This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.
THE SENTRY
Purse: $20M
Winner's Share: $3.6M
FedEx Cup Points: 700 to the Winner
Location: Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii
Course: Plantation Course at Kapalua
Yardage: 7,596
Par: 73
2023 champion: Jon Rahm
Tournament Preview
As if there haven't been enough seismic shifts in golf over the past few years, there's about to be another: The PGA Tour is reverting back to a calendar-year schedule in 2024, following a decade of wrap-around formats. Now, seasons will be self-contained in a single year, beginning this week with the newly named and newly formatted Sentry (just Sentry, no longer Sentry Tournament of Champions. More on that upcoming.)
But those aren't the only changes in store for 2024. While elevated nee designated tournaments will return, they now are on their third name in two years: Signature events. The Tour is continuing down a path that some say is creating a greater divide between the haves and have-nots with these big-money, limited-field tournaments. (That sentiment is coming most prominently from the have-nots.) However, there are now more paths for the lesser guys to gain entry into Signature events. Not many paths and not many guys, but some.
It's interesting to note that since the Tour Championship last August, the top golfers also have complained about the direction of the Tour. Sure, LIV Golf continues to be a disrupter and primary contributor to all the consternation. That will not end anytime soon. There are fans who love LIV and all the changes it has brought to the game; others think it's gimmicky or worse. One of those LIV detractors used to be Jon Rahm. But he is a recent defector to the breakaway circuit. And now golf fans who are not fans of LIV are also starting to grow weary of PGA Tour fields becoming more diluted.
Can't anybody here grow the dang game?
The Sentry is the first of eight Signature events. Its purse has jumped to $20 million, now matching the other seven. Another big change for this season is that the winner of the Signature events will earn 700 FedEx Cup points. Regular tournaments will still deliver 500, but the majors and THE PLAYERS Championship have increased from 600 to 750. All that is Exhibit A for the argument that the PGA Tour is becoming a caste system: bigger purses and increased FedEx points in the Signature events, in combination with smaller, no-cut fields.
Which brings us to this week.
There are 59 golfers playing at Kapalua. "The Sentry" is now the official name of the tournament long known as the Tournament of Champions. But since it's become the Tournament of Champions Plus A Bunch of Other Guys, they decided to shorten the name rather than use that unwieldy option that we offered free of charge. The field still consists of all 2023 tournament winners -- even opposite-field champions -- but has been expanded to include the top-50 in last year's final FedEx Cup standings. Almost every winner ended up in the top-50, which is why the field is just 59. There originally were 61 golfers eligible; Rory McIlroy is an annual Kapalua no-show and Rahm cited 300 million reasons not to defend his 2023 title. Two-time Kapalua winner Justin Thomas also is absent, but for a good old-fashioned reason: He didn't qualify. Thomas is ranked 26th in the world and should qualify for the remaining Signature events, either via his world ranking or sponsor invites. There are no such invites for the Sentry, or Thomas surely would've gotten one.
So who is here? Twenty-two of the top-25 players in the world rankings. No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 4 Viktor Hovland and emerging star Ludvig Aberg are the headliners, along with former Kapalua champs Jordan Spieth and Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay, who presumably will be wearing a hat now that he's being paid to do so.
Nearly one-third of the field are Sentry first-timers. Newcomers to Kapalua rarely contend, thanks largely to the enormous and undulating greens -- largest on the PGA Tour -- that take time to master.
The tournament will take place under the backdrop of the deadly wildfires that swept across Lahaina on Maui just six months ago. Soon after the devastation that took more than 100 lives and caused billions of dollars in damage, the PGA Tour expressed a desire to play the Sentry on schedule, hoping to be part of the healing process. Commissioner Jay Monahan said the Tour wanted to be a "source of inspiration for the great people of Maui and Lahaina." Hawaii's vital tourism industry took a huge hit, and this tournament should help show that the area is still vibrant. While the golf course itself was unscathed, nearly one-third of the staff lost either their homes or belongings.
Kapalua is nearly 7,600 yards, third-longest on Tour behind Torrey Pines and Puntacana. But as we know, it plays far shorter as a par-73 and with massive elevation drops buoying distances. We'll surely see some 400-yard drives again this week. Who could forget Dustin Johnson's 430-yarder six years ago that finally settled inches from the cup on No. 12, oh-so-close to a mind-boggling par-4 hole-in-one? Still, we have seen shorter hitters excel with Spieth (2016), Zach Johnson (2014) and Steve Stricker (2012) winning. In fact, the golfers absolutely will need to bring their short-game skills to succeed this week, as scrambling and putting have historically been critical. The bermudagrass greens average a whopping 8,700 square feet and run about 11 on the Stimpmeter. There are only three par-3s. There are no par-4s between 450 and 500 yards; they are either shorter (eight holes) or longer (three). In fact, one of the par-4s, the 540-yard seventh, is longer than one of the four par-5s, the 526-yard fifth. The 14th should be fun, a baby 301-yard par-4. The course concludes with one of the longest holes in all of golf, the 677-yard 18th that plays not only downhill but downwind, making it a must-birdie hole. Only four holes played over par last year: 1, 4, 13 and 17, all par-4s. Closing the loop on one of the quirkiest courses we'll see all year, there are 93 bunkers and, even though they're playing on an island, there is absolutely no water in play. Bonkers.
After the 2019 TOC, there was a substantial renovation of the Plantation Course, maybe as big a makeover as any PGA Tour course has had in just one year. In a nutshell, they wanted to make it harder. Original architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were brought back and they were, in a word, thorough. They moved tee boxes, reworked bunkers, re-grassed all the holes, made changes to the greens. To be sure, it's still a bomber's paradise, but Coore and Crenshaw tried to add weight to the second shot, and make the golfers play the angles more with their drives. For one year, it appeared to work. In 2020, the Plantation Course ranked in the middle of the difficulty pack, 20th hardest out of 41 tracks, and Thomas' winning score in a three-way playoff with former champs Schauffele and Patrick Reed was only 278 -- 14-under par. That was a huge nine shots worse than in Schauffele's 2019 win. Alas, it appears all that had more to do with the extreme wind over the final 54 holes. Because in 2021, Harris English, along with Joaquin Newmann, soared back to 25-under before English won on the first playoff hole. And then in 2022, all hell broke loose, with three guys exceeding 30-under. Cameron Smith won at a surreal 34-under, one shot ahead of Rahm and two better than Matt Jones. Last year, Rahm won at a mere 27-under, thanks largely to Collin Morikawa imploding in the final round to limp home at 1-under 72. Still, Kapalua ranked as the easiest course on the Tour for the second straight year.
As for the weather, duh, it's Hawaii, it will be beautiful. Highs will be around 80 all week, with moderate wind and little chance of rain.
Fun Kapalua factoid: There were only six over-par rounds last year in the entire tournament, when there were 39 golfers in the field. Schauffele withdrew after the first round.
Key Stats to Winning at Kapalua
The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.
• Strokes Gained: Putting
• Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green/Scrambling
• Birdie Average/Birdie or Better Percentage
• Strokes Gained: Approach/Greens in Regulation
• Driving Distance
Past Champions
2023 - Jon Rahm
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
Champion's Profile
When you are hitting 30-under or close to it, really, just about every part of your game is working. Rahm ranked second in the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, third in Around-the-Green, third in Tee-to-Green and first in Putting. He was only 32nd in Approach, but obviously that mattered little. Runner-up Collin Morikawa was second in SG: Putting and Max Homa, who tied for third, ranked fourth. Rahm was also second in driving distance, but none of the next five finishers ranked in the top-10. When everyone in the field gains length thanks to the course conditions, maybe you don't have to be the longest of the long. With the first tournament of the year, we'll say what we always say: Approach play rules on the PGA Tour, but putting can cure so many wrongs. Because of all the trickiness of the putting surfaces, placement on approach shots is important. That's why course knowledge is viewed with such importance here. No Sentry rookie has won since Daniel Chopra in 2008. But with the smaller, no-cut field, it's certainly possible for a first-timer to secure a high finish, as Rahm did six years ago and Joaquin Niemann did three years ago with their runners-up. The fairways are some 50-60 yards wide, roughly double what the golfers see most of the year, so for most guys it's still bombs away.
DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS
Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap
Tier 1 Values
Viktor Hovland - $10,500 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +900)
Until we see that Scottie Scheffler ($11,000, +500) has turned a corner with his putting, especially at a tournament where putting is crucial, we won't pay up. No. 2 on the board is Hovland. He has never finished better than 18th in this tournament, but over the past 12 months, his short game has improved more than maybe any aspect of anyone's game has even improved in the span of a year.
Max Homa - $9,700 (+1200)
This will be Homa's fourth trip to Kapalua and he's gotten better each time, from 25th to 15th to last year's tie for third. That lends credence to the theory that Kapalua must be played multiple times to master. Homa ranked in the top-10 in the field a year ago in SG: Off-the-Tee and Approach, and top-five in Putting. It's difficult to rely too much on recent form, considering so many guys played so sporadically the past few months -- and maybe not at all in December -- but Homa was strong post-East Lake with a win great Ryder Cup and a DP World Tour win in South Africa.
Matt Fitzpatrick -- $9,500 (+2200)
This is a high DFS price to pay when matched against Fitzpatrick's betting odds. But in his Kapalua debut last year, without benefit of knowing the greens, he and tied for seventh. Fitzpatrick is among the best putters in this field, and now he'll have a year of course knowledge to work with. He played very well post-TOUR Championship, with a win and a T3 on the DP World Tour and a tie for fourth at the Hero World Challenge.
Tier 2 Values
Collin Morikawa - $9,100 (+1200)
Both guys in Tier 2 are steals at their given DFS prices (but not so much at their betting odds). Morikawa was cruising to victory here a year ago when he inexplicably collapsed on Sunday -- and by collapsed, we mean he shot just 1-under. Jon Rahm shot nine shots better and won. As much as that stung, Morikawa has had an exceptional track record at Kapalua, finishing no worse than seventh in four trips. He's not known for his putting by any means, but he did putt quite well here last year. Some courses just work for certain guys. Morikawa ended a long winless streak by capturing the ZOZO in the fall, then tied for seventh at the Hero.
Ludvig Aberg - $8,700 (+1400)
This price was a huge surprise, given how well Aberg played in the second half of 2023, culminating with his win at the RSM Classic, which followed his runner-up at the Sanderson Farms, which followed his DP World Tour win at the Omega European Masters. (He closed the RSM with surreal twin 61s.) Still, it would be a bigger surprise if the Swedish sensation won, given that this is his Kapalua debut. But as noted above, it's not unheard of for first-timers to have great weeks. And with a price under $9,000, the latitude for a great week has expanded. Aberg will be very highly owned, perhaps highest owned, across all types of DraftKings DFS games.
Tier 3 Values
Eric Cole - $7,400 (+5000)
Maybe the biggest surprise about Cole's excellent 2023 season was that it extended all year. Bursting on the scene with a playoff loss at the Honda in February, he closed the fall with three straight top-three finishes and ended the year ranked at No. 41. Naturally, Cole is a Kapalua rookie. But at only $7,400, he has even more latitude than Aberg.
J.T. Poston - $7,200 (+7000)
Poston is capable of being the best putter in the field and he's played Kapalua twice before -- 21st last year and 11th in 2020. He didn't have a win last year, but his five top-10s in the second half of 2023 propelled him into the top-50 of the final FedEx Cup standings. As they say in fantasy football, Poston has tremendous upside this week and at a very low price.
Cam Davis - $7,100 (+5000)
Davis is on our short list of players who can take a next-level career leap in 2024. Honestly, he showed many signs of leaping in 2023 after a terrible start to the year. He ended a string of five straight missed cuts during the winter with a T6 at THE PLAYERS, then added seven more worldwide top-10s the rest of the year. Davis played Kapalua once before, tying for 10th in 2022. The oddsmakers think much more highly of Davis than the DFS pricers, and $7,100 is a bargain, if not a steal.
Long-Shot Values
Adam Schenk - $6,900 (+13000)
Schenk was a favorite play of ours throughout last year as his price never matched how well he was playing. Once again, he's sub-$7,000, though in this field it's perhaps understandable -- especially since this will be his first time negotiating the tricky green complexes of Kapalua. After tying for sixth at the TOUR Championship (low-72 scores), Schenk didn't have a great fall, or a busy one, playing only three times with one top-20.
Luke List - $6,200 (+10000)
Here's our one real, bargain-basement long-shot attempt. List captured the Sanderson Farms in the fall, ending a winless drought that extended back to early 2022. But that victory at Torrey Pines got him into his first Sentry tournament last year, and he tied for 11th. List is not among the best putters in the field, but he does most everything else well. He's more than just a long driver. The DK oddsmakers think far more highly of List that their DFS colleagues to, pricing him at just 100-1, which is better than 20 other guys in the field. On the DFS side, he's priced higher than just five guys.
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