Wells Fargo Championship

The Putters are back folks. It's been a few weeks since the last time we talked golf and now we are back and ready to roll. It's been a wild two weeks on tour, last week at The Valspar Championship, Sam Burns achieved the dream of every single professional golfer, his first PGA Tour Victory. Burns has been playing spectacular golf as of late so this win was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Burns dismantled Innisbrook last week, pulling out all the shots he needed to get it done. The absolute most impressive stat of Burn’s first win was his par 5 scoring for the week. Throughout the week Burns played the par 5’s at 15 under par. His total through four rounds was 17 under. That's just downright incredible in my book. Nevertheless Sam Burns played flawless golf and this win was well deserved through and through. 

Now a lot has happened outside the tour the last couple weeks. The most recent and in my opinion the most notable was the significant purse increase on the Korn Ferry Tour. This is huge for players trying to make it to the PGA Tour. In the past these developmental tours have proven to be not as rewarding as they should. Many times players win and still struggle just to get from event to event. With this purse increase all Korn Ferry Tour events will have $1 million purses starting in 2022, and $1.5 million by 2023. This is monumental, not only is more money important for the growth of the game, but players will now have more financial freedom to travel more comfortably to events, sustainability in this lifestyle, and will dramatically increase the level of competition as well. As a professional golfer playing in PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour qualifiers, this is an absolute incredible move for so many players across professional golf. 

In other news the Premier League is yet again making headlines. Now Tyler touched on this a little later I just want to say that this new league would effectively destroy The PGA Tour in the long run. Nevertheless the PGA Tour will squash this annoying bug of an idea yet again. Now onto more important things, The Wells Fargo Championship is finally back after two years. 

This week the Tour heads to Quail Hollow, in Charlotte, North Carolina for the Wells Fargo Championship. Now Quail Hollow has proven to be extremely challenging in the past, however it is the home to the maiden victory of three pretty familiar names in the past 10 years. In 2010 Rory McIlroy captured his first win, in 2012 Rickie Fowler captured his first title, and finally in 2019 Max Homa, my personal favorite achieved the same feat. Super cool to watch all these guys come back to the place that jump started their career, the first one is always the greatest. However, winning at Quail Hollow is not an easy task. Quail Hollow is a beast of a golf course totaling at 7,600 yards in length. The golf course also features narrow, winding fairways guarded by trees and hazards. The greens are heavily guarded by large deep bunkers forcing players to pick and choose their lines carefully. Quail Hollow has also hosted a variety of majors and team events in the past as well. On top of the absolute pristine golf course fans will be blessed with a very stacked field. This week fans can expect to watch Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm, Will Zalatoris, Max Homa and much more. (Mike)

 The Premier Golf League is again making news as sources have said top players are still interested in the idea. I cannot blame the players for this because there is a silly amount of money they can make on this proposed tour. I personally think these guys make plenty of money now and the tour seems to be headed in the right direction. The PGA Tour has said anyone that signs up for this league will lose their tour card and I support that stance. I think the Premier Golf League is a great idea for the guys in between the normal tour and the Senior Circuit, but I find it hard to believe that many of the top young names will jump ship to this league if it were to happen. We saw something similar get proposed for soccer and it was met with intense criticism. I think this idea is bad, but not as bad as the proposed soccer league. I am confident the tour will do what it needs to do to keep the best players. (Tyler)

Pick’s of the Week:

Mike: I'm super excited to make my picks this week, because I'm feeling very confident in another maiden PGA Tour victory this week. This week’s winning pick goes to Will Zalatoris. We all know Will can play that's obvious, but I believe Will’s game is sharpening up and he's due. His confidence is high, he’s putting extremely well and his game is just evolving and coming full circle. Keep your eye out for Will, his time to shine is coming. 

This week’s underdog pick goes to my second favorite player Joel Dahmen. Now Joel captured his first victory 5-6 weeks ago and we haven’t seen much of him since but I believe he's due for another win. After getting his first win his confidence level shot up. He realized that he belonged on tour and he could accomplish many more wins in the future. (Mike)

Tyler: As for my picks this week, I am going with Joaquin Niemann at 35-1. Somehow he is still only 22 and his game always seems to keep him in contention. He is going to win a lot on tour, it is just a matter of time. 

My underdog pick this week is Cam Champ at 100-1. It is no secret that he can hit the ball a mile, he just needs the rest of his game to be average and he will have a chance. I think he will win a lot on tour as well and this week could be a breakthrough win just like The Wells Fargo was for Max Homa a few years ago. 

My notable to miss the cut is Patrick Cantlay. He played well in New Orleans a few weeks ago, but I am still not sold on his game being in a good spot right now. He is a very good player and will be contending again soon, I just think this week is not the week for him yet. (Tyler)