The PGA Tour begins 2023 in Hawaii this week for the annual calendar curtain raiser of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, an event in which all of the winners of the previous year are invited to tee it up in an event which seems to heighten in profile each time it is played.
We are guaranteed a new winner this week because Cameron Smith won the tournament in 2022 but he has since defected to the dark side so we have no defending champion in Hawaii. We do have a very good field though.
Recent Winners
2022 – Cameron Smith
2021 – Harris English
2020 – Justin Thomas
2019 – Xander Schauffele
2018 – Dustin Johnson
2017 – Justin Thomas
2016 – Jordan Spieth
2015 – Patrick Reed
2014 – Zach Johnson
2013 – Dustin Johnson
The Course
We are back on the Plantation Course at the Kapalua Resort in Hawaii this week, a track that will be incredibly familiar to the regulars in this tournament even allowing for the changes made to the course ahead of the event two years ago. It is a par 73 which can be something of a monster at 7,596 yards although the ball flies here so it doesn’t play quite to that yardage. Despite the length the only defence this course has is the wind which is likely to keep the players honest in the middle two rounds this week.
In essence this is a second shot golf course as the fairways here are incredibly wide and even if they are missed the rough isn’t too bad. Firing irons into the greens is the key to success here because the greens were flattened with the redevelopment. There are only three par 3s on this course but four par 5s and a few shorter par 4s, remember this is the place that Dustin Johnson nearly made an ace on a 400+ yard hole here when he tore the event up in 2018. Recently length and a very hot putter have been keys to success here.
The Field
40 players qualified for the tournament either by winning an event in 2022 or reaching the Tour Championship and all but one of those players tee it up this week. Rory McIlroy is the exception. He has decided to miss the opening event of 2023 even though the prize money has had an 83% rise and there are 550 FedExCup points to the winner. Whoever wins here will catapult themselves towards the top of that ranking.
McIlroy isn’t here but three of the four major winners from 2022 are with Scottie Scheffler, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Justin Thomas all taking their place in the field. Jon Rahm is another leading light in the field while there is also a return for the WGC FedEx St Jude winner Will Zalatoris. Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Viktor Hovland, Tom Kim, Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Cameron Young and Collin Morikawa are some of the other recognisable names teeing it up.
Market Leaders
But for a scoring blitz from Cameron Smith last year, Jon Rahm would have been the defending champion here. His 33 under total would have won every other edition of this tournament and he arrives here in top form having won twice in his last three starts on the DP World Tour last year. Incredibly Rahm has never won this tournament but in five outings has never finished outside the top 10 and I think he is the man to beat but pulling the trigger on a 13/2 shot after a month off over Christmas isn’t the easiest thing to do.
Scottie Scheffler should enjoy himself this week. He has only played here once which was before he started winning everything. He was T13 but you would expect an improvement here. It is often said that there are correlations with this place and Augusta and Scheffler won at the latter last year. The one concern is he was untouchable for the first six months of last year but then his form fell off a cliff by his standards. That would be a bit of a concern but I would expect him to be close this week.
Justin Thomas has won this title twice and if he is going to continue the sequence he will win this year too because his victories have been in 2017 and 2020 so he is due in 2023. Thomas only played once in a full event since the Tour Championship which is a bit of a concern but maybe not as much as in a month or so if he still hadn’t played because most people have had a month off. Since he won in 2020 he has finished third and fifth and his combination of length, good iron play and generally decent putting added to comfort in the wind makes him a leading contender here.
Patrick Cantlay came out of the traps with a 13 under par opening 36 holes last season but could only match that over the second 36 which was only good enough for fourth place, his second fourth placed finish at this course. Cantlay hasn’t played since the Shriners back in October and you just wonder if that is a little too long between drinks for him to be up to speed for what will surely be a shootout. If he was a bit bigger than 11/1 I might have chanced it but at that price he isn’t for me.
Main Bet
I’ll just go with the one main bet this week and that is on the former champion Justin Thomas who in my eyes looked primed to go incredibly well. There is always a bit of onus on the caddy this week with the calculations always having to be adjusted so the fact that Thomas has Bones on the bag is a huge positive. He has a brilliant record around here and that doesn’t surprise me because as I highlighted above there is no weakness to his game.
Thomas is someone who always builds up to go well in this tournament and with it being one of these new prestige tournaments there is even more incentive to win here. The wind should keep the scoring down a touch from last year which will do Thomas no harm and with all of the market leaders the only player in the field to have won this tournament more than once looks the pick and a perfectly fair 11/1.
Outsider
I’ll go with one outsider here too. They always say that a player needs a spin around here in order to get a feel for the place and the conditions and yardages and everything else and Seamus Power had that last year. To be fair to the Irishman, a T15 on debut is perfectly respectable. There was an eight-under 65 included in that lot too so he can score here. Power is a huge hitter who won’t need to hold anything back with the driver this week and those are the players I like around here.
Power finished 2022 in excellent form winning in Bermuda before finished third in Mexico and fifth at the RSM Classic. Wind is a factor in all three of those events as it is here so it is a positive that he went well there. He also began 2022 with a third at the Sony Open also in Hawaii and another top 10 at Pebble Beach where wind is also a factor so the more it blows the better it will suit him. If Power has a good putting week here then he should go very close.
Tips
Back J.Thomas to win Sentry Tournament of Champions (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 12.00 with Betway (1/5 1-6)
Back S.Power to win Sentry Tournament of Champions (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 51.00 with Bet365 (1/5 1-5)
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