2024 Sony Open Preview

2024 Sony Open Preview

The Hawaii Swing comes to a close with a trip to Honolulu. This week the PGA Tour heads to Waialae Country Club for the 2024 Sony Open. As always, here is your early deep-dive on the 2024 Sony Open and a preview of how to bet.

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2024 Sony Open Preview

The Field

The 2024 Sony Open represents the “other” events on the PGA Tour. The events in between signature act effectively as qualifiers for the next Signature Event. The Top 5 point scorers in the regular events (who aren’t already exempt) earn an exemption into the next Signature Event. The 2024 Sony Open acts as the first of such event.

Unfortunately, that means that there’s little incentive for top players who are automatically qualified for the Signature Events to show up at these regular ones. As such, the field this week at the Sony Open is pretty weak.

While he won’t top the odds board, the PGA Tour welcomes the return of Will Zalatoris to the fray. Zalatoris technically came back at the Hero World Challenge and looked dreadful. He finished dead last, with most of his issues coming around the green. We’ll see if that was just course rust. But professional golf is more fun when the fiery Will Zalatoris is relevant.

Another professional making his return from injury is Gary Woodland. Woodland underwent surgery last September to remove a brain tumor. It is absolutely remarkable that he not only is still with us, but he’s back so quickly on the PGA Tour. No matter who you bet on, you should be happy for any success from Gary Woodland this week.

Other notables in the field include Ludvig Aberg, Matt Fitzpatrick, Brian Harman, Tyrrell Hatton, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, and Sahith Theegala.

For the full field, click here.

The Golf Course

The golf course was designed by Seth Raynor and opened shortly after his death in 1926. Seth Raynor is responsible for some of the most iconic and classic golf courses in the United States. His portfolio includes the Old White TPC at the Greenbrier, Chicago Golf Club, Fishers Island Golf Club, the Dunes Course at Monterrey Peninsula, and the Yale University Golf Course.

The course was originally 6,600 yards from the championship tees and was heavily influenced by other notable golf courses around the world. Since its opening, the course has undergone a lengthening to just over 7,000 yards and a few minor tweaks. Overall, it still has retained most of its charm as a time capsule into golf’s past.

Below is a digital flyover of Waialae Country Club. It’s a great video to help preview this year’s Sony Open:

Fans may also recognize Waialae Country Club if they played the video game on N64 in the late-1990s:

The routing of the golf course is exceptional. There is a great variety of tee-to-green direction holes to holes that keep a player on their toes. A wide variety of tee-to-green routing makes it a challenge in windy conditions. It forces a player to think their way around the golf course hole to hole.

The creative layout of Waialae Country Club is similar to that of the Old White TPC (a fellow Seth Raynor golf course) and Sedgefield Country Club.

Waialae is a second-shot golf course. The dog legs promote more positional golf off the tee. The bermuda greens at Waialae are some of the purest on tour. As intended, the golf course promotes hitting the correct side of doglegs to go at pins. Wind could also be a factor, especially on the second half of the back nine that plays closer to the beach.

 

Betting Strategies

To begin the 2024 Sony Open Preview, here is general information about Waialae Country Club.

General Information:

Yardage: 7, 044

  • Unlike last week at Kapalua, Waialae Country Club is dead flat. The yardage on the scorecard isn’t deceptive like the almost 7,600 yard Plantation Course was.

Par: 70

  • Only two Par 5’s on the golf course. No. 9 is one of the easiest Par 5’s on the PGA Tour. While No. 18 is also fairly benign, poor drives can put birdie at risk due to the bunkering and bermuda rough at the dog leg.

Average Green Size: 7,100 sq. feet

  • Larger than PGA Tour average greens.

Agronomy:

  • Greens: Tridwarf Bermuda (11-12 on stimpeter)
  • Approaches and Collars: Bermuda
  • Fairways: Bermuda
  • Rough: Bermuda (3 inches)

In 2023, the rough was grown up with the intent to try and discourage low-scoring players from blasting it all over the golf course. Typically, Waialae has a higher correlation of in-tournament distance and accuracy, contributing to the variance in Strokes Gained – Off-the-Tee. It appears as though the thicker rough made it much more of a crapshoot in 2023 (see below).

Past Champions:

  • 2023: Si Woo Kim (-18)
  • 2022: Hideki Matsuyama (-23)
  • 2021: Kevin Na (-21)
  • 2020: Cameron Smith (-11)
  • 2019: Matt Kuchar (-22)

Scoring Average:

  • 2023: -1.34
  • 2022: -2.08
  • 2021: -2.25
  • 2020: +0.15
  • 2019: -1.24

Typically, Waialae features some of the easiest scoring conditions on the PGA Tour. The outlier to the last five years was in 2020 when the tournament received unseasonably cool, windy, and rainy conditions. But absent of these weather factors the golf course yields plenty of low scores.

In fact, almost every part of the game of golf is significantly easier at Waialae than the typical PGA Tour golf course. Here are its rankings (out of 87 played since 2015) in terms of difficulty (the lower the ranking, the harder the scoring) since 2015 in each area of the game (per DataGolf):

  • Off the Tee: 56th
  • Approach: 73rd
  • Around the Green: 78th
  • Putting: 50th

Waialae is one of the least penal golf courses to miss a fairway at. There aren’t many opportunities to incur a penalty stroke at Waialae. The green-in-regulation rate is typically one of the highest on the PGA Tour. Neither the tight lies, bunkers, or rough around each green is difficult to get up and down from. And putts can be made with little resistance from almost any range.

Predictive Skillsets

Here are the predictive skillset charts for Waialae Country Club (per DataGolf). This chart will preview what types of players should excel at the 2024 Sony Open:

2024 Sony Open Preview

This predictive skillset chart isn’t helpful at all. Waialae neither favors bombers nor accurate players. Iron play isn’t as predictive at Waialae as the average PGA Tour stop. Putting isn’t very predictive either to success or failure at Waialae. The only skillset that DataGolf deems as predictive is skill around the green. Typically, better scramblers have done well at Kapalua.

It’s likely that because Waialae isn’t a golf course that players attack with the driver, it’s one of the few golf courses where some of the more less skilled drivers on the PGA Tour can contend at. And for what they lack off the tee, they manage to keep their card by being really good around the green. As such, those types of players gravitate towards the top of the leaderboard, even if the greenside surrounds at Waialae aren’t all that daunting.

Here is a list of PGA Tour golf courses (played within the last 5 years) that feature a similar predictive skillset chart as Waialae Country Club (per DataGolf):

  • Colonial Country Club
  • Austin Country Club
  • Harbour Town Golf Links
  • Sea Island Golf Club
  • St. George’s G&CC
  • TPC San Antonio
  • TPC Southwind
  • TPC Summerlin
  • Port Royal GC
  • Concession Golf Club
  • Albany

In Tournament Strokes Gained

Here are distribution charts of the variance in total strokes gained based on tournament performance since 2021. These charts demonstrate what forces have an influence on how a player separates themselves from the field (per DataGolf). It also will preview how the leaderboard at the 2024 Sony Open will shake out:

2023

2024 Sony Open Preview

2022

2024 Sony Open Preview

2021

2024 Sony Open Preview

There’s a few things to take away from these charts. First, in-tournament putting tends to be more of a separator at the Sony Open than the typical PGA Tour event. With such easy ball striking conditions, the only way to seriously separate oneself on the leaderboard is by holing more putts than the opponents.

Second, in tournament iron play and scrambling has a much lower effect on total strokes gained than the typical PGA Tour event. Again, the easy ball striking conditions and relatively benign greenside surroundings likely have something to do with this.

Lastly, driving was much more impactful on total strokes gained in 2022 and 2021, but not so much in 2023. The only big change in 2023 from the prior two seasons was the lengthening of the bermuda rough. Otherwise, it’s hard to say exactly why there was such a big shift.

Approach Shot Distribution

Here is the approach shot distribution chart from the 2023 Sony Open (per DataGolf). This chart is reflective of past tournaments and a preview of what types of approach shots players will hit at the 2024 Sony Open:

2024 Sony Open Preview

The Sony Open is won from 125-225 yards. About 75% of the approach shots come from between 125-225 yards, and that volume is significantly higher than the PGA Tour average. However, about 45% of all shots come specifically from 150-200 yards. This should be the most critical range that gamblers focus on with their proximity stats at the 2024 Sony Open.

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