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Tournament of Champions: Sabbatini heads Punter's picks

The Punter RSS / / 04 January 2012 /

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Rory Sabbatini – Runner-up twice, can he go one better?

Rory Sabbatini – Runner-up twice, can he go one better?

“Sabbatini has been in Hawaii since December 13th and you can bet your bottom dollar that he’s comprehensively reacquainted himself with Kapalua.”

Read Steve's thoughts on the US PGA Tour's traditional Hawaiian opener, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, here...

Tournament
This is the 60th staging of the event in its various guises. Now with a brand new sponsor, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions also has a new starting day, kicking off on Friday and finishing on Monday. The tournament is restricted to last year's PGA Tour winners only but unfortunately not all of them are playing and this year's renewal looks particularly weak with only 28 of the eligible 39 attending.

Venue
Plantation Course at Kapalua, Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii

Course Details
Par 73, 7411 yards. A long but easy wind-exposed course with wide fairways and large greens that usually offers up very low scoring. This will be the 14th staging in-a-row at Kapalua.

TV Coverage
Live on Sky Sports - 10.30pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 9.00pm Monday.

Last Five Winners
2011 - Jonathan Byrd -24(Playoff)
2010 - Geoff Ogilvy -22
2009 - Geoff Ogilvy -24
2008 - Daniel Chopra -18(Playoff)
2009 - Vijay Singh -14

Typical Winner
Overseas players fare well and so do big-hitters. Jonathan Byrd wasn't an obvious winner 12 months ago as he was the first American to win in ten years and he isn't particularly long off the tee either but he did putt well and that's the key stat. No winner in the last 13 years has ranked worse than fourth in Total Putting. Course experience is a big plus too. Daniel Chopra was the last first-timer to take the title and only seven have won the event since 1970.

Market Leaders
Steve Stricker and Webb Simpson vie for favouritism and if I were forced to pick one it would have to be the former. Stricker is a great putter with solid course form whereas Simpson is making his Kapalua debut and he ranked just 40th on tour for Total Putting last year. Third favourite Nick Watney should have just the game for the venue but at just [11.0] he's readily overlooked.

Selections
Rory Sabbatini has finished runner-up here twice from just five starts. He's been in Hawaii since December 13th and you can bet your bottom dollar that he's comprehensively reacquainted himself with Kapalua while others have been at home with their feet up. Putting will be the key for Rory and he'll need to wave the wand better than he usually does but at [28.0] he looked a very fair price.

Stuart Appleby won this event three times in-a-row between 2004 and 2006 and Geoff Ogilvy went back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. Given that last year's champ, Jonathan Byrd, is the only previous winner in the line-up I thought he was well worth getting onside too. In addition to his win last year, Byrd was 6th on debut in 2003 and he's never finished worse than 15th in four starts here.

Hyundai Tournament of Champions Selections:

Rory Sabbatini @ [28.0]
Jonathan Byrd @ [30.0]

I'll be back later in the week with my In-Play Blog.

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