Sentry Tournament of Champions Picks and Predictions

• Jan. 5, 2021
• By Matt Blunt
• VegasInsider.com

The PGA Tour returns to action this week, as the 2021 schedule starts off a couple of weeks in Hawaii as it always does at the New Year.

This week it's the exclusive Sentry Tournament of Champions where typically only winners from the previous season are invited, but thanks to the chaos of 2020, those rules were relaxed slightly this week (Top 30 from FedEx Cup were invited as well).

It's still just a 42-man, no-cut event this week and it's an easy track where guys had better be prepared to go low if they want to have a shot on Sunday. That is unless the wind picks up like it did at times last year, with defending champion Justin Thomas' -14 winning score (via playoff) was the first time that the winning score was not at least -20 since Zach Johnson won this event in 2014 with a -19 final tally.

The victory by Thomas was a nice hit for me personally, as it's now been two consecutive years of connecting on winners at this short field event here and here.

Hopefully we can make it three years in a row this week, so let's get to it:

Sentry Tournament of Champions Odds, Picks & Predictions

Golf Betting Resources
2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions

• Date: Thursday Jan, 7 - Sunday Jan. 10, 2021
• Venue: Plantation Course
• Location: Kapalua, Hawaii
• Par-Yardage: 73, 7,596 yards
• TV: Golf Channel, NBC
• Vegas Expert Picks
• Betting Odds

Right away the yardage on the scorecard has to jump out to bettors at nearly 7,600 yards, but it rarely plays that long unless the wind kicks up, and even still the extremely wide fairways and slow green speeds make it an ideal event for guys to get back into the “swing of things” after the holiday break.

The greens are very large as well, so it's going to be a lot of fairways and greens for everyone in this field, and the guys that can get the putter hot and/or take full advantage of the easy scoring holes when they come up are going to be the ones that have a shot at the end.

Therefore, it's the overall tee-to-green game that's at least worthwhile in looking at statistically here, but with the disjointed PGA schedule we've had the past few months, it does have sort of a feel of starting from scratch for these guys in the New Year.

Sentry Tournament of Champions
Betting Odds

Given that it's usually only winners from the last PGA season playing here, the field is always loaded with the game's best talent, and when the list of the past six winners here goes Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, and Patrick Reed, it really has become a who's who event where staying among the top of the odds board is a strong way to go.

Reed at +2000 and Schauffele connecting at +2200 were the two biggest odds of that winning group, so expect a few of the big names at the top to be right there come Sunday afternoon.

Sentry Tournament of Champions Contenders

• Dustin Johnson: +650
• Justin Thomas: +750
• Jon Rahm: +800
• Bryson DeChambeau: +1100
• Xander Schauffele: +1100
• Patrick Reed: +1600
• More Golfers
• (Odds Subject to Change)

Given the 2020 season Dustin Johnson had, he deserves to enter as the favorite (+650) this week, as Justin Thomas (+750) and Jon Rahm (+800) are narrowly trailing him on the betting board.

Beyond that, there are no more +2200 prices for Schauffele here as he comes in at +1000, while Bryson DeChambeau (+1150), Patrick Reed (+1600), Patrick Cantlay (+1800) and Webb Simpson (+1800) round out the rest of the names below that +2000 threshold.

History suggests you don't want to go too much further beyond those prices for this tournament, so let's start with one of those names for the first position of the week.

Golfers to Watch - Sentry Tournament of Champions
Top Picks and Predictions

Contender to Back
Sentry Tournament of Champions

Patrick Cantlay +1800

When overall ball striking in the tee-to-green game is relatively important, Cantlay is a name I'm always going to be interested in to a degree. But what puts him over the top this week as a play is that one of his biggest overall weaknesses – driving accuracy – is basically negated with the width of these fairways, so hopefully Cantlay steps up and plays the fairway to green strategy for all 15 holes on the course it's applicable for.

Cantlay's 2020 season saw him finish 13th in scoring average (69.764) despite being 114th in driving accuracy (59.35%). He still managed to find the green in regulation 68% of the time with many poor drives, and the comfort level at this track is definitely there now after a 4th place finish a year ago in the second time he's ever teed it up at this event.

Cantlay is also one of those names on Tour that you expect to take that next step and win either more frequently and/or in deeper fields, and this is a great opportunity for him to notch one of those career-building victories.

Tough 2nd and 3rd round scoring (71, 73 on Friday/Saturday) relative to the field kept him a few shots out of that playoff a year ago, and if he can stay on pace with the upper echelon of this field for the entire four days this year, at +1800, I've got no problem backing him to take this thing down.

Mid-Range Value
Sentry Tournament of Champions

Collin Morikawa +2500

Morikawa already grabbed that huge win last year at the PGA Championship, as this young talent on Tour has such a bright present and future ahead of him on the golf course. His maiden voyage at Kapalua finished with a T7 last year and it came without one single round in the 60's.

Tougher conditions played a part in that, but this guy has only gotten better since that effort, and after winning a Major last year, no amount of big name competitors in any field are going to really be that much of a hindrance in terms of looking to back Morikawa when it seems like the right fit.

He's got all the necessary skills to succeed at a place like Kapalua, and with his biggest statistical weaknesses generally being the around-the-green game (not too concerning with the huge size of these greens) and putting (slightly concerning, especially on very long lag putts) are things that really are worth the risk in taking on with him this week.

Putting numbers are always fickle for every golfer, and if he keeps hitting nearly 70% of the greens in regulation like he did in 2020, as long as the proximity to the hole is good – he finished T29th on Tour in proximity to the hole in 2020 – any lag putting concerns become very minimal.

Finally, Morikawa has the feel to me that Xander did in this tournament back in 2019. Schauffele was coming off a WGC-HSBC win in October of 2018 before taking down this tournament with a final round 62 in January of 2019 to really cement his status as one of the great young talents on Tour.

Morikawa's status in that regard has already seen the cement poured after that PGA Championship win, but a win here would help that cement dry a lot quicker. He's priced in a similar range as Schauffele was too that year.

Long Shot Pick
Sentry Tournament of Champions

Scottie Scheffler +3500

Far from the price a true “longshot” will get in these pieces as we go through the season, but Scheffler is a guy that's another great young talent that's been knocking on the door of notching that first PGA Tour victory for some time now.

He had seven Top-10 finishes in 2020 (twice finishing 3rd), and three of those Top 10 finishes came in his last four starts to end the 2020 season. There were T4's at the PGA Championship and Northern Trust (1st playoff event), followed by a T20 at the BMW Championship before a 5th place finish at the Tour Championship.

The latter was a short field, no-cut event loaded with big names just like this one, and I think the experience he took from that Tour Championship finish, thanks to shooting 66, 66, 65 the final three days, is going to serve him very well this week in what's a nearly identical format.

Scheffler's got the same issues in his game as Morikawa tends to have with stuff around and on the greens tripping him up at times, but when he finished the 2020 season 10th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-tee, 33rd in Strokes Gained: Approach, 10th in Strokes Gained: tee-to-green, and 15th in Strokes Gained total, a guy with those numbers priced at +3500 is worth some sort of investment.

72 Hole Matchup to Take
Sentry Tournament of Champions

Collin Morikawa (+105) over Victor Hovland

Don't get me wrong, I'm a guy that loves backing Hovland frequently, but in a battle of two young studs here, quite frankly I don't get this price and have got to take the plus money with Morikawa.

Hovland's strength of striping fairways every round is mostly negated by how wide the short grass is at Kapalua, and after finishing 28th in proximity to the hole in the approach game in 2020 – one spot ahead of Morikawa by a single inch (33'8” feet for Hovland, 33'9” feet for Morikawa) – a -110 price on each side like the majority of the matchups this week seem to be priced at would have made a lot more sense to me.

These two guys are so similar that it's ultimately a price play more than anything here, especially with it being Hovland's first competitive rounds at this venue. Generally speaking here that's not the best omen for backing a guy, at least in the outright markets, and hopefully that notion holds true in this matchup prop as well.

Top 20 Finish after Round 1
Sentry Tournament of Champions

Abraham Ancer -120
Andrew Landry +160

Avoiding the longer shots in the outright market may be the general way to go in this event, but that doesn't mean that a handful of them can't get hot for a round or two, and at these prices for these two guys further down the board, I'll take a shot that they can be apart of the top half of the leaderboard after the opening round.

Last year we saw longer odds guys such as Joaquin Niemann (1st round leader and +5000 for tournament), Tyler Duncan (+20000), JT Poston (+7000), Lanto Griffin (+15000), and Nate Lashley (+15000), all started off well with Top 20 finishes in the opening round.

It's just such a huge cushion for one round of performance that it's easy to get a handful of these “lesser” players among the top group after a single day.

Ancer and Landry got into this field via the Top 30 FedEx Cup stipulation this season, and oddly enough, I do feel that the guys in that group have much more motivation to prove they belong with the big boys on Tour then the guys that won a season ago and may treat this trip to Hawaii with more of a vacation feel, especially with all the lack of travel really going on in the world today.

Ancer and Landry are playing here for the first time as well, something every player but on that list above from last year's Top 20 finishes were all a part of as well. At these prices, I'm confident these two guys follow suit in 2021.

How to Bet on Golf

Golf betting has gained much more exposure and interest in the past few years, and with plenty of plus-money prices littered throughout the various forms of golf wagers, the chance for bigger scores is part of the reason behind that increased popularity.

2021 Golf Betting Schedule

Sportsbooks ensure that there are no shortage of wagering options on golf tournaments every week, and it isn't all about picking the winner. Grabbing the outright winner of a golf tournament is the best way to get that 'big score' but it's also the hardest wager to cash. After all, a typical professional golf tournament has a field of 140+ different players to consider.

Understanding Golf Odds and Bets

Most golf odds are listed in the fractional format – 10/1 on Dustin Johnson for example – and in that particular case you would multiply the amount bet by that first number to project your winnings. So a $100 bet on DJ to win that particular event would win you $1000.

If you are more comfortable with the American version of odds listings that you typically see across the other major North American sports – ie +1000 – these numbers are easily convertible. Online and app based books may already have that option built in, but the easiest way to do it yourself is to add two zeros to the first number in the fraction. So a 10/1 price on DJ converts to +1000 in that format.