Andrew's Kansas Wichita Open (KFT) Preview

Two events this week and they couldn’t come at a busier time – as well as real life, I’ve got Royal Ascot to worry about, as well as The Amateur Championship taking place just down the road from me. I’ll be there for some of the matchplay tomorrow and Friday, and hopefully some of the final on Sunday. As I writte this, Connor Graham leads the qualification strokeplay after much of the field have wrapped up their 36 holes. I have my eye on him, Englishman Dom Clemons and American Tommy Morrison. Unfortunately it looks like Matthew Dodd-Berry will just miss qualification. Not original picks, but there isn’t a betting market. You can follow along here.

All this preamble is because we didn’t have a KFT event last week and there isn’t very much to say in advance of the current one. It’s a very regulation event – let’s get into it.

The Tournament

The snappily titled Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Wichita Open sees the players returning to Wichita (duh) and to the Crestview Country Club, which is one of a very few events to remain on the same course since the inception of the tour in 1990. As you’d expect, there have been some subsequently famous winners in that time. If you look through that list of winners, you’ll also see that the scores are very low indeed – Norman Xiong’s -26 254 is the 72 hole record on this short (6,910 yard) par 70. 

When I tell you that Taylor Dickson won last year, and you see the length, you might imagine that this is all about approach play. Well, not really. Dickson beat Sam Stevens by a shot, with plenty of other bombers well up in the field, and Ricky Castillo took a playoff from Adrien Dumont de Chassart and Kyle Jones the year before. This is a course that can be bombed. Or, like Harry Hall (2021) and Taylor Dickson (2024) you can play fairways and greens. All that matters is that you put the ball close and putt brilliantly. 

It is going to be fairly windy, especially on Saturday and Sunday, so I don’t think we’re going to see Xiong’s course record threatened, but even with the wind gusting, scores are going to be low. I’m hoping for course form, for players with a good record of playing well on low-scoring courses and for people in good form. It won’t be much more complicated than that and the skillset of my team is consequently quite mixed.

Selections

It is unusual for me to back an outright favourite but I can’t put anyone off Pierceson Coody. From Plano, Texas, this sort of setup is ideal for him. He’s playing well – most recently finishing second in the BMW Charity Pro-am a fortnight ago, that being his sixth top-20 finish in seven KFT starts (the other was 31st.) That’s enough to put him in tenth on the order of merit from a short campaign – he’s also 159th on the FedEx list. As you’d expect with those results, he ranks second for scoring average behind S.H. Kim, who isn’t here, as well as seventh in putting. He has played this twice before, finishing fourth and 35th. There’s just a lot to like and I actually think the win-only price represents meaningful value.

If he isn’t winning, I have two supporting acts. The first is Seung-Yul (SY) Noh. The Korean Veteran is only 34, remarkable given that he’s in his 18th year as a professional, and was winning on the Asian Tour as long ago as October 2008. After losing his PGA card in 2023 he played a mixed schedule last year – he did take part in this, and was 17th – but has dedicated himself to this tour for 2025 and needs a couple of big results to improve on his 45th rank in the order of merit and get back to the big tour. After a weak run, he’s been tenth, MC, 23rd and 24th in his last four starts and this stellar putter and excellent wind player can move up the ranks this week.

Finally, Preston Summerhays represents a bet on pure class. I can’t point to his KFT experience, because he hardly has any. I believe that this is his fourth start – which means that until Thursday he’s played in as many US Opens as he has KFT events. I was commenting recently that his NCAA season was disappointing – I thought he’d be in the running to top the PGA Tour U rankings – and he must have heard me, rattling through for ninth in the NCAA finals, before running away with US Open qualification in Valencia, finishing three shots ahead of Riley Lewis and six ahead of the fourth and final qualifier. Like many others, he found the U.S. Open proper a bit too much, but this powerful driver with a great pedigree won’t be hanging around at this level for too long and I can’t let him go unbacked at this price.

• Pierceson Coody, 17/1, enhanced win only, 2pts

• SY Noh, 55/1, 1pt e/w, ¼ odds 5 places

• Preston Summerhays, 1pt e/w, ¼ odds 5 places

All Bet365.