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Eight of the last ten winners played in The Sentry
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Course experience key at Waialae
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Thrid round leaders worth taking on
Tournament History
The Sony Open dates all the way back to the 1920s and it's been a regular on the PGA Tour since 1965.
It's the first full field event of 2024 and for those that weren't involved in the two recent limited field events - the Hero World Challenge in December and last week's Sentry - it's the first chance of tournament action since the RSM Classic back in the middle of November.
Venue
Waialae Country Club, Honolulu, Hawaii
Course Details
Par 70, 7,044 yards
Stroke index in 2022 - 68.87
Designed by Seth Raynor, Waialae is a short, tree-lined, wind-affected course with small Bermuda Greens. Water is in play on just three holes and the greens usually run at around 11 on the stimpmeter.
There were a couple of changes to the course prior to the 2019 renewal. A fairway bunker was removed on the 10th and the green was doubled in size, and the par five finishing hole had its green increased in size by approximately a third.
As you'll see below, with the list of winners, scores can vary quite considerably depending on how penal the rough is and more importantly, how strong the wind blows.
TV Coverage
Live on Sky Sports all four days, beginning at 17:00 on Thursday
Last Eight Winners with Pre-event Prices
- 2023 - Si Woo Kim -18 70.069/1
- 2022 - Hideki Matsuyama -23 21.020/1 (playoff)
- 2021 - Kevin Na -21 120.0119/1
- 2020 - Cameron Smith -11 65.064/1 (playoff)
- 2019 - Matt Kuchar -22 48.047/1
- 2018 - Patton Kizzire -17 85.084/1 (playoff)
- 2017 - Justin Thomas -27 17.016/1
- 2016 - Fabian Gomez -20 110.0109/1
What Will it Take to Win the Sony?
When Matt Kuchar won here four years ago, he ranked fourth for Driving Accuracy and it was interesting to hear how important he thought it was to be straight off the tee when comparing this course to El Camaleón in Mexico (more on that below).
"Both courses are very tight, very demanding driving golf courses. That would probably be the biggest similarity."
With the rough set at three inches instead of the usual two, the first four home in 2022 ranked tied 13th, sixth, ninth and tied 13th for DA, suggesting Kuchar was on to something, but the stats don't really bear the straight of the tee theory too strongly.
The 2021 winner, Kevin Na, only ranked 49th for Driving Accuracy, the 2020 champ, Cam Smith, ranked only 41st, the 2018 winner, Patton Kizzire, ranked 56th, and Justin Thomas broke the PGA Tour's 72-hole scoring record when he won here seven years ago ranking only 60th for DA, so more often than not, being arrow-straight is clearly not that vital.
Power is certainly not an important prerequisite either and I'd favour accuracy over length off the tee, with last year's winner's stats summing that up perfectly. Si Woo Kim ranked 26th for DD and 13th for DA.
As well as being straight off the tee, Kuchar also ranked first for Greens In Regulation in 2019. He was the 17th winner in 18 years to rank inside the top-12 for GIR and the front three last year ranked second, fourth and sixth so it's clearly a key stat but four of the last six winners have ranked between 20th and 36th for GIR and very recently, a good week with the putter has been more important than accurate iron play.
Kim only ranked 25th for PA last year but three of the top-six ranked inside the top ten and the playoff protagonists in 2022 ranked third and first for Putting Average and first and third for Strokes Gained Putting.
The five winners between 2017 and 2021 had a PA ranking of sixth, second, fifth, second and first and prior to the 2022 winner, Matsuyama, ranking number one for Strokes Gained Putting, the four winners between before 2017 and 2020 ranked first, third, third and second for that stat.
Kim played the long holes better than the par fours last year (-9) but the second and third, Hayden Buckley and Chris Kirk, ranked number one for Par 4 Scoring (-10), nobody bettered the 12-under-par that Hideki played the par fours in two years ago, and the six winners before Kim all ranked inside the top six for Par 4 Scoring.
Is There an Angle In?
As many as six players this century have won both this event and last week's Sentry and a number of other of venues on the PGA Tour correlate nicely with Waialae too.
The Seaside Course in Sea Island, Georgia, which hosts the RSM Classic, Harbour Town Links in South Carolina, home of the RBC Heritage, and El Camaleón, the venue for the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico up until last year. They are all short seaside tracks with tricky, grainy greens and I'd also consider both TPC Southwind and Colonial Country Club, venue of the Charles Schwab Challenge, as similar types of test. The first and second here in 2021, Na and Chris Kirk (who boosted The Sentry link last week), have both won at Colonial.
A number of players have won either this event or the now defunct St. Jude Classic at TPC Southwind and finished runner-up at the other event. Both Fabian Gomez and David Toms have won both tournaments fairly recently, but it's form at El Camaleón - the former home of the World Wide Technology Championship - that needs the closest inspection.
The first and second in Mexico eight years ago, Pat Perez and Gary Woodland, have both been placed here before and even though the World Wide Technology Championship was only staged 16 times in total at El Camaleón. We have already seen five players win at both venues, and at a very big prices here (Kuchar, Kizzire, Russel Henley, Mark Wilson and Johnson Wagner). And it could have easily been six or seven...
Kim finished third at El Camaleón in 2017 and the 2013 World Wide Technology Championship winner, Harris English, has a good record here. He finished third in 2015 and fourth in 2014, having traded at a low of 1.674/6. And English is also another former winner of the St. Jude Classic.
Zach Johnson is one of the six players to have recently won this event and last week's Sentry and that's always a good place to start. Back in 2015, Zach offered some insight as to why The Sentry winners do well here when he said that although the tracks are very different in style, the winds are very similar, and he felt they played alike as a result.
Along with the trade winds, another similarity between the two venues is the green speeds. Kapalua's greens are huge and undulating whereas the ones here are small and flat, but both sets of greens run slowly in comparison to most PGA Tour venues.
The similar greens' speed, being familiar with the trade winds, and enjoying the advantage of a very recent outing all go a long way to explain why those that played the week before at Kapalua have such a strong record here.
As many as 17 of the last 25 Sony Open winners, and eight of the last ten, have played The Sentry the week before they won here and it's worth bearing in mind that in the events staged between 2012 and 2015, the Sentry finished on either a Monday or a Tuesday, which was quite a disadvantage - especially in 2013 when Russell Henley won here (hadn't played in The Sentry). Bad weather meant the event was reduced to three rounds and it didn't finish until the Tuesday! That may explain why Kuchar was the only player that played in The Sentry to finish inside the top-seven here that year.
Na, Kuchar, Kizzire and Gomez, who all played in The Sentry, were all big outsiders when they won here so an appearance last week is the clearest pointer we have, and they don't have to have played brilliantly either.
Justin Thomas won both events in consecutive weeks in 2017 and Gomez had finished sixth in The Sentry before winning here a year earlier but prior to their successes here, Na had finished 38th in The Sentry, Kuchar 19th, Kizzire 15th and Matsuyama 13th so a high finish isn't essential. And it's worth remembering that all that happened before the field sizes were expanded in Kapalua this year.
Course form looks key
A recent win looks a good pointer given five of the last nine winners had won earlier in the wraparound season and historically, this has been an excellent event for big-priced winners too, but previous course experience has still been almost essential.
The 2018 winner, Kizzire, who missed the cut in his only previous visit (in 2016) and Russell Henley, who won here 11 years ago in his first PGA Tour event, are the only winners since 1996 not to have played Waialae Country Club at least twice previously and Henley was the first winner in his 20s here since Paul Stankowski way back in 1997 so look to the more experienced stars.
Course experience looks important, but strong course form isn't vital. In addition to Kizzire, who had that single MC prior to winning, Gomez's course form figures read MC-67-MC prior to his 2016 victory and when Jimmy Walker took the title the first time, in 2014, his figures read MC-61-32-MC-4-MC-26. Smith had somewhat modest course form figures in 2020, reading MC-27-18-22 and when Johnson Wagner took the title in 2012, his previous course form numbers read 34-MC-MC-MC-MC.
Prior to his victory 12 months ago, Kim had course form figures reading 4-58-MC-25-55 and Matsuyama's course form figures read MC-MC-MC-MC-27-51-12-19 prior to his victory two years ago.
Winner's Position and Price Pre-Round Four
- 2023 - Si Woo Kim tied fifth - trailing by three 10.519/2
- 2022 - Hideki Matsuyama solo 2nd - trailing by two 3.55/2
- 2021 - Kevin Na tied second - trailing by two 8.27/1
- 2020 - Cameron Smith solo 2nd - trailing by three 5.49/2
- 2019 - Matt Kuchar led by two strokes 1.684/6
- 2018 - Patton Kizzire T2nd - trailing by one 5.14/1
- 2017 - Justin Thomas led by seven strokes 1.141/7
- 2016 - Fabian Gomez solo 5th - trailing by four 55.054/1
In-Play Tactics
The last four winners all sat outside the top-20 after the opening round but we've seen five players win here wire-to-wire this century, so frontrunners have a fair record.
In addition, Brandt Snedeker was beaten in extra time seven years ago, after leading through rounds one, two and three, Henley won from the front, having sat second after round one, and Kuchar sat third and two off the lead after round one before leading after rounds two and three. History suggests it's hard to win here from off the pace here but it's certainly not impossible...
Fabian Gomez edged out Snedeker in 2016 and his victory went against the in-running trends. He was tied for 68th, six off the lead, and matched at 900.0899/1 after round one, and he was still five back at halfway. He sat fifth after three rounds, but he was still four adrift and he's one of just five players in 54 years to win from that many strokes adrift through 54 holes.
Gomez shot an eight-under-par 62 to catch Snedeker and we very nearly witnessed an even more remarkable comeback win in 2018 when James Hahn, who was 14th and seven back with a round to go, also shot 62 to catch Kizzire before losing a playoff at the sixth extra hole.
Although being up with the pace is important, it's not easy to convert from the front if the last few years are anything to go by.
As many as five of the last six 54-hole leaders have been beaten and the last four all traded at very short odds before losing.
A year after Brendan Steele was matched at just 1.111/9 in-running before getting beat by Smith in extra time in 2020, he was matched at a low of 1.374/11 before getting caught and passed by Na in 2021 and having led by five with just nine to play in 2022, Henley was matched at just 1.061/18 in-running!
Last year's third round leader, Hayden Buckley, didn't do an awful lot long but he was caught late on by Kim, who chipped in for birdie at the par three 17th, and he was matched at a low of 1.331/3.
The leaders go out very late UK time on Sunday but placing a cheeky lay bet at skinny odds on the 54-hole leader may just provide a pleasant surprise on Monday morning for those not intending to stop up late into the early hours.
Market Leaders
As many as six players are trading at a price lower than last week's impressive winner, Chris Kirk, and I'm going to dismiss three of them - the favourite, Ludvig Aberg, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Tyrrell Hatton - on account of them playing Waialae for the first time this week.
As highlighted above, course experience is very important, and Aberg looks particularly short after his tied 47th at The Sentry but he did at least shoot a ten-under-par 63 on Sunday after a woeful 77 in round three. The English course debutants both finished tied for 14th last week.
The Open winner, Brian Harman, led here by three strokes at halfway in 2018, before eventually finishing fourth, but that's his only top-12 finish in 12 previous visits so I'm happy to swerve him, despite his fifth placed finish in The Sentry last week.
And course specialist, Russell Henley, is always a danger here but he finished down the field last week (52nd) and that's a bit off-putting.
Selection
I'll be back later today or tomorrow with the Find Me a 100 Winner column but my only pre-event pick at less than 100/1101.00 is last week's winner, Kirk.
It's never easy to win back-to-back but the 38-year-old was ridiculously impressive last week, and this venue is far more suitable to his skillset.
He's a winner of the RSM Classic, he's also won at Colonial, and he has two seconds, a third, and a fifth placed finish here already so the industry-wide best of 28/129.00 available with the Sportsbook, with eight places up for grabs, looks too good to ignore.
As already highlighted, form at the Plantation Course crosses over brilliantly, numerous players have won at both venues, and both Ernie Els and Justin Thomas won the two events back-to-back, so Kirk wouldn't be setting a precedent.