RADIO
Welcome to our PrizePicks PGA DFS prop picks for the Sony Open (Round 1). The PGA Tour season is already back for its 2024 campaign, and to celebrate, PrizePicks has an extensive selection of PGA props to take advantage of! PrizePicks is a great DFS props site where you can choose to select plays in terms of fantasy points or singular stats. The goal is to build a 2-player, 3-player, 4-player, or 5-player entry and then select whether or not you want to play for the power play or the flex play. On the power play, you will need to be correct on each of your selections to win, and on the flex play, you will have a little more wiggle room for a chance to win some money back.
Our partners at PrizePicks offer some of the best and easiest-to-win PGA DFS games in the industry. There are no large-field tournaments filled with sharks where you have to get lucky just to place. At PrizePicks, you're not playing against other people, you're just playing against the projections, and the guys at PrizePicks have worked hard to give you really attractive opportunities to make some money. With promo code 'BALLER' you can get a 100% match on your deposit of up to $100.
This week, we're at Waialae Country Club for the 2024 Sony Open! Those of us on the East Coast will be blessed once again with primetime golf this week, as the second leg of the PGA Tour's Aloha Swing comes from "The Gathering Place," of O'ahu. Seth Reynor's Wailae Country Club has served as the host of this event since 1965, so as golf bettors, we've got as much of a sample size as we could ever hope for when projecting this week's optimal plays. I and the entire Rotoballer PGA staff have put out 1,000s of words on the course, key stats, and field this week, so this article won't be focused on the minutiae of projecting outright winners or DFS pivot plays. Instead, I'll be solely focused on a few money-making opportunities I've found in PrizePicks' unique markets to help you build your bankroll as the PGA Tour season gets into full swing! Today's plays are specifically for round one on Thursday, January 11.
Featured Promo: Our friends at PrizePicks are hooking you up. Get a 100% instant deposit match up to $100 using promo code BALLER with your first deposit, and also a free year of RotoBaller Premium access ($199 value)! Claim your 100% instant deposit match now, and use our prop picks to get off on a winning foot!
Single Stat PGA Totals - DFS Prop Picks
Prize Picks prop totals are not always available first thing in the morning, so check back during the day as other props may be added during the day.
Will Zalatoris LESS than Eric Cole - Birdies or Better Matchup
I hate to start the New Year by picking on a guy coming off back surgery, but whenever you get a matchup between the most prolific birdie maker in the field (over the last six months), and another who's making his first full-field start since last year's PLAYERS Championship, it's tough to find a bigger mismatch. When isolating for iron play and putting, nobody in this field has proven to be more consistently prolific than Eric Cole, as the recently-crowned Rookie of the Year rates out 4th in SG: APP over his last 50 rounds, 6th in SG: Putting, 3rd in Opportunities Gained, and 2nd in Birdie Conversion Rate.
Meanwhile, Willy Z lost a combined 9.92 shots between his iron play and putter in his first "official" start back at last December's Hero World Challenge. Zalatoris ranked dead last in the field in GIR %, 17th out of 20 players in Driving Accuracy, and 16th in Proximity. Of course, the long-term track record speaks for itself when accounting for Zalatoris as a fully healthy entity, but nothing I saw five weeks ago would lead me to believe we're on the precipice of the form that saw Will capture the hearts of golf fans everywhere in his unprecedented Major Championship run to start his career.
I am cautiously optimistic about the health of Will Zalatoris going forward. He's saying all the right things in the press, and the man is clearly introspective enough to make the necessary changes in overcoming this nearly 18-month rehab process. The golfing world is a better place with Will Zalatoris in full flow, but PrizePicks has done him a real disservice in this Round 1 matchup. In this particular market, Eric Cole is as tough an opposition as you're going to find in the Sony Open field.
Chris Kirk LESS than 68.0 Strokes
One of the more underreported storylines of this week's Sony Open has been the heavy rains that have battered the Hawaiian coastline in recent weeks - Flash Flood warnings have been in effect as recently as Tuesday, and fallen trees have left many without power. The good news is that it seems as if the worst is over from a weather perspective, but the recency and the severity of the rainfall will make it impossible for course staff to get Waialae's turf to run as firm as we typically see it. A softer golf course almost always leads to lower scores -- particularly in the absence of wind we project for tomorrow morning. For that reason, I'm a big fan of scoring unders and birdie overs for tomorrow's early starters, and it doesn't take much imagination to pick Chris Kirk from the bunch when his line is set at a two-under 68.
Kirk played some truly faultless golf down the stretch of the Sentry to slam the door shut on the chase pack, and the scarier part about last week's win is that Kapalua hasn't even been his best venue historically in the Aloha State. In 13 career starts here at Waialae, Chris Kirk has just as many top 5's (4), as he has missed cuts. He's lost strokes putting in just one of his last six appearances, and over the last three years, he's beaten or pushed this two-under mark in 11 out of 12 rounds.
Kirk followed up his last PGA Tour victory (2023 Honda Classic), with a stellar 5-under performance in Round 1 at brutish Bay Hill. I don't anticipate Waialae putting up nearly the amount of resistance we see from Arnie's Place every year, and particularly not for Kirk -- who's precision-based playstyle won't find a more natural course fit all season.
Other Recommendations
- Tyrrell Hatton LESS than 67.5 Strokes
- Hideki Matsuyama MORE than 13.5 Greens In Regulation
- Corey Conners LESS than 68.0 Strokes
Overall recommendation for this play: Power Play
Play the NBA Fantasy Score Now on PrizePicks
Win Big With RotoBaller
Golf is back, and it's time for you to win big with RotoBaller! Our PGA DFS Premium Package features several savvy analysts and proven DFS winners.Our very own Joe Nicely recently took down a big DraftKings DFS tournament for the Travelers Championship. And as an encore, RotoBaller subscriber @tenndolly2 won $100K on FanDuel with the help of Joe and the rest of our Premium PGA team:
If you read my articles @RotoBaller or listen to @TheTurnGolfPod I’ve been telling y’all it was #WinningSeason when golf came back! Shoutout to the entire @RotoBallerPGA squad and all you guys that support my work for all the ❤️ pic.twitter.com/07a4ynvbSU
— Joe Nicely (@JoeNicely) June 28, 2020
Between all the incredible Premium PGA DFS content and tools we put out each week, and our Premium Slack Community where we chat with our subscribers before lineups lock, RotoBaller PGA subscribers are armed with the tools, analysis, and advice to win big.Congrats @tenndolly2 ???
— RotoBaller PGA (@RotoBallerPGA) August 10, 2020
Thanks for being a @RotoBaller PGA DFS Premium subscriber & checking out all the amazing golf content that @JoeNicely produces every week! https://t.co/tHKZVsPbbt
