A new calendar year begins on the PGA Tour with the Sentry Tournament of Champions on the picturesque Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort. What serves as part vacation, part golf tournament usually only features the winners of tournaments during the previous year, but with 10 tournaments canceled due to COVID-19, the field has expanded.
There are 30 players that qualified for the TOUR Championship and they are all on hand, along with the tournament winners from last year. In other words, this is a real who’s who type of field for golf and that’s why players like Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Reed, and Jordan Spieth are listed among the last six winners.
The expanded field includes 45 players, but Rory McIlroy, Jim Herman, and Tyrrell Hatton will not be on hand. That means we have 42 golfers to handicap for the first event of 2021.
We’ll use the odds from MyBookie Sportsbook to evaluate the prices for the field and put together a tournament preview.
Two-time winner Dustin Johnson is the +550 favorite over two-time winner Justin Thomas at +600. Jon Rahm and Bryson Dechambeau are also in single digits. With a bevy of elite players in this field, you’re not really getting a whole lot of bargains.
GOLF BETTING ODDS FOR THE 2021 SENTRY TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS
DUSTIN JOHNSON | +550 |
JUSTIN THOMAS | +600 |
JON RAHM | +750 |
BRYSON DECHAMBEAU | +900 |
XANDER SCHAUFFELE | +1000 |
PATRICK REED | +1600 |
PATRICK CANTLAY | +1600 |
HIDEKI MATSUYAMA | +1600 |
WEBB SIMPSON | +1800 |
VIKTOR HOVLAND | +2000 |
TONY FINAU | +2500 |
DANIEL BERGER | +2500 |
COLLIN MORIKAWA | +2500 |
HARRIS ENGLISH | +2800 |
SUNGJAE IM | +3300 |
JOAQUIN NIEMANN | +3500 |
CAMERON SMITH | +3500 |
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER | +4000 |
ADAM SCOTT | +4000 |
ABRAHAM ANCER | +4500 |
CAMERON CHAMP | +4500 |
KEVIN KISNER | +6000 |
SERGIO GARCIA | +6600 |
MARC LEISHMAN | +6600 |
BILLY HORSCHEL | +6600 |
JASON KOKRAK | +7000 |
CARLOS ORTIZ | +8000 |
RYAN PALMER | +8000 |
SEBASTIAN MUNOZ | +10000 |
BRENDON TODD | +10000 |
KEVIN NA | +10000 |
LANTO GRIFFIN | +11000 |
MACKENZIE HUGHES | +11000 |
STEWART CINK | +12500 |
MARTIN LAIRD | +16000 |
MICHAEL THOMPSON | +20000 |
ROBERT STREB | +20000 |
ANDREW LANDRY | +22500 |
HUDSON SWAFFORD | +25000 |
BRIAN GAY | +25000 |
RICHY WERENSKI | +25000 |
NICK TAYLOR | +40000 |
The Field
There are 42 players in the field and they have all qualified for a reason. They either won tournaments last year or qualified for the TOUR Championship as one of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Some did both. There are nine new players at this event that have never played this course before. They are Abraham Ancer, Sergio Garcia, Viktor Hovland, Mackenzie Hughes, Sungjae Im, Jason Kokrak, Carlos Ortiz, Scottie Scheffler, and Richy Werenski. We’ve got lots of proven winners on a course for scoring, so it seems like taking any long shot prices is hard to do.Course Profile
This course is in paradise. It is at Kapalua Resort in Maui, which is on the extreme northwest side of the island. It goes without saying that wind can be a factor here. The course played much, much tougher last year when Thomas won at 14-under. The previous winning score had been at least 21-under each of the previous five years and Jordan Spieth even won at 30-under by eight shots in 2016. This is a par 73 that comes in about 7,600 yards, which is what makes scoring so easy. It is a course where you can really grip it and rip it because the fairways are wide and erratic drives are not really penal. There are some really long par 4s, but they are going to be reachable in two for a lot of these world-class players. Some holes will play longer because of the wind. The finishing hole on Sunday is a par 5 that comes in at nearly 680 yards. The course was renovated quite significantly in 2019 and that could have played a role in Thomas’s low winning score last year.CLAIM YOUR WELCOME BONUS FROM MYBOOKIE SPORTSBOOK