Firstly, a very Happy New Year to all our wonderful regular and new readers. And welcome back to full field golf tournaments for 2025!
Personally, I am excited for what 2025 will bring after a couple short weeks of R+R for myself. It was a big year, covering both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour in full as well as moving house twice and buying a new home. All wonderful things!
From my perspective, the FedEx Cup Fall series is improved on prior years. There seems to be more on the line, a final chance for some favourites and regular names to retain PGA Tour playing privileges. But, the reality we all realise is fields are decidedly weaker than what we experience on the rest of the schedule. So, it is wonderful to have a few more well-known names joined by some up and coming talent this week in Honolulu.
Also, 2024 ended in our third consecutive year of transparent, measured, tracked profit! Our final ROI was over 10%, with 11 outright winners and profit of over $3,200 when using just $10 per unit.
Profits were down on 2022 (ROI 24.9%) and 2023 (ROI +32.7%). This is easily understandable. It came down to one golfer, who you might have heard of, named Scottie Scheffler.
When a golfer wins 56% of his tournament starts from March onwards, all as a very short single odd favourite, it makes turning a profit all the more difficult. The vast majority of golf punters ended the year in a loss. So, I am really proud to have delivered this result for our Premium customers in a tricky year.
You can find our profit loss tracker for 2022, 2023, and 2024 here.
Read to the end to grab yourself a deal for 2025!
Sony Open Trends and Why to Avoid Them!
Every year, Sony Open previews I read will immediately refer to trends. The most prevalent trend will be some form of “8 of the last 11 winners of the Sony Open also played at The Sentry the week prior.” My advice is to approach these with caution. Remember, correlation does not necessarily mean causation!
Is there merit to this claim? Fact is, The Sentry typically features the very best players on the PGA Tour from the year before. So, it’s unsurprising that those who play the Sony Open tend to go off as favourites and, often, win in a typically weaker field.
Certainly, I acknowledge there can be a modicum of advantage gained in having played the week prior. Golfers get the chance to acclimatize and shake the off-season rust.
However, I do believe this trend is over-played. Punters and DFS players often completely end up excluding any players who didn’t start the week prior at The Sentry. That can be seen as an overreaction, to what I regard as a tentative link at best.
Waialae Country Club Course Analysis
In poker, it is often spoken about playing the man not the cards. My advice this week is to play the course, not the trend!
Part of my perspective on trends comes from the fact that Wai’alae Country Club is starkly different to last week’s host at the Plantation Course at Kapalua. Arctic references may not seem as applicable in these warm climes of Hawaii, but the courses couldn’t be more polar opposite.
Plantation is huge, both in length of the course and width of the fairways. In contrast, Wai’alae is narrow and fiddly. Actually, Wai’alae Country Club had the largest deviation from normal driving distance of any golf course on the PGA Tour in 2023 and 6th in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, driving accuracy is a strong predictor of success. Much of that comes from the narrow fairways, but also overhanging trees and doglegs in both directions. In 2023, the rough was grown out to 3 inches from 2.25 inches in 2022. Bermuda rough is tough to play. This grass really grabs the club and can produce flyer lies. 3 inches is the longest the PGA Tour have had for Bermuda rough, only previous seen at the Valspar Championship and Arnold Palmer Invitational.
SG: ATG is such a strong predictor of success here. The main defense for the course are the Hawai’i trade winds and this could be one explainer. This may be emphasised with some wind in the forecast and I predict we also see an uptick in SG: Putting instead with softer surfaces easier to hold due some rain.
Approach between 150-175 yards is higher than almost any other PGA Tour courses. 63% of all shots will occur from 125-200 yards.
Wai’alae Country Club Course Comps
Make sure you take a strong look at those who have found prior success at this golf course. The correlation of prior performance as a predictor of future success is the 2nd highest of any golf course on the PGA Tour. Augusta National is the highest, by quite some margin, followed by Waialae Country Club.
Keep your eye on players who have played well on other shorter courses. Particularly, those with dog legs in both directions and by the sea with higher winds. RBC Heritage host Habour Town Golf Links is another narrow test by the ocean, as is RSM Classic host Sea Island GC. Colonial Country Club receives inclusion, given it’s propensity for SG: ATG and similar approach buckets of 125-200 yards.
El Camaleon Mayakoba is a very good guide to our Sony Open preview. The golf course was the prior host of the Worldwide Technology Championship. That was before course designer Greg Norman claimed it back for LIV Golf to use. In 15 iterations of the WWT Mayakoba Championship, 6 also won the Sony Open. Henley completed the double most recently in 2022. It is a narrow test, where driving accuracy is weighted heavily, and is played in a tropical environment.
Weather
To begin, it is worth a preview of the weather forecast before the Sony Open starts. Originally, it did seem a significant weather edge would develop. Thursday look set for thunderstorms, heavy rains, and high winds. This was likely to have resulted in an advantage for those going out Thursday PM/Friday AM, as they were likely to have delays and see those golfers get to play majority of their opening rounds on the calmer Friday.
However, those predictions have largely subsided. Thunderstorms now look set to arrive later on Thursday evening after play has concluded. I do still prefer the Thursday PM/Friday AM times as they will get lower winds Thursday afternoon and softer conditions on Friday after overnight rain.
Make sure you are honing in on the key approach numbers listed above. I also give a boost to SG: ATG and SG: Putting over typical tournaments at Waialae, with a higher likelihood of missed greens and needing to scramble to maintain momentum with par saves.
Do check-in to our WinDaily Discord channel for the latest weather updates prior to tournament start. This is always recommended for DFS players in particular. The most affected players are those priced $7,500 and below. That final missed or made cut can be the difference between a huge takedown and a minimum cash.
Sony Open Preview Golf Betting Tips
Thank you for reading my Sony Open preview and tournament analysis. You can access all my golf betting tips and DFS advice in the WinDaily Sports Premium Discord and website.
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