Please submit your teams of 5 before the 1st Tee Shot on Thursday, entry list, odds and preview below. Remember, first pick is your captain (double points) and 2 players must be 50/1 or greater.
Good luck and thank you for playing!
The Sony Open in Hawaii will kick off the 2021 Waggle Duff season. Professional golf on the whole will continue to look strange on our TV (at least we won’t have the made-up crowd noises like we see on the Darts) as the players get to grips with playing behind closed(ish) doors.
These are the events where the cold reality of COVID take effect. The Sony OPEN is Hawaii’s biggest charity golf fundraiser, and by having a reduced attendance (No pro-am, spectators and reduced volunteers) the numbers they would like to raise will not be at the same levels.
What we need is the pros to put on a show like last year, where we saw some real drama down the stretch.
Cameron Smith got up and down from the bunker on 18, for a clutch birdie and ensure a play-off with his final day playing partner, Brandan Steele. A play-off Smith won despite a huge block of the tee. He had to keep his 2nd shot low but he managed to pitch and run a beautiful shot from under the tree to 8 feet.
This kind of drama is what Hawaii and Golf Fans will need, especially as the sport is riding the crest of a wave of popularity, some big names are travelling to the island, including Collin Morikawa, Sergio Garcia, Pat Reed, oh and Vijay Singh!
PLAYERS & ODDS
| Webb Simpson | 11/1 |
| Collin Morikawa | 14/1 |
| Harris English | 14/1 |
| Patrick Reed | 14/1 |
| Daniel Berger | 16/1 |
| Joaquin Niemann | 20/1 |
| Sung-Jae Im | 20/1 |
| Abraham Ancer | 22/1 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | 25/1 |
| Kevin Kisner | 25/1 |
| Ryan Palmer | 25/1 |
| Cameron Smith | 28/1 |
| Russell Henley | 30/1 |
| Billy Horschel | 33/1 |
| Matt Kuchar | 33/1 |
| Zach Johnson | 33/1 |
| Adam Scott | 35/1 |
| Sergio Garcia | 35/1 |
| Brendon Todd | 40/1 |
| Emiliano Grillo | 40/1 |
| Charles Howell | 45/1 |
| Lanto Griffin | 45/1 |
| Brian Harman | 50/1 |
| Erik Van Rooyen | 50/1 |
| Sebastian Munoz | 50/1 |
| Jason Kokrak | 60/1 |
| Russell Knox | 60/1 |
| Talor Gooch | 60/1 |
| Marc Leishman | 66/1 |
| Patton Kizzire | 66/1 |
| Tom Hoge | 66/1 |
| Carlos Ortiz | 70/1 |
| Chez Reavie | 70/1 |
| Scott Piercy | 70/1 |
| J.T Poston | 80/1 |
| Keegan Bradley | 80/1 |
| Kevin Na | 80/1 |
| Matthew NeSmith | 80/1 |
| Rory Sabbatini | 80/1 |
| Si Woo Kim | 80/1 |
| Branden Grace | 100/1 |
| Brandt Snedeker | 100/1 |
| Cameron Davis | 100/1 |
| James Hahn | 100/1 |
| Kyle Stanley | 100/1 |
| Sepp Straka | 100/1 |
| Cheng-Tsung Pan | 110/1 |
| Charley Hoffman | 125/1 |
| Chris Kirk | 125/1 |
| Henrik Norlander | 125/1 |
| Jim Furyk | 125/1 |
| Mackenzie Hughes | 125/1 |
| Matt Jones | 125/1 |
| Stewart Cink | 125/1 |
| Takumi Kanaya | 125/1 |
| Brendan Steele | 150/1 |
| Brian Stuard | 150/1 |
| Jhonattan Vegas | 150/1 |
| Michael Thompson | 150/1 |
| Peter Malnati | 150/1 |
| Austin Cook | 175/1 |
| Bo Hoag | 175/1 |
| Doug Ghim | 175/1 |
| Nick Taylor | 175/1 |
| Pat Perez | 175/1 |
| Richy Werenski | 175/1 |
| Adam Schenk | 200/1 |
| Andrew Landry | 200/1 |
| Brian Gay | 200/1 |
| Brice Garnett | 200/1 |
| Danny Lee | 200/1 |
| Harry Higgs | 200/1 |
| Hudson Swafford | 200/1 |
| Mark Hubbard | 200/1 |
| Troy Merritt | 200/1 |
| Vaughn Taylor | 200/1 |
| XinJun Zhang | 200/1 |
| Andrew Putnam | 250/1 |
| Anirban Lahiri | 250/1 |
| Keith Mitchell | 250/1 |
| Kramer Hickok | 250/1 |
| Luke List | 250/1 |
| Nate Lashley | 250/1 |
| Robert Streb | 250/1 |
| Roger Sloan | 250/1 |
| Ryo Ishikawa | 250/1 |
| Sunghoon Kang | 250/1 |
| William Gordon | 250/1 |
| Aaron Baddeley | 300/1 |
| Bronson Burgoon | 300/1 |
| Chris Baker | 300/1 |
| Hank Lebioda | 300/1 |
| J.J Spaun | 300/1 |
| Jamie Lovemark | 300/1 |
| Jim Herman | 300/1 |
| Jimmy Walker | 300/1 |
| Kyoung-Hoon Lee | 300/1 |
| Mark Anderson | 300/1 |
| Rob Oppenheim | 300/1 |
| Ryan Armour | 300/1 |
| Ted Potter | 300/1 |
| Tyler McCumber | 300/1 |
| Chase Seiffert | 400/1 |
| David Hearn | 400/1 |
| Fabian Gomez | 400/1 |
| Joseph Bramlett | 400/1 |
| Nick Watney | 400/1 |
| Robby Shelton | 400/1 |
| Ryosuke Kinoshita | 400/1 |
| Sam Ryder | 400/1 |
| Satoshi Kodaira | 400/1 |
| Scott Brown | 400/1 |
| Tim Wilkinson | 400/1 |
| Wesley Bryan | 400/1 |
| Ben Taylor | 500/1 |
| Brandon Hagy | 500/1 |
| D.J. Trahan | 500/1 |
| Davis Love | 500/1 |
| Grayson Murray | 500/1 |
| Jerry Kelly | 500/1 |
| Jinichiro Kozuma | 500/1 |
| Kevin Tway | 500/1 |
| Michael Gligic | 500/1 |
| Rhein Gibson | 500/1 |
| William McGirt | 500/1 |
| Y.E. Yang | 500/1 |
| Hunter Mahan | 750/1 |
| K.J Choi | 750/1 |
| Matt Every | 750/1 |
| Nelson Ledesma | 750/1 |
| Rafael Campos | 750/1 |
| Bo Van Pelt | 1000/1 |
| Michael Kim | 1000/1 |
| Mike Weir | 1000/1 |
| Parker McLachlin | 1000/1 |
| Shane Bertsch | 1000/1 |
| Vijay Singh | 1000/1 |
| Martin Trainer | 1500/1 |
| Eric Dugas | 2000/1 |
| Evan Kawai | 2000/1 |
THE COURSE
Waialae Country Club is a historic 7044 yards which has been hosting the Professional Golf Open in Hawaii since 1965. As we have seen at the ToC last week, the ball is running, and I am expecting wedge play to be a key factor to success and consequently another -20 + winning score. This has been common over recent years, albeit from last year which was won at -11.
One defence is that Waialae only has 2 par 5’s which must be taken advantages of, including the Par 5 9th. Albeit this is a short par 5 it has out of bounds both sides, so if players try to step on it and go array, this can lead to drop shots.
The palm tree lined course is flat and by the seaside, so another traditional defence for the course is the winds that blow across the pacific. However, it does not look like this will be the case this week… Happy birdie hunting boys.
RECENT WINNERS
Only 5 players have won the Sony OPEN multiple times, this includes Hubert Green, Corey Pavin, Lanny Wadkins, Ernie Els & Jimmy Walker, who won in both 2014 & 2015.
2020 – Cameron Smith
2019 – Matt Kuchar
2018 – Patton Kizzire
2017 – Justin Thomas
2016 – Fabian Gomz
Good luck to everyone joining us for Waggle Duff this season and of course this week! Please submit your 5 picks to @waggleduff on twitter before the first t-shot is played. Full rules can be found here.
Have a good week
Matt Tizzard