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Ian McNeill ranks his top-10 PGA Tour players to watch for at the 2026 Sony Open at Wai'alae Country Club. He gives insights into their profiles and who is primed for success in Hawaii.
After an extended layoff following the removal of Kapalua from this year's schedule, the PGA Tour is finally ready to usher in its 2026 campaign. The venue is a familiar one for the occasion: Wai'alae Country Club. Just 10 minutes from the iconic Waikiki Beach, this historic Seth Reynor design has hosted the world's best since 1965.
For a closer look at the course itself, keep an eye out for my weekly breakdown series: Scouting the Routing. This piece, however, will focus on the players themselves, with a record 16 of the world's top 40 ready to take the first tee this week.
How do they stack up? And who should you be targeting on pre-week betting boards? Without further ado, here are my top 10 players to watch at this week's 2026 Sony Open!
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No. 10 - Rico Hoey
Given the unusually high volume of headline names in this year's Sony Open field, it may come as a surprise to some that a top 10 list would start with a player who logged just two top-10 finishes across 25 PGA starts from January-August of last year. However, as many American fans turned their attention to the gridiron in the fall of 2025, a potential climb to stardom was beginning in the PGA Fall Swing.
Over seven starts between September and November, the 30-year-old Manila-native logged four top-10 finishes and just one result worse than 22nd. The metronomic ball-striking prowess Hoey has displayed since arriving on Tour two seasons ago continued to shine: as Hoey gained an average of 3.2 strokes per tournament with his driver and a whopping 6.1 strokes per tournament with his approach play.
If a ball-striking run comparable to Scottie Scheffler isn't enough to sell you on the Filipino's profile, maybe his profound development in another area will. After losing 6.8, 4.9, 6.1, and 10.5 strokes putting in four consecutive starts to end his 2025 regular season, Hoey used the month off to make the switch to a broomstick-style putter. Immediate gains followed, as Hoey morphed into a near Tour-average putter over the course of his seven Fall Swing Starts.
Now, on the surface, a player gaining just 0.9 strokes putting over replacement level shouldn't cause too much of a stir in the PGA Tour landscape. But with the tee-to-green capabilities that Hoey possesses, that slightly above-average putter was good enough to land finishes of 9th, 4th, 2nd, 21st, 22nd, and 7th in just two months of action. With a proper off-season now under his belt with this new weapon, don't be surprised if Hoey carries this momentum forward into a new echelon of professional golf.
No. 9 - Collin Morikawa
From a player on the rise from relative obscurity to a star that enters the New Year with serious question marks, Morikawa comes in at number nine on this list despite carrying as much name-value as anyone teeing it up at Wai'alae CC this week.
What started as a promising beginning to the 2025 season (two runner-ups and no finishes worse than 17th over his first six starts) quickly turned into another frustratingly underwhelming campaign. From mid-April onwards, the two-time Major Champion struggled to just one top-10 result over his final 15 appearances.
Now, as we've come to expect from Morikawa, his ball-striking remained one of the most reliable entities in the game: ranking 16th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and 3rd on Approach for the 2025 season as a whole.
However, Collin languished well outside the Tour's top 100 in each short game category (Around the Greens and Putting) -- logging three of the worst single-week splits of his career around Harbour Town (-7.3), Caves Valley (-10.1), and Oakmont (-6.1).
The bright side for Morikawa is that even in his prime, he was far from the most reliable chipper or putter week-to-week -- but when the lights were at their brightest in 2020-2021, it was difficult to find anyone who found more clutch moments on the greens. The underlying tee-to-green numbers still suggest Collin is capable of returning to an elite level, but entering his age-29 season on an over-2-year winless drought, the pressure is only mounting on his shoulders to prove he is a name still worthy of its status at the top of golf's marquee.
No. 8 - Corey Conners
I promise at some point I'll begin to discuss names who can be trusted over a 10-foot putt, but a list full of ball-strikers is exactly what Spencer and Joe signed up for when they put me in charge of these rankings. Similarly to Hoey and Morikawa, Conners makes his hay on the back of an elite tee-to-green profile: ranking fourth in this field in SG: Approach over his last 50 rounds, sixth in weighted proximity from 125-200 yards, and 10th in Good Drive Percentage.
It's no surprise, then, that the Canadian boasts an impressive history around a positional player's dream like Wai'alae CC. He logged finishes of 3rd, 12th, 11th, and 12th over a four-start stretch from 2019-2023, and across his seven career appearances on Oahu, Conners has never lost strokes off the tee (gaining an average of 2.4 strokes per tournament). His irons have been similarly scintillating here at Wai'alae: recording two of the best approach performances of his career in 2019 (+7.1) and 2022 (+5.9).
Corey comes into this season fresh off a seventh-place finish at Tiger's year-end celebration at the Hero World Challenge (ranking 2nd in the field from tee-to-green in the process), and put together the best putting season of his career over the last twelve months (+.133 per round; 67th on Tour). While not the flashiest name on this week's odds board, the 33-year-old looks to be trending in all the right areas for another run at a Sony Open crown.
No. 7 - Robert MacIntyre
The Scotsman may not be the cookie-cutter fit for a venue like Wai'alae in the way Morikawa or Conners were, but as his resume grows, it's becoming more and more difficult to discount MacIntyre as a legitimate threat in any arena. Now the seventh-ranked player in the world, Bobby Mac is very much the antithesis of many of today's wunderkinds. Instead of honing his skills on a Trackman simulator, MacIntyre cut his teeth on the rugged Scottish Links. That experience shows in his continued success across the British Isles, most recently winning 2025's rendition of the prestigious Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
MacIntyre thrives in the chaos, as we saw in his Sunday charge up the U.S. Open leaderboard at Oakmont last summer. Despite a deluge of rain and playing conditions that stifled many of the game's elites, Bob ground his way to a 2-under 68 to put legitimate pressure on eventual champion J.J. Spaun.
With winds looking to play a serious role in this week's tournament (particularly on Friday and Saturday), don't be surprised if we see another weekend charge coming from the Scotland's No. 1. And as we saw down the stretch of his iconic BMW Championship clash with World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler last summer, if this week does come down to pure guts and guile, there aren't many in the game I'd rather have at my side than the 29-year-old Oban native.
No. 6 - Keegan Bradley
While his 2025 may be forever marred from a personal standpoint by an American defeat at Bethpage Black, Bradley's performances inside the ropes should give the 39-year-old plenty to look forward to in the New Year.
After a four-year drought between 2019-2022, Keegan made his third consecutive trip to Eastlake in 2025. His six top 10 finishes were the most he's had in a single season since 2013, and his victory at the Travelers Championship gave him wins in three consecutive seasons for the first time in his illustrious career.
Statistically, Bradley has developed into as well-rounded a player as can be found on Tour. He ranked ninth for the season in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green -- gaining at least .25 strokes per round in each of the three categories, and through the back-half of his 2025 season, Bradley ranked as a top 50 putter on Tour as well (gaining .23 strokes per round).
Now the 14th-ranked player in the world, Keegan will usher in the new season with a venue he's dominated over the last five years. Bradley's logged finishes of 6th, 2nd, 12th, and 12th here on Oahu since 2020, and over his last 24 rounds at Wai'alae, only Hideki Matsuyama, Russell Henley, Corey Conners, and Nick Taylor have been better on a per-round basis. With a proven track record on these greens and the confidence he'll surely take from 2025, the Sony Open could present one of Keegan's better chances to pad that yearly wins streak.
No. 5 - Si Woo Kim
Although Kim hasn't found the winner's circle since his 2023 triumph at Wai'alae, the 30-year-old Korean has a legitimate argument that he's currently in the throes of the best golfing stretch of his career. Dating back to last year's FedEx Cup Playoffs, the 30-year-old South Korean has gone seven straight starts without a finish worse than 21st.
This time of year, it's important to contextualize results based on the strength of competition, as many events in golf's slower autumn stretch feature a laundry list of players simply looking to secure a place to play in the New Year.
These weaker fields were not the company that Kim kept from August onwards. Kim logged two of his best fall results -- a fifth and a third -- at the BMW PGA Championship, the flagship event of the DP World Tour featuring 12 of the world's top 30 players, and Australia's National Open just over a month ago, which boasted a field of Rory McIlroy, Joaquin Niemann, David Puig, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, and a host of world-class Australian talent seeking to defend their nation's biggest event.
Additionally, Kim placed fourth at Sea Island's RSM Classic in November -- whose positional, windswept layout and Bermudagrass greens make for a reliable comparison to what he'll be facing over four days on Oahu. His elite driving accuracy and pinpoint approach play have already netted him one victory on Wai'alae's iconic links. Heading into 2026, he's undoubtedly a top threat to repeat the trick three years later.
No. 4 - Hideki Matsuyama
Matsuyama may not be talked about as one of the truly elite players in the world, but outside of McIlroy and Scheffler, there hasn't been a more prolific winner on the PGA Tour in the last four seasons. Matsuyama's six wins since 2022 -- including a memorable playoff win over Russell Henley at Wai'alae four years ago -- have been intermingled with stretches of underwhelming play, but when the Japanese ace is firing on all cylinders, there aren't many more frightening names to see charging up a leaderboard.
Matsuyama's 2025 was bookended with two of the aforementioned six recent titles: the first coming in a record-setting duel with Morikawa at Kapalua, and the second in a playoff over the red-hot Alex Noren at Tiger Woods' Hero World Challenge.
From a statistical standpoint, however, Matsuyama's 2025 doesn't exactly scream of a player who should be considered one of the more threatening names in any given field. In fact, Matsuyama endured his fair share of struggles in the season as a whole: ranking outside the top 100 on Tour in putting and logging the worst driving season of his entire career (-0.171 per round; 139th on Tour).
But when it came to showcasing pure upside, few players in the field carry a higher ceiling than Matsuyama. He gained over five shots on approach on seven different occasions, he gained over four strokes around the greens on five of 23 starts, and when the putter did get hot enough to gain 3+ shots for the week, Matsuyama never finished worse than 16th.
It's fitting, then, that Matsuyama's Sony Open history mirrors this quandary to a tee. He's made 12 starts here at Wai'alae since 2011, and while he's only finished inside the top 10 on one occasion, the top-end outcome resulted in a trip to victory lane. The question facing bettors and DFS players is simple this week regarding Matsuyama: do you accept the volatility and pay up on a player whose historical win share is likely not fully accounted for in the market? Or risk missing out on the Hideki comet with a profile with a more concrete baseline? No matter which way the coin flips this week, Matsuyama will remain one of the more mercurial entities we have in the professional game.
No. 3 - Ben Griffin
There's no doubt that the two greatest storylines in the 2025 golfing world came from McIlroy and Scheffler, but if a third nominee was required by the academy, my vote would go to the emergence of 29-year-old Griffin. Golf fans are already well-acquainted with Griffin's inspiring journey from giving up the game in mid-2021 to earning a PGA Tour card a year and a half later, but nobody could have foreseen the 2025 season he put together in just his second year at the top level.
Without exaggeration, Griffin has a case as a top-five player currently walking the planet. He won three times in 2025: a milestone only matched by the top two players in the world. He shored up his biggest long-term weakness: climbing 99 spots in the PGA Tour's Total Driving ranking between 2024 and 2025, and logged an incredible 15-start run from May to November: recording 12 finishes inside the top 14.
Heading into 2026, Ben has left very few obvious areas for improvement. He now has the necessary pop in his bat to contend at long, strenuous driving tests like Quail Hollow, Oakmont, and Muirfield Village. He ranks 2nd in this field in Strokes Gained: Approach over his last 50 rounds. And he's made these emphatic leaps in ball-striking without sacrificing the short game chops that initially earned him his PGA Tour card.
Over his last 75 rounds, Scheffler is the only top 20 player to gain more strokes on a per-round basis with his chipping and putting. Additionally, Ben is the only other player besides Scheffler to rank inside the top 12 on Tour as both a ball-striker and a short-game artist.
Now that he's established himself as a legitimate star in the game, his 2026 season will be a key barometer of what to expect from the UNC Tar Heel going forward. Two of his victories have already come on positional, Bermuda grass tracks (Colonial CC and TPC New Orleans). Wai'alae should therefore be a very compelling spot for Griffin to begin his 2026 charge toward a seat at the table of PGA a-listers.
No. 2 - J.J. Spaun
Spaun's 2025 will forever be defined by a 65-foot putt on Oakmont’s 18th green. But beyond that iconic moment, few golf fans realize just how far he’s climbed: from 112th in the World Golf Rankings at the end of 2024 to number six on the first day of 2026.
Rather than focusing on a single, fatal flaw like some of his peers, Spaun fueled his breakout season with strides across the board. At 35, he made marked improvements in every strokes-gained category: Off-the-Tee (111th → 41st), Approach (17th → 5th), Around-the-Greens (112th → 86th), and Putting (108th → 73rd). The result? A nearly one-stroke drop in scoring average and seven top-six finishes, capped by his career-defining U.S. Open victory.
While time will tell how far Spaun can rise, his profile suggests he’s far from plateaued. Wai’alae, with its positional layout and Bermuda greens, could be the perfect stage to extend his momentum. Spaun has posted a 12th- and 3rd-place finish here since 2023, and his best approach week of 2025 (+8.1) came right on these Oahu fairways.
He’s proven to be one of the most reliable drivers on short, strategic courses -- with his two best driving weeks of the season coming at the PLAYERS Championship and FedEx St. Jude. His iron play has consistently ranked among the upper echelon of the Tour for two years running, and many of his top results outside Oakmont came on similar bermudagrass layouts (PGA National, Colonial, Sawgrass, Southwind).
Whether or not you believe in Spaun's long-term trajectory, nobody can deny that his game is tailor-made for a test like Wai'alae. By my numbers, he carries one of the highest baselines in this field, and after holding the 54-hole lead and falling one shot short last year, you can bet he's hungry to start 2026 even stronger than his career-defining season 12 months ago.
No. 1 - Russell Henley
Though this piece isn't specifically meant as a Wai'alae course breakdown, we've established enough about the first nine players to define a basic profile. Fairways, mid-iron approach shots, and Bermudagrass putting have always ruled the roost here on Oahu, and there isn't a single player on the planet better suited to that slipper than World No. 5 Henley.
Frankly, if you look strictly at statistics this week, it's hard to imagine an outcome of this tournament where Henley isn't in the mix deep into the weekend. He's long been one of the more accurate drivers on the PGA Tour: ranking 4th in this field in Fairways Hit and 2nd in Good Drive Percentage.
His middle-iron play is similarly elite. Henley ranks 6th in weighted proximity from 125-200 yards -- a range that has historically accounted for 67% of approach shots at Wai'alae, and unsurprisingly, the Macon, Georgia-native also knows his way around Bermudagrass greens: gaining over a half-stroke per round on this surface over the last two seasons, good for fifth in the field.
Given these markers, it should come as no surprise that the Sony Open has long been one of Henley's happiest hunting grounds. Since winning here on debut in 2013, Russell has added finishes of 2nd, 4th, 10th, 11th, 13th, and 17th over his next 12 appearances. While a 12/1 outright price tag might make some hesitate -- Henley has been far from the most reliable performer in winning time -- if this week plays out as the numbers suggest, there’s no player more likely to have his name in the mix when the pay window opens Sunday evening.
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