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Hello PGA DFS family and welcome back to Horse For The Course! The Sentry Tournament of Champions was an easy-breezy affair, with lift-clean-and-place in effect over the first two rounds and zero wind throughout the week turning the Plantation Course into a legitimate birdie extravaganza. Despite the valiant efforts of Matt Jones, the Sentry turned into a two-horse race with Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith pulling away from the pack and battling down the stretch in the final round, with the red-hot Smith eventually outlasting Rahm in what was a dazzling display of explosive scoring ability.
With the PGA DFS rust officially knocked off, the Sony Open presents us with our first full-field event of 2022, as well as our first time dealing with a 36-hole cut this year. The Sony is one of the PGA Tour's longest-running tournaments and course history has proven to be a very strong predictor of success in this event.
Horse For The Course is an article that highlights players in this week's field with elite course history and is part of our free PGA DFS content here at RotoBaller. For my favorite DFS plays of the week check out my Core Four article here at RotoBaller every Wednesday. It's part of our amazing PGA Premium package that includes an all-new PGA Research Station, Lineup Builder & Optimizer, and some of the best articles in the PGA DFS industry! You can sign up now using Promo Code: NICE for an extra discount at checkout!
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2022 Sony Open in Hawaii
After getting our feet wet in Maui last week, we island-hop over to Oahu for one of the longest-running events on the PGA Tour, the Sony Open. While the Sentry Tournament of Champions and Sony Open both take place in similarly-beautiful locales, it would be a mistake to consider them similar events.
It's an interesting juxtaposition, as last week's Plantation Course featured some of the widest fairways on the PGA Tour, while this week's Waialae Country Club layout has some of the toughest fairways to hit on the schedule, with just a shade over half of the tee shots finding the short stuff on average.
Due to the premium Waialae places on finding fairways, the Sony has been a true print-fest for plodders, with players such as Matt Kuchar, Charles Howell III, and Webb Simpson ranking as some of the most successful golfers at Waialae in recent years. Last year's winner, Kevin Na, was just the latest Sony champion that can generously be described as having a fairways-and-greens style. We routinely see the same cast of characters playing well in this event. As a result, course history gets a bigger bump than normal for me this week, with Russell Henley in 2013 being the last player to win the Sony in their tournament debut.
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The Course: Waialae Country Club
Par 70 - 7,044 Yards, Greens: Bermuda, Architect: Seth Raynor
We get another beautiful Hawaiian golf course this week in Waialae Country Club, the long-time host of the Sony Open. It would be easy to lump this course in a similar bucket as last week's Kapalua layout, but that would be a huge mistake, as the courses are drastically different. Waialae's fairways routinely rank as some of the toughest to hit on the PGA Tour (while Kapalua's fairways are hard to miss!), but missing these fairways isn't super penalizing, as players will still find their ball in short grass more often than not. As always, approach play will be of huge importance this week, with sharp DFS players zeroing in on those golfers that are strong from 150-200 yards. Par-4's measuring between 400 and 500 yards comprise 10 of the 18 holes players will face at Waialae this week.
Check out RotoBaller's PGA Premium Course Breakdown by Josh Bennett for an in-depth breakdown of this week's golf course!
Recent Sony Open Winners
- 2021: Kevin Na (-21)
- 2020: Cameron Smith (-11)
- 2019: Matt Kuchar (-22)
- 2018: Patton Kizzire (-17)
- 2017: Justin Thomas (-27)
Field Notes
- 24 Players that teed it up in last week's Sentry TOC will be in action at the Sony.
- Seven of the last eight Sony winners played in the Sentry TOC the week before their victories.
- Notables Sentry holdovers that are in action again this week include: Bryson DeChambeau, Hideki Matsuyama, Abraham Ancer, Cameron Smith, & Sungjae Im
- First full-field event of 2022 (144 players). 36-hole cut to top-65 and ties.
The Horse
Marc Leishman
Notable Course History: T4 ('21), T3 ('19), T5 ('14)
DraftKings Price: TBD FanDuel Price: TBD
We talked a little bit in the intro about how a long list of "boring" players has succeeded at the Sony, so perhaps it's fitting that this week's Horse, Marc Leishman, is a guy whose most exciting personality trait is how often he mows his lawn.
Ok, so when I refer to boring players, hopefully, it's obvious that I mean their style of play, not their off-course activities (although there might be a crossover there as well...SG: Being in bed by 9:00?). At just over 7,000 yards, Waialae Country Club has long been a "plodders paradise", with driving distance taking a back seat to accuracy, sharp iron play, and putting. In the era of "bomb and gouge" golf this event is one of the last true havens for finesse players like Leishman.
His Sony track record indicates just how fond he is of this layout. He's amassed a career scoring average of 67.42 in the Sony and has never missed a cut in 12 career starts at Waialae! The Big Aussie's success here can be boiled down to a couple of factors, the most prominent being both his elite ability from key approach ranges - Leishman grades out first in the field in Proximity from 150-175 yards & 11th from 125-150 yards - and his prowess on Bermuda greens - 12th in SG: Putting on Bermuda over long-term measurements.
He heads to an environment where he's historically thrived on the heels of a very nice outing at the Sentry. Leishman racked up an eye-popping 27 birdies en route to a T10 at Kapalua.
The Ponies
Webb Simpson
Notable Course History: T4 ('21), 3rd ('20), T4 ('18)
DraftKings Price: TBD FanDuel Price: TBD
If we're going purely on course history, Webb Simpson has a very strong case for being this week's Horse. However, I ultimately gave Leishman the edge due to his participation in the Sentry last week.
From a track record perspective, Simpson is perhaps better than anyone this week. He's never missed a cut in 11 career Sony starts, has finished T4 or better on four occasions (including each of his last three Sony starts), and has finished T13 or better in six consecutive appearances at Waialae.
Yep...Webb is an absolute course history beast. The concern here - and I can't believe I'm saying this - is where Simpson's game is at the moment. 2021 was a very un-Webb-like year for the veteran, as he didn't look like himself after a neck injury forced him to withdraw from his hometown event, the Wells Fargo Championship. By season's end, he had failed to make both the Tour Championship and the U.S. Ryder Cup team. While Simpson put together a solid Swing Season on paper by going T8-T14-MC-T30 over four fall starts, he lost strokes on Approach in half of those outings.
Those concerns aside, this sets up as a tremendous spot for Webb, who we have to imagine enters 2022 motivated by what was a disappointing - at least by his lofty standards - 2021.
Kevin Kisner
Notable Course History: T4 ('20), T4 ('17), T5 ('16)
DraftKings Price: TBD FanDuel Price: TBD
After a late-season victory at the Wyndham Championship, I think it's safe to say that Kiz spent the rest of 2021 enjoying life. Despite his downright ugly play throughout the fall, Kisner is in play this week due to both his track record at Waialae and the rejuvenated form he displayed at the Sentry.
The UGA alum isn't a player that we can fire up just any week, but this Waialae layout suits his specific skill set perfectly, as evidenced by his Sony record. Kiz has posted top-five finishes in an astounding 40% of his career starts in this event, which includes three such results since 2016.
I mentioned his sharp form at Kapalua, a course that is really ill-suited for his abilities. He excelled in the areas we would expect him to at the Sentry, finishing inside the top-five for the week in SG: Putting and, perhaps more important for his prospects this week, top-10 in the elite field in SG: Approach. It resulted in a stout T8 finish, which helps send him to a Waialae track - that fits his game much better - with tons of positive momentum on the heels of a brilliant final-round 65 in the Sentry.
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Russell Henley
Notable Course History: T11 ('21), T13 ('17), T17 ('15), Win ('13)
DraftKings Price: TBD FanDuel Price: TBD
Russell Henley's Sony history is a bit more checkered than the others listed in this week's article. His erratic track record at Waialae mimics the peaks and valleys that he's faced throughout his career. Put simply, when Henley's game has been in a good place, he's played extremely well on this golf course. When his game has been out of sorts, he hasn't. It ain't always rocket science.
The UGA alum won in his Sony debut in 2013 and has managed three top-20's in subsequent starts. He comes into this year's edition off a rock-solid year, having finished the 2020-21 season ranked 20th on the PGA Tour in SG: T2G and sixth in SG: Approach.
A beautiful Swing Season stretch that included a top-10 and three top-25s across five starts, indicates that Henley's firing on all cylinders, which has traditionally meant good things for his prospects in the Sony. The putter is always the major concern, but Bermuda has historically been his best surface by a wide margin.
Matt Jones
Notable Course History: T11 ('21), T38 ('20), T29 ('19)
DraftKings Price: TBD FanDuel Price: TBD
A little ride-the-hot-hand play here. Matt Jones heads to Honolulu on the heels of a gorgeous final-round 61 at the Plantation Course. Jones defied expectations by holding his own against golf's elite, scratching together a gritty solo third-place effort in the Sentry.
The Aussie has a terrific chance to keep things rolling at Waialae, a course well-suited to his strengths. His recent Sony appearances have produced solid if unspectacular, results. Jones has run off four consecutive made cuts in the Sony, posting a career-best T11 in last year's edition.
Brendan Steele
Notable Course History: T4 ('21), 2nd ('20)
DraftKings Price: TBD FanDuel Price: TBD
Guys...this will be my fourth year doing this course history article and I've learned several things over that time. One of which is...sometimes there are no quantifiable reasons for things. Why do peanut butter and jelly go so well together? Beats me, I just know it works.
Why has Brendan Steele gone T4-2nd at Waialae over the last two years? Beats me. It isn't form - Steele has missed the cut in his last start prior to the Sony in each of the last two years. It isn't fit - he doesn't stick out statistically in any of the areas we'd usually consider important on this course. So while I can't give you a concrete reason why you should play Steele this week, I just know it works.
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