After an extremely low-scoring first event of the year that featured a packed leaderboard, the tour heads down to Waialae Country Club for the Sony Open. We’re getting our research process started with a first look at the PGA DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel daily fantasy golf lineup-building strategy.
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Here is what you can expect to find in this article, with some new additions:
- The Tournament & Format
- Course Commentary
- Course Facts & Figures
- PGA DFS Course Summary & Statistical Comparison
- PGA DFS Preview, including sweat sheet and now featuring winning lineups from last year’s event
- Player Preview
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PGA DFS Picks: Sony Open
The Tournament and Format
One of the longest-running stops on the PGA Tour, the Sony Open has been held here at Wailea Country Club since 1965. It features 132 golfers, with the top 65 golfers and ties making the cut after Friday. Sony has been the title sponsor here since 1999, as the island has a huge Japanese influence. As one would imagine, it’s a popular holiday spot, not only for Americans, but for a lot of Asian countries flying over the Pacific.
One of the unique things about the Sony Open is that they invite at least three professionals from Asian countries to compete. In the last few years, we’ve seen players like Shugo Imahira, Jazz Janewattananond and more. This year we get another treat with Takumi Kanaya and a few more rising starts of the Far East. They will head to Waialae Country Club and the unique setup it offers.
The Course
Waialae Country Club
A highly undulating course with breathtaking views leads way to a course down in the valley by the sea. Waialae Country Club is a par 70, versus the par 73 last week, and it won’t have many of the same features. Its signature holes come on the backside, as two holes abut the beach.
Having been a mainstay on the tour since the 1960s, Waialae Country club has withstood the test of time. Even though it is a par 70 that measure shy of 7,100 yards, it has given us winners with all types of golf games. Golfers like Justin Thomas and Jimmy Walker have both won here, and on the other end of the spectrum, Matt Kuchar and Zach Johnson have won as well.
Course Facts & Figures
Par and Yardage
- Par 70: 7,044 yards
Course Difficulty
- 32/41, 68.921 or slightly under par
Hole Dispersion:
- Par 3’s — 204, 176, 194, 194
- The Par 4’s — 480, 423, 422, 467, 450, 454, 341, 440, 477, 430, 400, 417
- Par 5’s — 506, 551
Grass Types & Hazards
- Grass Type: Bermuda throughout
- Average Green: 6,500 square feet
- Water Hazards: 4
- Bunkers: 83
- Rough Length: 2.5 inches
Designer
- Seth Raynor
Facts and Figures
- Off the Tee: From some of the easiest fairways to hit on tour at Kapalua to some of the hardest, this week’s course ranked ninth hardest last year. However, a lot of drivers were hit off the tee, as the average drive was just about 303 yards, ranking it seventh.
- Approach to the Green: All of those missed fairways lead to a decent amount of missed greens. Just about 69% of the greens were hit in regulation last year, ranking it 16th.
- Around the Green: The 32% of the time golfers did miss the green, they were able to get up and down on average 60% of the time.
- On the Green: Smaller greens and not a ton of movement makes them much easier than last week’s. It ranked 16th hardest on tour last year.
PGA DFS Course Summary & Statistical Comparison
Given the fact that it’s not easy to hit the fairways here, all types of players have seemed to succeed. Golfers like Cameron Smith, who has struggled off the tee in the past, were able to get past that with stellar iron play, while others like Matt Kuchar rode above-average driving accuracy and strong iron play to victory.
With the course being so short, focusing on golfers that are good with their approach and good around the green should prove to be a winning formula here this week.
Sony Open: Fantasy Golf and PGA DFS Preview | DraftKings + FanDuel
There are a couple of additions to this section. I will highlight the upcoming week and what contests are offered and go over the winning GPP lineups from last year’s three price points. Finally, we’ll look to the DFS sweat sheet to see where the golfers will be scoring the most DFS points this week. Let’s get started.
PGA DFS Slate Preview
The first draft of this written on Sunday night had these contests posted at the time of the article being finished:
Previous Year PGA DFS DraftKings Results
I’ll cover three buy-in levels — the large-field GPP, the high-dollar GPP and the single-entry mid-level buy-in. I’ll also provide a couple of notes on the overall scoring of the event.
Notes
- The average score for the tournament (of golfers that made the cut) was 69.3 points, with the highest being 116 and the lowest being 48.
- Three golfers scored over or at 100 points.
Winning Lineups
- $8 Buy-In $400,000 Guaranteed:
- Total ownership of 78%.
- It was not the optimal lineup.
- The lineup was duplicated one time.
- The cash line for the contest was 381.5.
- $200 Buy-In Single Entry, $40,000 Guaranteed:
- A total Ownership of 60%.
- The lineup was not duplicated.
- The cash line for the contest was 387.50.
- $444 Buy-In, $150,000 Guaranteed:
- Total ownership of 78%.
- The lineup was not duplicated, although our own Alex Awesemo Baker did split first place with another lineup. Interesting note, he took it down with only five of six.
- The cash line for the contest was 381.
PGA DFS Sweat Sheet
With only two par 5’s on the course, it’s no surprise to see the bookends as the most important in terms of DFS Scoring. Golfers made 32 eagles on them last year, as well as almost 500 birdies. In total, those two holes alone accounted for 40% of the DraftKings scoring for the week. In terms of the best chance at a streak for golfers, holes 7-10 or 16-1 would be the best chances at it.
Previous Winners for The Tournament of Champions
- 2020: Cameron Smith (-14)
- 2019: Matt Kuchar (-22)
- 2018: Patton Kizzire (-17)
- 2017: Justin Thomas (-27)
- 2016: Fabian Gomez (-20)
Player Preview
As it typically happens with this even, the upper-echelon players, i.e. the top five in the world, skip the short trip from Maui to Oahu, and instead either stay on Maui for some extra holiday or head on home. Still, 23 of the world’s top 50 golfers are here on Oahu for the first full-field event of the season, making it one of the strongest fields to compete here at Waialae.
Webb Simpson and Collin Morikawa represent the top 10 golfers competing here this week, as Simpson will look to continue his strong play here at the Sony Open, which includes back-to-back top fives. Prior to that, he had three straight 13th-place finishes. Morikawa will look to improve upon his first time at Waialae last year, where he finished in 21st. I suspect both of these golfers, who were in the middle price-to-value range last week, will end up as the highest-priced golfers on the slate.
Plenty of other golfers are coming over from Maui to compete here on Oahu this week, which the winner has done three of the last four years. Others that played last week scheduled to play this week include Cameron Smith, Patrick Reed, Daniel Berger, Viktor Hovland, Sungjae Im, Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Scott, Abraham Ancer, Jason Kokrak and Kevin Kisner.
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