Pat mayo provides a preview and makes its Sony opening picks in early 2021 in its first look and research for the PGA TOUR event.
Sony Open 2021 – Choice and overview | Podcast | Info & Research | One & Done | Statistics / Tools
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Sony Open 2021: field
Field: 144 players
Fit: Top 65 and ties
Schedule lock: Thursday January 14
Defending champion: Cameron Smith
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The Tournament of Champions was a good aperitif – limited pitch, no cup, mostly high end players – but now we are in the real mill of the PGA TOUR. The Sony Open 2021 has 144 players, the Top 65 and ties rule persists as the cup line rule and we finally get the missed cuts variable to throw a wrench in our DraftKings rosters. More than six out of six for EVERYBODY !!!!
While traditionally a common ground for Korn Ferry graduates, non-elite ToC holders and the PGA TOUR mid-card, the Sony Open 2021 has its strongest field in over a decade. No, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and most of the ultra elites won’t make it to Waialae CC, but 32 of the 42 Kapalua participants will be on the pitch at the Sony Open. So for everyone but those 32 players, this will be their debut in 2021. Former champions Russell Henley and Zach Johnson top the 2021 rookie list, along with Emiliano Grillo, Brian Harman, Si WOOO Kim, Erik van Rooyen, Charles Howell III, Matt Kuchar, Charley Hoffman, Keegan Bradley, Jim Furyk, JT Poston, Chris Kirk, Chez Reavie, Brandan Steele, Russell Knox, Branden Grace and Doug Ghim, aka The GHIM REAPER.
The wild card on the field is Takumi Kanaya. The 22-year-old Japanese rose to number one in the amateur world rankings before turning professional and has already won two victories on the Japanese circuit. Up to No. 120 in the world rankings, despite a missed cup at the US Open and a paltry T41 in the United States from Zozo, Kanaya finished four times in the top seven (with one of those wins) to close. the year in Japan.
Sony Open 2021: key statistics
Wins won: approach
By 4s won
Eagles won
Good records won
Key Mayo Stats Powered By FantasyNational.com
Sony Open 2021: Course
Course: Waialae CC
By: 70
Footage: 7044
Greens: Bermuda
Sony Open 2021: past winners
2020: Cameron Smith -11
2019: Matt Kuchar -22
2018: Patton Kizzire -17
2017: Justin Thomas -27
2016: Fabian Gomez -20
2015: Jimmy Walker -23
Sony Open 2021: notes
For DraftKings contests, if the group comes out of knocked down tees (half of the groups start at hole # 1 and half of the groups start at hole # 1 and the other half at hole # 10), targeting players starting at hole # 1 should give a slight advantage. A birdie streak on holes 8, 9 and 10 is more likely, by birdie / bogey average, than 17, 18, and 1 or 18, 1 and 2 with holes # 17 and # 1 coming in sixth and fourth most difficult. holes historically at this place.
Prior to Cameron Smith’s 2020 triumph, the previous six winners at Waialae had all played in the Tournament of Champions the week before. Random chance? Potentially, but it’s worth noting that Smith, like most of the winners of the first three months of 2020, competed in the Presidents Cup in December in Australia.
Smith’s -11 winning score was the highest since Vijay Singh also won in 2005 at -11. Coastal course, Waialae experienced massive wind gusts and rains during the early rounds of 2020. These winds were a massive outlier, however. An extreme wind that tends to be common in Kapalua seldom emerges in Waialae to this extent.
Waialae CC is the fourth oldest host location. The Honolulu course has been played every year since 1965, except in 1970 when there was no event. This only follows Augusta National (1934), Colonial CC (1946) and Pebble Beach (1947).
Ernie Els (2003) and Justin Thomas (2017) are the only two players to complete the Hawaii Slam in the same year and Harris English will have the opportunity to join this club this season.
Charles Howell III (35.2), Webb Simpson (32.2), Kevin Kisner (30.2), Chez Reavie (28.9) and Marc Leishman (28.2) have the most strokes won: Total of all players on the pitch over the past five years at the Sony Open.
Waialae generally ends up being among the courses with the hardest to reach fairways, just over 52% shade for the TOUR average of 61%. Last year it spoiled it a bit; wet conditions kept a greater percentage of balls in the grass short. Missing the fairway does not affect overall success, however. The average drive travels almost five and a half yards longer than the average TOUR course, so players are more concerned with setting the correct angles than landing in the fairway. Despite almost half of the approaches coming from rough, the terrain hits more GIRs at Sony than an average event, shows a higher scrambling percentage and almost identical average pin proximity on GIRs. Thus, the statistic “Good Drives Gained” will trump “Strokes Gained: Off The Tee” this week.
Strokes won: Around the Greens means less and less, the higher you climb in the rankings. Given that Waialae is one of the more generous courses for GIR (67%), the more the terrain used their small game, the less likely they were to birdies. It is not a good plan when the winning score will generally cross a range below -20.
Russell Henley (2013) was the last player to make the Sony Open his first career victory. Before that, it was Jerry Kelly in 2002. Henley is also the last player to win in his first appearance on the course. Since winning the tag team event, technically Smith’s victory last year was not his first victory on the PGA TOUR. Just his solo victory. Rising oil prices were all the rage in 1979, also the same year we found the next player who won in his early days – Bruce Lietzke.
Among players with at least three starts in the past five years, Howell, Webb, Kisner, Grillo, Hudson Swafford, Stewart Cink, Scott Piercy, Cameron Smith, Daniel Berger, Matt Jones, Andrew Putnam, Tim Wilkinson, William McGirt and Brian Stuard made the cut in every appearance.
According to Fantasy National, over the past 24 rounds, Webb, Berger, Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im and Ryan Palmer have won the most total strokes on Par 70 courses playing under 7,200 yards.
For correlation courses, the obvious is El Camaleon, host of the Mayaboka Classic. In 2018 and 2019, Matt Kuchar and Patton Kizzire won both events in succession. After that, the Honda Classic (PGA National), Harbor Town (The Heritage) and Sedgefield CC (Wyndham Championship) have seen similar names appear in the rankings over the years – most of which are a combination or all of short, Par 70, Bermuda and coastal courses. Combining these five courses together, over the past 36 innings, Webb, Kuchar, English, Poston, Billy Horschel and Sergio Garcia top the list in SG: Total. Sergio, Webb, Kuchar, Luke List, CT Pan and Si WOOOO Kim lead SG: T2G.
Sony Choice 2021
Sungjae Im
When you think of short Bermuda runs, Webb Simpson should immediately come to mind, but after that it should be Sungjae. Barely 22, Im made a breakthrough at the very tough PGA National a year ago and could take another novelty check in Hawaii this week. Yes, he finished tied for fifth in Kapalua, but it really should have been better. No player on the field was better positioned on the tee-to-green or the ball. He just couldn’t putter, which is atypical for Im on the Bermuda greens. Fortunately, in two starts at the Sony Open, he averaged +3.1 SG: Putting per start.
Marc Leishman
Is Leishman broke? Poor guy couldn’t buy a putt in Kapalua. Perhaps it was a confusion over trading AUD for USD or the inflated price of putts due to rising isolation in Hawaii. Who can say? Finishing in the middle of the pack at T25 at the Tournament of Champions, the Australian lost 5.1 strokes on the greens, third worst in the pack. Irons? Quality. Leishman was eighth among all players with +3.8, sandwiched between Dustin Johnson and Daniel Berger. Flip the putter over, and it should come back in contention on a course where it has finished in positive points on the putting surface in seven of the past eight years. I have a feeling Leishman is going to cost me a lot of money this year. Just a hunch.
Doug Ghim
Hopefully the extended hiatus and the turnaround in the schedule didn’t dampen Ghim’s progress. Since the start of the new season, he has failed to qualify for the weekend just once out of six starts and has posted four Top 25s along the way. And he hasn’t done it yet with a great putting performance. No big losses, no big gains. Catch a hot week to complete Ghim’s Top 10 standings on the approaching field, opportunities gained and good records over the last 12 innings to end last year and there will be no need to fear the Reaper.
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Pat Mayo is an award-winning video host and producer of long and short content, and the host of the daily show The Pat Mayo Experience. (Subscribe for video or audio). Mayo (@ThePME) won the 2020 Fantasy Sports Writing Association Daily Fantasy Writer of the Year and Golf Writer of the Year award, as well as the Fantasy Sports Trade Association Best award. Sports betting Analyst Award, and was a finalist for four FSWA Awards in 2020 (Best Podcast, Best Video, Daily Fantasy Writer of the Year, Golf Writer of the Year). His 21 FSWA nominations lead all writers this decade and are the third of all time. Mayo has been recognized in several sports (soccer, baseball and golf), mediums (video, writing and podcasting), genre (humor) and game formats (Daily Fantasy and Traditions Season Long). Beyond sports, Mayo covers everything from entertainment to pop culture to politics. If you have a fantastic question, general request, or sneaky comment, send it to Mayo at [email protected] and the best will be discussed in the show.
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