Our skilled likes Hideki Matsuyama’s probabilities this week.
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Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, that includes picks from GOLF.com’s skilled prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a daily visitor on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio community dedicated to sports activities and sport betting. You’ll be able to comply with on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you’ll learn his picks under for The Sentry, which will get underway Thursday in Maui. Together with Kannon’s advisable performs, you’ll additionally see information from Chirp Golf, a cellular app that options each Free-To-Play and Each day Fantasy golf contests the place you may win money and prizes with every spherical and match.
Nicely, that was quick. Did everybody benefit from the golf low season — all barely three weeks of it?
I haven’t even completed spending my winnings on Scottie Scheffler on the Hero World Problem, and but right here we’re once more, kicking off the 2025 season on the PGA Tour with The Sentry on the Plantation Course in Kapalua, Maui.
2025 Sentry: How you can watch, TV protection, streaming data, tee instances
It’s at all times such a welcome sight although as we make our approach via a chilly, winter season, feasting our eyes on these emerald-green fairways, clear-blue skies, and Pacific Ocean views featured this week in Northwest Maui. If the Masters is our approach of ushering within the spring season, Kapalua is actually a stunning indicator of one other golf season starting.
The Plantation Course is a large, Coore/Crenshaw designed property, perched excessive atop the hillsides that overlook the resort group of Kapalua and the Pacific Ocean. It’s wall-to-wall Bermudagrass, a novel par 73 and is without doubt one of the longer programs these gamers play all 12 months at almost 7,600 yards. The wind is the first protection and we’ve seen it wreak havoc on these gamers prior to now however when it doesn’t blow, The Sentry shortly turns into a birdie-fest. The forecast this week is looking for prime winds on Thursday however nothing rather more than an ordinary seaside breeze the remainder of the week.
The 2025 Sentry is a Signature Occasion with no 36-hole reduce and the sphere is proscribed to simply 60 gamers.
I’m fortunate sufficient to have performed the Plantation Course roughly half a dozen instances. The fairways are extremely vast, the greens are large, and there are many uneven lies within the fairways because the course options an excessive amount of slope and elevation change. I really feel that Driving Distance is a useful ability set this week however it’s not essential to success, and Driving Accuracy is mainly irrelevant given the width of the fairways. Strokes Gained Strategy is vital because it at all times is however Gap Proximity is a excessive precedence too as one should get the ball near the opening on these large placing surfaces. Quite a lot of method photographs will come from 125 yards out and fewer and quite a few approaches can be struck from 200 yards out or extra.
I additionally checked out Par 5 Scoring because the course has 5 such holes, yet another than a typical setup. I checked out Scrambling, 3-Putt Avoidance, Birdies or Higher Gained, and Strokes Gained: Placing (Bermudagrass).
It’s a star-studded lineup of correlated programs this week and in the event you have a look at the previous winners on all of those programs, there’s a large quantity of crossover success. I used Augusta Nationwide (Masters), Riviera Nation Membership (Genesis Invitational), Monterey Peninsula Nation Membership (AT&T Pebble Seashore), Torrey Pines North Course (Farmers Insurance coverage Open), and the Outdated Course at St. Andrews in Scotland, which not too long ago hosted the 2022 Open Championship — received by Cameron Smith, who additionally received right here at Kapalua that very same 12 months.
I performed the next 4 gamers for an outright win this week and likewise performed every of them for a top-10 end.
Hideki Matsuyama (22-1)
We landed efficiently on Matsuyama again in August on the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, one other course that’s wall-to-wall Bermudagrass. He’s additionally a previous winner on the Sony Open, at all times performed the week after The Sentry on the island of Oahu, and whereas the 2 golf programs are actually nothing like every one other, we do see numerous crossover success between the Sony and Kapalua. Matsuyama can also be a former Masters champion and received the Genesis Invitational at Riveria Nation Membership again in February.
What I additionally particularly like about Matsuyama right here is his capability from 100 yards on in. Over the past 24 rounds, he ranks second on this subject for Scrambling and ranks top-4 in Gap Proximity from 75-125 yards out. Matsuyama completed 58th out of 59 gamers right here final 12 months, however he has additionally completed within the high 4 twice and runner-up as soon as right here in his profession.
Byeong Hun An (35-1)
An was a winner not too long ago on the DP World Tour, successful the Genesis Championship in late October. He contended right here at Kapalua final 12 months, ending fourth. Returning to the mainland, An took sixteenth at Riviera and likewise completed sixteenth final season at The Masters. He’s lengthy off the tee, rating second on this subject for Driving Distance over the past 24 rounds. He’s additionally seventeenth within the subject for Scrambling.
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J.T. Poston (45-1)
Like An, Poston additionally received not too long ago in October, in Las Vegas on the Shriners Youngsters’s Open at TPC Summerlin. Final 12 months, right here at The Sentry, Poston completed one shot again of An, in a tie for fifth place. It’s price noting that he adopted that up with a sixth place end on the Sony Open the next week — the place An, by the best way, completed runner-up. Each of those gamers had nice runs on the islands final 12 months. We’re banking on that persevering with in 2025.
Over the past 24 rounds, Poston ranks within the high 25 on this subject for Birdies or Higher Gained, Scrambling, and Gap Proximity from 75-125 yards out.
Eric Cole (80-1)
Cole is one other participant I actually like at a birdie-fest. In 2024, Cole was fourth on Tour for Whole Birdies. He used that to complete 14th right here final 12 months and adopted that up with a Thirteenth-place end on the Sony Open on Oahu. Cole has two top-16 finishes and a sixth-place end in his final 4 begins on Tour. His numbers throughout the board this week are improbable. Over the past 24 rounds, he ranks fifth on this subject for SG: Strategy, Scrambling, and Gap Proximity from 100-125 yards. He’s third in Gap Proximity from 200 yards-plus, and is No. 1 in SG: Par 5’s.
