2024 Wells Fargo Championship PrizePicks: First-Round Plays for Thursday

Here's everything you need to know about the Wells Fargo Championship PrizePicks 2024: First-round plays for Thursday's PGA Tour event in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Quail Hollow Club is a par-71, 7,558-yard track designed by George Cobb and redesigned by Tom Fazio that features Bermudagrass greens with Poa trivialis overseed and is a course that rewards long hitters.

Find my 2024 Wells Fargo Championship PrizePicks for Thursday below.

2024 Wells Fargo Championship PrizePicks

Max Homa Less Than 70.5 Strokes

The first golfer to target on Thursday is Max Homa, who won here in 2019 and finished T8 last season. This success at Quail Hollow makes sense considering Homa's profile.

He is a big hitter, gaining distance off the tee over the field in 23 of his past 24 tournaments. At the same time, Homa is a tremendous ball-striker who can also scramble when needed as he ranks 27th on Tour this season in Scrambling Percentage.

I mention this stat because the difficulty of Quail Hollow often forces golfers to get up-and-down to save their scores. Four of the top-six finishers here last year ranked among the top six in the field in Scrambling, the only metric or statistic in which such a trend occurred.

Finally, Homa has shot 70 or lower in eight of his past 10 rounds at Quail Hollow.

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Rory McIlroy Less Than 70 Strokes

I wrote about Rory McIlroy in my FRL article this week, and if I like him to lead after the first round, then I obviously like him to record less than 70 strokes. McIlroy should be eager to return to Quail Hollow, a venue I like to call his "home away from home" as he is a three-time winner of this event.

This domination makes sense because Quail Hollow is a bomber's course, and McIlroy is the best driver of the golf ball on Tour. Any concerns of his recent form are now nullified with his recent win at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Yes, that was a team event, but McIlroy mostly carried Shane Lowry throughout the week anyway. McIlroy has also gained total strokes in each of his past seven tournaments with ShotLink data.

Akshay Bhatia More Than 3.5 Birdies or Better

Akshay Bhatia is the last golfer to back on Thursday. Bhatia is one of my favorite young players on Tour, and he now boasts two wins at just 22 years old following his victory at the Valero Texas Open last month.

He has now made the weekend in five consecutive tournaments, including that win and three other top-18 finishes. The only question mark I have with Bhatia is distance off the tee, but I think he will hit it long enough considering that he has gained distance off the tee over the field in 12 of his past 17 tournaments.

Even if the driver holds him back, I trust his ability to scramble as he ranks 31st on Tour in Scrambling Percentage. Furthermore, I particularly like Bhatia in this market as he ranks 34th in Birdie Percentage at 4.27 birdies per round.

Bhatia has recorded four or more birdies in four of his past five rounds at Quail Hollow.