emiliano Grillo has that skill set on lock.
He’s not going to blow the field away with a 63 on Sunday. But he doesn’t have to. He just needs to grind, hit fairways, stick wedges, and make some putts.
At +4500, I’ll take that.
My Plays
Cameron Young (+850) to win (favorite play)
Aaron Rai (+3000) to win (mid-range play)
Emiliano Grillo (+4500) to win (longshot play)
For top-10 or top-20 markets, Rai and Grillo both look great at those numbers – both have upside without the outright win pressure.
Good luck to everyone playing this week.
And to Patrick Cantlay – thanks for nothing, buddy.
