Congrats to Chris Kirk! Last week turned out just how we pictured it I suppose. A tight leaderboard with a couple of dozen golfers 20 strokes under par or better and shooting -21 doesn’t even cash you a top-20 bet.
On to week two for our first “real event”. First full field, first cut, but a smaller purse than last week and a bit of a weaker overall field. Still, plenty of names to make this worth watching, and again, at a time of day that fills our afternoon and evening with televised PGA.
A look at the course, from Ron’s preview article:
Waialae Country Club
Waialae Country Club is a shorter par 70 course that sits at 7,044 yards. Tucked away to the east of the sprawling city of Honolulu, the course only has a couple of holes bordering the ocean. Many of the holes are hundreds of yards inland and are somewhat protected from the trade winds by the palm-tree-lined fairways.
Waialae is a tight, flat, technical, coastal track that tends to favor shorter more accurate hitters who are creative both in their strategy and shot-making skills. While those types have had great success here, bigger hitters have the potential to cut across some of the doglegs and can shorten the course even further. Overall, however, the power game has mostly proven fruitless as bombers who cut corners and end up in the 3-inch Bermuda rough will have to deal with “fliers” jumping out of the thick grass on approach. Because the big hitters do not have an advantage, Waialae does a great job of leveling the field.
The routing of the layout is excellent. The course features one of the highest amounts of dogleg holes on Tour. Raynor designed it not to favor one ball-flight type over the other as there is an equal mix of holes that turn both left and right. The variety of tee-to-green directions forces players to think and plot their way around the course.
Depending on recent precipitation, Waialae tends to play fast and firm. While it does have tight tree-lined corridors, the fairways are actually the 11th widest on Tour at an average of 35 yards across. Nevertheless, because the course typically plays firm and the angles are so tight, hitting fairways is at a premium. Drives landing in the fairway and bouncing into the rough are a regular occurrence. As Charles Howell III said a few years back, “It’s a course where you always have to play your angles and plan your misses.”
Many of the 83 bunkers on the course are very well-positioned and laid out in a well-thought-out and challenging manner. And unlike last week, there is actually some water danger on the course which comes into play on four holes….
My Model
As discussed with Noonan yesterday on our betting live stream, course fit was going to be centered around three things: Driving accuracy, Long Approach Shots, and like last week, putting on Bermuda greens. Just off the screen here, I’ve included some GIR%, Driving Accuracy, and Good Drives Gained % and again the Rookie of the Year is near the top.
If you want to check out my entire model for the week or make your own, head over to BetspertsGolf.com and check out the subscription options. (find out how to get a full year for $5)
One and Done Strategy
Courtesy of PoolGenius
The Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu is the second (and final) tournament in Hawaii to start the 2024 PGA season. This tournament has a total purse of $8.3 million in 2024, which ranks it tied for 27th in prize money among PGA events and Majors taking place between the start of January and the BMW Championship in late August.
Because the first-place prize in the Sony is just under $1.5 million, you need to be careful when considering a golfer ranked in the top 15 as your pick this week. You'll want the top dogs still in your quiver later in the season for the bigger purse events, where you can earn $3.6 million or more for picking a first-place finisher.
None of the top eight golfers in our current PoolGenius rankings are playing in this event, but the three golfers with the best betting odds to win it (Ludvig Aberg, Tyrell Hatton, and Matt Fitzpatrick) are all ranked in our top 15 overall. All three of them are also playing in this event for the first time.
Using our new Golf One And Done Picks product to identify smart pick options, Corey Conners (No. 28 in our rankings) stands out. He has the best course-specific Strokes Gained average of any of the 44 golfers who have played this event at least three times in the last five years. Conners has finished in the top 12 each of the last four times he has played at the Sony Open (including a third-place finish in 2019) and currently has the seventh-best betting odds to win the event at +3300.
In general, potential picks who rank outside the top 25 in our rankings, but are in the top 12 in betting odds for this event, are good considerations for One And Done pools. That list includes Will Zalatoris (who is returning from missing most of last season with an injury), Chris Kirk (who won last week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions), Cam Davis, and Byeong-Hun An (who just finished fourth at the Sentry). Kirk, though, maybe a popular choice coming off last week’s win, so you'll probably find better contrarian pick value elsewhere.
To compare key data on every golfer in the Sony Open field and get customized pick advice for your own One And Done pool, sign up for our free trial now.
My Favorite Bet
I’ve done a poor job of this in the past, but since it’s a nice starting point, I’ll do my best to track how these free newsletter bets do (would I have done this if we lost last week? Who’s to say!).
Last Week: Eric Cole > Denny McCarthy -106. Winner. 1-0 for the year, +1u
This Week: a way bigger menu, which is nice.
Byeong Hun An > Si Woo Kim +103
Fading the defending champ, and getting a nice price to do it with. I understand the allure of Si Woo here with his accuracy off the tee, but I have Benny An ahead of him everywhere else I’m looking.
He’s a higher baseline player in my ratings, he’s a better putter on Bermuda (gained 5.9 strokes on the greens last week), and has decent enough GIR numbers on comp courses. He didn’t play too poorly here last year either.
DFS Core Play
Corey Conners $9,800
Conners ranks out as the third-best player in my model this week and the best ball-striker by a sizeable margin. While his overall short game remains a weakness, it is notable that in his five starts at Waialae, along with having a positive strokes gained number around the green, he has gained a total of 10.2 strokes putting which is best at any course. He also has the third-best course history here with four top-12 finishes since 2019. With so many similar quality players surrounding him in this pricing tier, and Conners being one of the most expensive, I expect him to end up with a nice ownership discount.
Need More DFS? Ron and Byron will be back today with their DFS preview show on the YouTube Channel.
Weather
There’s always a chance of rain in Hawaii, but the showers usually pass quickly it seems. Most of the rain threats have pushed into early next week leaving us with just some wind to contend with. Both Thursday and Friday afternoon look a little gusty, but most sites are showing Round 1 as being worse.
Windfinder is calling for 22 mph winds by 2 pm Thursday. With this being one of the main course defenses, I’m going to go ahead and give the AM/PM groups a small bump.
News and Tweets
Glad we’re at a spot now where the fighting has subsided a bit and the leaders of the sport are advocating for some sort of “World Tour”
Homa: still good at Twitter, but entering his “Dad-Joke” phase as he’s getting older.
Finally, a 54-second video worth watching with a great twist ending (with our 20/20 hindsight).
As always, be good, have fun, bet responsibly, and enjoy another week of afternoon golf.
Check out our: YouTube | Twitter | Written Content | Discord
Need some NFL betting content for the weekend? Check out our other newsletter