-
Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green a key stat
-
Course form a big plus
-
Scheffler the worthy favourite
Tournament History
The PGA Tour returns on Thursday with its traditional annual opener - The Sentry - formerly the Sentry Tournament of Champions.
The tournament was first staged in 1953 and between 1986 and 2013 it was the season opener but in 2013 the PGA Tour switched to a wraparound format, with each season starting in the autumn, so it appeared around a quarter of the way through the season, but it's all change again this year, with the 2024 PGA Tour season beginning this week.
The Sentry used to be a limited field event restricted only to those that had won on the PGA Tour in the previous calendar year, but there's been a change to the qualifying criteria this year, hence the name change from the Sentry Tournament of Champions to The Sentry.
This year's edition is open to all the 2023 PGA Tour tournament winners (including the recent Fall Series winners), plus any players that finished in the top 50 of the final 2023 FedEx Cup standings (last year it was the top-30).
The Sentry is also the first of eight Designated Events on the PGA Tour. It's a prestigious affair with a stellar line-up but the field doesn't include last year's winner, Jon Rahm, as for the second year in-a-row, the defending champ has moved to the LIV Golf Tour.
Venue
Plantation Course at Kapalua, Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii.
Course Details
Par 73, 7596 yards
Stroke index in 2022- 68.92
Designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the Plantation Course opened in 1991 and it's the only par 73 on the PGA Tour rota.
It's a long but wind exposed course with big elevation changes, wide and severely sloping fairways and large Bermuda greens that usually run at just 10 on the stimpmeter.
Unless the wind really blows, the scoring has always been super-low here but prior to the 2020 edition, the designers returned to undertake what was described as an extensive refinement and with the help of some strong winds, it appeared to do the trick, with Justin Thomas winning the title for a second time with a -14 total.
It was business as usual in 2021 though, with the two playoff protagonists, Harris English and Joaquín Niemann, reaching 25-under-par and after rain had softened the course in the lead up two years ago, in a benign and almost windless week, Cam Smith smashed the tournament record, winning in a whopping 34-under-par. That was the lowest 72 hole to-par score in the history of the PGA Tour.
Jon Rahm didn't go quite that low, but he still reached 27-under-par so it's an easy track for the best players in the world if the wind doesn't blow too hard.
This will be the 26th staging in-a-row at Kapalua.
TV Coverage
Live on Sky Sports all four days, beginning at 19:15UK time on Thursday.
Last Eight Winners with Pre-event Prices
- 2024 - Jon Rahm -27 8.415/2
- 2022 - Cam Smith -34 26.025/1
- 2021 - Harris English -25 42.041/1 (playoff)
- 2020 - Justin Thomas -14 7.06/1 (playoff)
- 2019 - Xander Schauffele -23 30.029/1
- 2018 - Dustin Johnson -24 9.417/2
- 2017 - Justin Thomas -22 23.022/1
- 2016 - Jordan Spieth -30 6.25/1
What Will it Take to Win the Sentry?
Neither driving metric has been essential over the years although I'd narrowly favour length over accuracy. The last two winners have ranked fourth and second for Driving Distance but only one of the first six home ranked inside the top-ten for DD in both 2020 and 2021 so bombing it off the tee isn't essential despite the track's length.
The first and second last year ranked seventh and third for for Greens In Regulation, Smith ranked fifth in 2022 and the two winners before him both ranked third for GIR but the key stat appears to be Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green.
The first six home last year ranked third, eighth, fourth, 14th first and fifth and it was a similar story in 2022.
Smith ranked third and the top-seven in the SGT2G stats filled the first seven places on the leaderboard.
The 2021 winner, Harris English, only ranked 13th for SGT2G but had he lost the playoff to Joaquín Niemann the last seven winners would have ranked third, third, second, second, third, first and first for that stat.
Only three of the last 11 winners have ranked first for Par 5 Scoring but five of them have ranked first for Par 4 Scoring. Rahm only ranked second last year but the runner-up, Collin Morikawa, ranked first.
Scrambling used to be a really important stat and I'd still give it plenty of weight, but a strong putter has been the most important asset of late.
Rahm ranked first for Putting Average and second for Strokes Gained Putting so the last seven winners have now ranked first or second for Putting Average and as many as 16 of the last 18 winners have ranked inside the top-four for PA.
Is There an Angle In?
Next week's event, the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club, offers up the best angle in.
Rahm has never played in the Sony but following Smith's win here in 2022, we've now witnessed six men this century win both The Sentry Tournament and the Sony Open.
In addition to Smith, Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, Ernie Els, Zach Johnson and Justin Thomas have all won both events in the last 20 odd years and following Smith's success at St Andrews in 2022, all six are also major champions.
In addition to the six that have won both events, there's plenty of other evidence to show the two tournaments correlate strongly. The 2021 winner, English, finished inside the top-ten in the event for three years in-a-row between 2013 and 2015 and the man he beat in extra time, Niemann, followed up his runner-up finish here with another second at Waialae a week later.
Brandt Snedeker finished third here and second at the Sony a week later in 2016 and that was a year after Jimmy Walker had finished second here before defending the title at Waialae (traded at just 1.091/11 here before getting beat).
Back in 2015, Zach Johnson offered some insight as to why Sony Open 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.
Is There an Identikit Winner?
The 2020 playoff was contested by three former winners, defending champions often fare well and multiple event winners are relatively common, so it's a bit of a shame that the last two victors aren't in the line-up.
Rahm had finished second twice before he won 12 months ago and Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, and Steve Stricker really should have won this at least twice (Stricker arguably three times).
Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Tiger Woods have all doubled up fairly recently. Geoff Ogilvy won the event back-to-back in 2009 and 2010 and Stuart Appleby won it three times in-a-row between 2004 and 2006.
Course experience is very important, and debutants have a poor record. Sergio Garcia and the shock 2008 winner, Daniel Chopra, are the only first timers to win here but one look is very often all you need.
Both of the 2021 playoff protagonists were playing the Plantation Course for only the second time and that's something of a trend now given five of the last ten winners were playing in the event for just the second time.
Prior to Smith's success, the previous 11 winners had all been American but that was quite a strange run given that prior to 2011 an overseas player had won for nine years in-a-row.
Winner's Position and Price Pre-Round Four
- 2023 - Jon Rahm - T5 - trailing by seven 29.028/1
- 2022 - Cam Smith tied for the lead 2.6613/8
- 2021 - Harris English tied for the lead 3.412/5
- 2020 - Justin Thomas alone in 2nd - trailing by one 3.02/1
- 2019 - Xander Schauffele T4 - trailing by five 20.019/1
- 2018 - Dustin Johnson led by two strokes 1.625/8
- 2017 - Justin Thomas led by two strokes 2.265/4
- 2016 - Jordan Spieth led by five strokes 1.11/10
In-Play Tactics
We've seen a couple of strange finishes here recently.
Jon Rahm trailed Collin Morikawa by seven strokes with a round to go last year and the pre-event 8.415/2 favourite was matched at as a high as 120.0119/1 after he'd bogeyed the opening hole in round four but with the leader stumbling (matched at a low of 1.021/50 and for 52k at 1.031/33, the Spaniard eventually won by two!
It was a similar story in 2019 when Xander Schauffele also won from off the pace and the 2021 runner-up, Joaquin Niemann, very nearly did too, but it's a venue that tends to favour the frontrunners as a rule.
Schauffele had been six off the lead in a tie for 19th after round one and although he was only sixth at halfway and fifth with a round to go, he trailed by five after both rounds two and three and he was matched in-running at a high of 390.0389/1 before shooting what was then a course record equalling 62 in round four to win by a stroke, despite also bogeying the opening hole in round four.
Niemann, who was matched in-running at a high of 170.0169/1, also began the final round trailing by five. He was trading at around 100.099/1 before the final round but he raced to a two-shot lead on the back nine after playing his first 11 holes in seven-under-par. After two more birdies at the 14th and 16th holes he was matched at a low of 1.564/7 and he missed a great chance on 18 but he was eventually caught again by Harris English, before losing at the first extra hole.
Although Rahm was trailing seven after three rounds he'd been tied for the lead after round one and most winners here start fast.
Garcia in 2002, Appleby in 2005 and Schauffele five years ago, all overcame slow starts but the other 22 winners at this venue have been no more than three strokes off the lead after the first round.
Since Appleby won from off the pace in 2005, as many as 16 of the 18 winners have been inside the top five places and within two of the lead after round one. Ogilvy was only three off the lead in 2010 so we've seen a couple of clear leaders mess up, Kapalua is a very hard place to make up ground.
Market Leaders
It's going to be fascinating to see if Scottie Scheffler's impressive putting performance at the Hero World Challenge at the start of December was a one off.
Having worked with putting guru, Phil Kenyon, and having also changed his putter, after months of frustration on the greens, the world number one performed much better in the Bahamas, where he ranked as highly as sixth for Strokes Gained: Putting.
He never really looked like losing there, cruising to a comfortable three-stroke victory, and if the new wand behaves itself again, he's most definitely the one they all have to beat here.
In two previous visits he's only finished 13th and seventh but he sat second after rounds two and three last year and now he's more familiar with the layout, I can see him starting 2024 off in style.
After a quite brilliant finish to 2023, Viktor Hovland ran out of steam when attempting to win the Hero for a third time in-a-row last time out but he still signed off the event with the lowest round of the day in round four (a nine-under-par 63).
He may well return to the fray refreshed and raring to go but with event form figures reading 31-30-18, he's yet to hit the ground running in any of the last three years.
There'll be plenty of interest in the Swedish sensation, Ludvig Aberg, but this is his first sighting of the Plantation Course and that's usually a big negative so I'm happy to give him a wide berth before the off.
Selection
This hasn't been a great event for longshots so there wont be a Find Me a 100 Winner column this week and I'm happy to start the year off with a small punt on the jolly.
Scheffler is at a very interesting crossroads as we start 2024 and his career really can go in two very different directions. Putting as badly as he did for the bulk of 2023 isn't sustainable for anyone and it will be sad to see him struggle again this year.
He's the best player on the planet from tee-to-green and if he really has put his putting woes behind him, he's going to be a force to be reckoned with week after week and I want to be onside from the get-go if that is the case.
*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter