The Sentry 2024 Each-way Tips: Picks from 40/1 to 66/1

• 40/141.00 Sepp Straka can carry over strong 2023 form

• 55/156.00 Brian Harman looks to be underrated again

• 66/167.00 Cam Davis finished well on debut here in 2022

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The PGA Tour is back!

Pleasingly for fans of calendar years, this is absolutely the very first event of the new season. Forget all that wraparound stuff. This is 2024 and it starts all fresh and shiny right here.

Less pleasingly, the tournament doesn't have its defending champion. Jon Rahm's 'rethink' about the LIV Tour means the Spaniard can put his feet up and think about generational wealth for his previously struggling family.

LIV starts up in February, a week after Rahm sits out the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines - that place where he got married and won the US Open. No biggie, especially when you've got some growing the game to do.

The Sentry has lost some words from its title this year as calling it an exclusive tournament for champions is now redundant.

The field is now a 60-man affair, with every player who finished inside the top 50 of the 2023 FedEx Cup standings, whether they won an event or not, getting an invite alongside those who did lift a trophy last year.

Aside from that rebrand, the venue is reassuringly familiar. The Plantation Course, a Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design that opened in 1991, is far from standard fare. It's an exposed-to-the-wind par 73, has wide-open fairways, enormous greens and the only water to be seen is away in the distance being enjoyed by surfers.

Those vast putting surfaces are now covered in TifEagle Bermuda while the fairways are firmer than before the 2019 revamp due to the planting of Celebration Bermuda.

Not surprisingly, the quirky nature of this venue throws up plenty of course specialists although, as is often the case these days, multiple looks aren't essential. Steve Rawlings notes that five of last 10 winners were playing the event for just the second time.

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Back Sepp Straka @ 40/141.00

Current form can often get overlooked in this event as there's an assumption that the calendar flipping to a new year somehow resets everything.

But look at the last three winners. Rahm had ended 2022 with two wins in his final three events, Cam Smith had signed off his 2021 campaign with a fourth in the RSM Classic while Harris English had completed 2020 with a fifth and a sixth.

Okay, clubs had been put down for a few weeks but confidence and trust in the swing was ready and waiting just beneath the surface.

So let's start with a player who finished joint runner-up in an elite field at the Hero World Challenge at the start of last month.

Sepp Straka's total of 17-under would have won the previous year's edition but, unfortunately for him, he ran into something almost unbeatable: Scottie Scheffler putting well.

Scheffler is the deserved favourite this week but Straka definitely has each-way appeal at 40s (1/5 Odds, 6 Places).

Speaking after that excellent Hero showing in the Bahamas, Straka noted: "It's always huge to play against the best players in the world and kind of measure yourself.

"When you play well and you're kind of in the mix with a good field, a bunch of good players, you know your game's in a pretty good spot."

As well as ending the year with a second place, Straka had done some great things in 2023, his most notable period in July when winning the John Deere Classic and then finishing runner-up in the Open Championship at Hoylake.

Like many past champions here, he's also in the 'played it just once' camp.

Finishing 21st in a limited field last year was nothing to write home about but he got better each day - 71-70-68-67 - and arrives with both better knowledge of the course and his confidence sky high.

A Ryder Cup winner with Europe, Straka belongs at the top table now and his excellent record by the sea and 2022 Honda victory at PGA National, another exposed windy track, are further pointers that he could hit the ground running in 2024.

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Back Brian Harman @ 55/156.00

While Straka had a week to remember at Hoylake, Brian Harman had one for the ages after his astonishing six-shot win. Six shots! In an Open Championship.

Harman is now the World No.9 and yet despite destroying the field in the most recent major championship played, his price of 55s seems more that of a plucky left-hander who might have some sort of outside chance.

The American is surely no one-hit wonder and, despite the temptation to have just coasted through the rest of the season falling that supernova moment at Royal Liverpool, he managed a fifth (BMW Championship) and an eighth (Hero World Challenge) in the five events he played after lifting the Claret Jug.

Looking at recent results at The Plantation Course, it's very apparent that short game prowess takes you far.

Rahm was 1st for Strokes Gained: Putting and 3rd for Around The Green when triumphant last year; Cam Smith also wielded the hottest blade and was 7th in ATG, the first three home in 2022 ranking 7th, 6th and 2nd in that category.

Harman, by a distance, was 1st for SG: Putting in his Open win and a glance at last season's Scrambling stats on the PGA Tour also shows him at the very top of the pile.

The 36-year-old southpaw has played this event three times previously and shown promise in each of them.

He closed with a 65 on debut in 2015, held the halfway lead (second after 54 holes) when third in 2018 and sat ninth with 18 to play last year before settling for 16th.

If Harman has another 'on' week with the putter, don't rule him out.

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Back Cam Davis @ 66/167.00

Australians have a wonderful record in this event and I'm more than happy to have one from Down Under in the staking plan.

Stuart Appleby won a hat-trick of titles from 2004 to 2006 while Geoff Ogilvy also defended at the Plantation Course when hoisting the silverware in both 2009 and 2010. Cam Smith triumphed two years ago.

Part of the reasoning for all those Aussie wins earlier this century was that their players were match-sharp after contesting the Australian Triple Crown events.

Cam Davis falls into that category having teed it up at both the Australian PGA Championship and the Australian Open in late November/early December.

While he didn't steal the headlines, posting seventh at the PGA and being first-round leader at the Aussie Open were good signs and just being back at home will have given him a boost and hopefully some fresh energy.

Davis played some excellent stuff on the PGA Tour in the second half of 2023.

In seven events from July to October, the 28-year-old from Sydney recorded finishes of 10th, 7th, 6th, 40th, 3rd, 7th and 12th.

That means he has six top 10s and a 12th in his last nine worldwide starts.

Adding to that is an impressive debut at The Plantation. Davis finished 10th on his only appearance here two years ago, finishing with a pair of 66s.

Also ninth in the 2020 Sony Open, he's got the mix of power and finesse to show up well again at this venue.

Davis was 26th for Driving Distance on the PGA Tour in 2023 and 46th for Around The Green. In the latter metric he ranked 1st at the Fortinet having been 4th and 7th for ATG in two of his three previous events.

The 66s looks a big each-way price.

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Now read Steve Rawlings' pick on The Sentry, who has a 7/18.00 tip!