Sony Open (Honolulu, Hawaii)

[In_tuition]

The Sony Open will be the first full-field event of the 2010 PGA Tour season. It will be held at the Waialae Country Club on the beautiful island of Oahu.

The course will play a little over 7050 yards.

144 players will tee-up on Thursday, some of those include:

Ernie Els Retief Goosen Dustin Johnson Marc Leishman
Tim Clark Charles Howell III Davis Love III Y.E. Yang
Vijay Singh Zach Johnson Steve Stricker K.J. Choi

Paul Goydos Rickie Foweler Tom Lehman Luke Donald
Jerry Kelly Billy Horschel Justin Leonard Lucas Glover
David Toms Woody Austin Bo Van Pelt John Huston

John Daly Stephen Ames Stewart Cink Chad Campbell
Sean O'Hair Angel Cabrera Boo Weekley Rory Sabbatini
Justin Rose Brad Faxon Robert Allenby Stuart Appleby

Players in blue are past winners here. Ernie Els was a back-to-back winner in 2003 & 2004.

This event started in 1965 and has been played as the Hawaiian Open till Sony took over in 1999.

23 players will play the event for the first time this week, they include recent Q-School graduates Rickie Fowler, Cameron Triangle & Billy Horschel.

Defending champion, Zach Johnson, hardly set Oahu alight in previous attempts before being crowned champion last year, his best record prior to that was T-32, he also failed to make the cut on his first competitive start on the course.

David Toms made his first appearance in the tournament in 1992, in his 8 starts here he has only failed to make the cut once (2nd start). He is a past winner (2006, -19), prior to that victory he has knocked on the door, T-4 (2002) & T-13 (2005).

Since Toms' success in the 2006 event, he tied 13th in his defence of the title and most recent he finished T-2 in last year's tournament.

Charles Howell III has played this event for the past 8 seasons, during that time he has recorded 4 top-10 finishes, his most recent being last year where he finished 4th (three shots behind the winner).

Shigeki Maruyama has played this event 11 years straight. He has 6 top 25 finishes to his name. His best recorded score though is only -10 (only good enough to win 2 Sony Open's since 1971).

Steve Stricker made his first start here in 1994, since then he's made 9 appearance, his best finish coming in 1996 where he came 3rd. In his last 3 attempts here he has finished T-24, T-4 & T-4.

Since it's inception as the Sony Open in 1991, John Huston has returned each year to play, in total he has played this event for 21 years straight.

Perhaps a player to keep a close eye on this week is Rory Sabbatini, he has played second fiddle here twice in (2008 & 2006). A decent finish of T-12 last time round combined with a decent effort in Maui this week he could be threatening the top of the leaderboard come Sunday.

Tom Lehman has 7 top 10 finishes out of 16 visits to the Sony Open.

Past winer Jerry Kelly (2002) has recorded some fine efforts in Oahu in recent years, his past 4 finishes read T-23, 3rd, T-13 & T-13. Another to keep a watchful eye on.

Davis Love III has 5 top ten finishes to his name around this course, but failed to make the cut here last term.

Sean O'Hair has made 4 starts here, his best finish coming last season, T-12, before that he only managed T-50, CUT, T-72.

Retief Goosen has not played this event since 2005, his best finish (of 3) came in 2004 where he T-10.

I will update the thread with more information plus my selections in the coming days.

Please feel free to add your thoughts and selections

[FC Basher]

Welcome to the forum In_tuition,thanks for that very informative post

Sony Open Book Closes 14 Jan 12:00
Each-way 1/4 1-2-3-4-5
Steve Stricker 13.00 Sean O'Hair 19.00
Zach Johnson 19.00 Robert Allenby 26.00
Ernie Els 26.00 Rory Sabbatini 26.00
Retief Goosen 26.00 Matt Kuchar 34.00
Tim Clark 34.00 David Toms 34.00
Justin Leonard 36.00 Lucas Glover 36.00
Dustin Johnson 36.00 Stephen Ames 36.00
Stewart Cink 36.00 Vijay Singh 41.00
Angel Cabrera 41.00 Chad Campbell 46.00
Luke Donald 46.00 Brian Gay 46.00
Pat Perez 46.00 Kevin Na 46.00
Charles Howell 51.00 K.J. Choi 51.00
Rickie Fowler 51.00 Justin Rose 51.00
Stuart Appleby 56.00 Y.E Yang 56.00
Jerry Kelly 61.00 George McNeill 61.00
Nick O'Hern 67.00 Jason Dufner 71.00
John Rollins 71.00 DJ Trahan 76.00
Bryce Molder 81.00 Jonathan Byrd 81.00
Marc Leishman 81.00 Troy Matteson 81.00
Davis Love 81.00 Bo Van Pelt 91.00
Boo Weekley 91.00 Jason Day 91.00
Ben Curtis 91.00 Webb Simpson 91.00
Bill Haas 91.00 Shigeki Maruyama 101.00
Scott Piercy 101.00 Fredrik Jacobson 101.00
Carl Pettersson 101.00 Nathan Green 111.00
Jeff Klauk 111.00 Ryuji Imada 111.00
Mark Wilson 111.00 Tim Petrovic 126.00
Charlie Wi 126.00 Bubba Watson 126.00
Paul Goydos 126.00 Jeff Overton 126.00
Daniel Chopra 126.00 Matt Jones 141.00
Bob Estes 141.00 Cameron Percy 141.00
Woody Austin 141.00 D.A. Points 141.00
Chris Riley 141.00 John Merrick 151.00
Briny Baird 151.00 Tom Lehman 151.00
Harrison Frazar 151.00 Chez Reavie 151.00
Nicholas Thompson 151.00 Tim Wilkinson 151.00
Brian Davis 151.00 Ryan Palmer 176.00
Cameron Beckman 176.00 Scott McCarron 176.00
Michael Letzig 176.00 Jeff Maggert 176.00
Brett Quigley 176.00 Mathias Grönberg 201.00
other players at bigger prices odds @ bet365

[FC Basher]

It might pay to stick with Sabbatini with a tiny investment at the moment,as it might be with Goosen,both played well last week,Sabbatini flying 10 under finish might mean hes on top of hes game,he cant be trusted to put in good back to back performances,as last year showed when he won on the Byron Nelson and then hes basically stank after that.Goosen would be another tentative choice as hes only one once on the US tour,but that was last season which was a big improvement on previous seasons,went to fall away last week,but dragged himself back to finish in the top 6,so there might be more to come.Kevin Na had 9 top ten finshes last season and finished 5th here last season shooting 65,66,66 in the final 3 rounds,question marks are will he be stepping forward this season.

[In_tuition]

Hey FC Basher, thanks mate!

Pretty disappointed with Sabbatini making such a run yesterday! If you see my post above I gave him a special mention, no chance now of getting decent odds on him )-:

I was asked earlier about Goosen and gave this response '3 starts here, first back in 2003 where he T-20 (-7), returning the following year to post his best finish, T-10 (-10), came back the year after (2005) and finished T-56 (+3).

Hasn't played here since. Decided to return to the belly putter for the first few events on his season this term but he hasn't been out of place, he was 2nd in the SBS for putts per greens-in-regulation and 4th in putts per round and T-5 in birdies made.

He returned to the SBS this week after missing out for the past 4 years (previously had a decent record at the course) and it showed by a steady finish of -17 and 3 final rounds in the 60's.

Is that good enough? Perhaps, if you read my preview I said that last years winner Zach Johnson didn't set Oahu alight in previous attempts. Goosen's isn't all that bad plus he made quite a few birdies this week and his putts per round stat could definitely see him near the top of the leaderboard next weekend.'

My first selection is Marc Leishman, here's my take on him:

This was Leishman's first competitive event on the PGA Tour (2009). He finished T-12 and although he produced a great account of himself, perhaps nerves overcame him as his putting was weak(still made 15 birdies).

He recorded 8 top 25 finishes (3 top 10) for the remainder of his year, including a T-2 at the BMW Champhionship - 3rd leg of the Fed-Ex Cup play-off's), albeit 8 shots behind the winner Tiger Woods, but 5 shots clear of Sergio Garcia & Padraig Harrington and the rest of a top-class international field. He was T-10 in putts for this event and carded 17 birdies.This is only 4 months ago.

He didn't perform too well in his next 3 events but for a young man 28 events in your rookie year has to take it's toll.

Given his good start to his PGA career in this event last season, and those 8 top 25 finishes, I'm selecting him as my main bet this week. I don't doubt he has improve more over his off-season and hopefully he can get off to another flying this time round.

Marc Leishman 100/1 (Ladbrokes) €20 win

My only other selection will most likely be Charles Howell III.

Report back soon and good luck with whoever you select.

[beamer]

Great write up's lads.fficeffice" />

Ernie Els 2 pts win @ 30.0

Stricker 3 pts @ 14.5

Difficult to argue EE has great form in this comp; it it is top class, but the problem is it's 5 years ago. When he does come of hibernation at this time of year he does generally do well, slthough I accept we are dealing with a different golfer.

EE quote from last week.

Certainly Waialae Country Club is a golf course that I've played many, many times over the years and with that familiarity comes a fair amount of comfort. It's quite a flat golf course, located right by the ocean just a little way down the road from ffice:smarttags[/IMG]Honolulu. It's also quite a narrow course. Combine that with the ocean breezes and you really have to get your golf ball under control to score well on this golf course. I'm obviously looking forward to it.

ON reflection I was not too disappointed with Stricker last week. He improved with every round and was quoted as saying he played very little golf due to the snow back home.

I thought the market may have over reacted to the Glover collapse, but he may be a player to back at bigger odds in tougher tourny's.

Johnson looks a poor price to me considering his form last week compared to last year.

Good luck

beamer

[In_tuition]

My second main selection this week in the above event is Luke Donald.

Winless on the PGA Tour since 2006, but recaptured his fine form last season following injury by carding 6 top 10 finishes on the PGA Tour including T-2 at Harbour Town in the Verizon Heritage (although 10 shots behind the winner) and T-5 at The Open. T-10 in the BMW Championship (Fed-Ex Cup play-off's) and a few weeks later securing a further 2 top 10 finishes on the European Tour.

He has played the Sony Open 6 out of the last 8 seasons. On his first attempt he T-13, he followed that up the following year with a missed but, but since then has carded 4 top 25 finishes, he best result being in 2007 where he T-2 on -13.

In this event last season he T-3 for putts per round and carded 19 birdies overall, 11 bogeys made sure he taking home the title. In 2007 in only made 6 bogeys (falling short of the winner by 1 single shot).

He finished 4th for putts per round, 3rd for putts between 10'-15', 3rd in approaches from 50-125 yards and 1st in sand saves (78 sand bunkers here) on the PGA Tour in 2009.

I think Donald's form and stats speak for themselves and I fully believe I've selected a little beauty in him this week and I think it's matter of time before we see him crowned a champion again.

Luke Donald 50/1 (boylesports) €25 win

best of luck guys!

[beamer]

Looks like theres a problem with the site. Most of my last thread has vanished and I've got no edit facility. I'll try another shorter version.

Great write up's lads.fficeffice" />

Ernie Els 2 pts win @ 30.0
Stricker 1.5 pts @ 14.5

Whilst Ernie has great course form and decent starting season stats, the stats are skewedby the form of his peak years. Possible I'm backing a player past his sell by date, waiting for the veteran tours in years to come, but this may be just the time to get a win out of him. The change of routine as well as his decent end to last season do give me hope.

Certainly Waialae Country Club is a golf course that I've played many, many times over the years and with that familiarity comes a fair amount of comfort. It's quite a flat golf course, located right by the ocean just a little way down the road from ffice:smarttags" />Honolulu. It's also quite a narrow course. Combine that with the ocean breezes and you really have to get your golf ball under control to score well on this golf course. I'm obviously looking forward to it.

I'm prepared to forgive Stricker for my losses of last week and plunch on him again for three reasons.

Badly timed for me, but he claimed he played little golf in his short off season due to heavy snow around his home.

He improved scorewise in every round last week, possibly indicating he was rusty.

Finally, the fairways there did not punish the wayward and I do think accuracy here will be far more relevant.


I think Glover's price of 50.0 is a little over reaction to his collapse, but I do think he is better over the real tough courses.

Cheers beamer