Sony Open in Hawaii Predictions: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

If last week served as a gratifying appetizer, this week, we finally get to stuff ourselves on a main course as the PGA Tour contests its first full-field event of the new year.

There are 35 players making the 38-minute trip from Maui to Oahu. While there’s little about the brawny Plantation Course which should prepare these guys for claustrophobic Waialae, the Sony Open trend shows there’s a fairly massive edge to those who have already made their season debut.

That’s not to say the eventual Sony Open winner – much like the late Grayson Murray, who will undoubtedly be memorialized throughout this week – can’t be someone who didn’t play The Sentry, but the numbers show that getting four competitive rounds under your belt and having your body clock adjusted to the local time can provide advantages over those who are, perhaps quite literally, coming in cold.

With that in mind, let’s get to this week’s selections, which obviously include plenty of guys making their second start of the season.

Sony Open in Hawaii Outright Winner Bets

Conservative: Maverick McNealy (+2800)

Not only do the numbers over the past decade show that those who played Week 1 of the PGA Tour season have a built-in advantage in Week 2, but unsurprisingly those who played well at the first event tend to play well in this one, too. Of the top-12 from last year’s board at Kapalua who also played the Sony, three finished inside the top-10 that following week and a whopping 10 finished inside the top-25. 

The player on last week’s board who most intrigues me here is McNealy, who was T-8 while ranking fifth in SG: Approach. While strong iron play is pretty much a prerequisite on most PGA Tour venues, McNealy offers a unique blend of driver play and short game, ranking inside the top-30 last season off the tee, around the greens and putting. 

He’s 3-for-3 making the cut at Waialae, including a T-7 two years ago, and 11 of his 12 rounds have been sub-70. With the weight of winning his first title lifted from his shoulders last fall, he could be on the verge of some very big stepping stones this year. At this outright number, he makes plenty of sense here.

Aggressive: Gary Woodland (+12500)

I’ll never recommend a play based on sentimentality, and I’m not doing that here, either – but, man, would it be a story if Woodland was able to win again soon. The 2019 U.S. Open champion underwent brain surgery to remove a lesion just 15 months ago and his comeback journey has largely been a mixed bag of results ever since. 

This past fall, though, he appeared to be playing some better golf, finishing 33rd or better in three of five starts during that part of the schedule, including a T-9 at the Shriners Children’s Open and a T-16 at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Known as one of the game’s longer hitters, Woodland has contrastingly thrived on shorter courses where he doesn’t need to hit as many drivers, including Waialae. 

His last three starts here have been 80th-MC-MC, but from 2015 through 2018, he went 3rd-13th-6th-7th on this course. I’ll readily admit that I don’t know if Woodland is prepared – physically or mentally – to win for a fifth time on the PGA Tour, but I like the idea of taking a chance on a major champion with strong course history and solid recent form at a triple-digit price.

Sony Open in Hawaii Top-5 Bets

Conservative: Corey Conners (+300) and Russell Henley (+400)

I tend to group Conners and Henley together based on their inherent similarities. First, they’re each among the uppermost tier of ball-strikers worldwide. That’s the good part. But neither tends to win at the rate he should; Conners has two wins in eight seasons as a PGA Tour member, Henley has four wins in 12 seasons (and only one in the last seven). I’ve likened each of them to a baseball pitcher whose performance routinely outclasses his results, like those with a 9-13 win-loss record, but a 2.83 ERA. 

All of which is to say, I really like their games and believe they can/should win more frequently – and maybe they will, as they’re due for the oxymoronic “positive regression” that so often gets tossed around in the prognostication industry. There is, though, one more way in which they are so similar: They routinely have outright odds which are way too short, considering how infrequently they win. 

This week, Conners is +1600 and Henley is +2000, the second- and fourth-shortest prices on this board, respectively. If either player was 15-20 points higher, I’d take a chance in this market, but at those prices I’d simply rather play the shorter numbers for them to do what they do more often – come close without claiming a trophy.

Aggressive: Max McGreevy (+1600)

I already wrote about McGreevy in my column on players to make “The Leap” this year – and I expect to be writing a lot more about him in weekly previews. Last year on the Korn Ferry Tour, he finished second on the points list, with stats that correlate nicely for Waialae, including 13th in driving accuracy, 16th in greens in regulation and 14th in outing average.

I’ve always liked players who have competed on the PGA Tour in the past, went down the minor leagues, found their games and then return to a place where there’s already a comfort level, not unlike Ben Kohles, who enjoyed some success last season. While many of his KFT peers are prepping for their first season as members of the big show, McGreevy should be ready to post some nice results right away. I’m looking to back him before the oddsmakers realize it.

Sony Open in Hawaii Top-10 Bets

Conservative: Tom Hoge (+450)

Hoge tends to be a streaky player. When he’s got it going, it can be very good – and when he doesn’t, well, it can be the opposite of very good. That notion has been epitomized at the Sony Open, where he owns a solo third-place finish back in 2018 and a T-12 two years later, but also has five MCs in nine career starts. Following a share of eighth place at The Sentry, during which he tied for third in SG: Approach, I’m willing to take a chance on the very good Hoge once again showing up this week.

Aggressive: Denny McCarthy (+550)

Sticking with this week’s theme, I’m going with another Kapalua-to-Waialae crossover here, though unlike most of those mentioned already, McCarthy isn’t trying to keep his heater fresh. In finishing T-46 last week, he was essentially average across the statline, other than putting, where he lost over a stroke per round. 

If you know anything about anything, you know McCarthy is annually one of the best rock-rollers in the world, so I’m hardly worried about those negative putting numbers at Kapalua. In three starts at the Sony, he’s gone from T-48 to T-32 to T-24, a pattern which should put him on track to closing in on the top-10 this time around.

Sony Open in Hawaii Top-20 Bets

Conservative: Kurt Kitayama (+160)

Prior to this week’s odds being released, I had Kitayama’s name jotted down as a potential outright selection. As it turns out, so did the oddsmakers. At 35/1, Kitayama has the second-shortest price of anyone who didn’t play last week, behind only Tom Kim. I have a tough time backing him in that market at a number shorter than the likes of Austin Eckroat, Brian Harman and Cam Davis, but I do want to have a piece of Kitayama at a place where he just missed cashing top-20 tickets last year, as a pair of bookend 70s largely negated his second-round 62.

Aggressive: Takumi Kanaya (+350)

Once the world’s No. 1-ranked amateur for 55 weeks, Kanaya is now 26 years old and still trying to live up to that potential. Despite seven career Japan Tour victories, his success has never translated to bigger tours, as he’s made the cut in just one of 11 major championship starts and is 0-for-4 here at the Sony. Why could things change now? A third-place finish at Q-School last month will give him the opportunities he needs, if not also the confidence that he can compete at the highest level. This one is far from a slam-dunk, but offers nice value on a guy who could finally fulfill some of that potential this season.

Sony Open in Hawaii First-Round Leader Bets

Conservative: Cam Davis (+6000)

I’ll go with a lightning-strikes-twice play here in hopes that Davis can come close to matching last year’s opening-round 62 which gave him the Thursday night lead. The Aussie was my outright longshot last week and while he (like everyone else) didn’t quite have the firepower to match Hideki Matsuyama, a share of 13th place with a couple of 64s in the middle rounds wasn’t a terrible effort. He’s another streaky dude, but I’m hoping he’s only starting heating up. And much like my theory last week, I believe Australians often own an inherent edge at this time of year, especially when the wind starts blowing, as it usually does at Waialae.

Aggressive: Justin Lower (+9000)

Few non-winners helped out their careers during the autumnal portion of last year’s schedule more than Lower, who posted three results of seventh or better. While the masses might remember the immediate success of players like Jordan Spieth or Collin Morikawa, the more common path to success is the one being taken by Lower, who continues to improve with every season. He’s played some of his better golf on breezy, seaside tracks and had an eye-popping dozen opening rounds of 67 or better last year.