By: @Ryan_Humphries on Twitter & LineStar Chat

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Tournament & Field 🏆

Hideki Matsuyama kicked off the 2025 PGA season with a record-setting bang, staving off Collin Morikawa by firing an eye-popping 35-under winning score at last week’s Sentry tournament!

The PGA Tour will now island hop from Maui to Honolulu as golfers get set to tee it up for the Sony Open in Hawaii which will be held at the Waialae Country Club. This often feels like the event that really gets the wheels rolling on the new PGA season. Unlike last week’s Sentry, which featured a smaller field and no cut, the Sony Open will be a full-field tournament with 144 players on site. The traditional cut rule is also back in place – so the top 65 players (including ties) on the leaderboard after 36 holes will move on to play the weekend. The field for the Sony Open may not be as concentrated talent-wise as last week, however, 47 of the world’s top 100 golfers are still throwing their hats into the ring this week so there are still plenty of recognizable names mixed in with some lesser-known rising PGA talent. If you are new to PGA DFS or if you’re looking to shake off some rust, these sorts of full-field early-season events are very important to follow along with. It should be a great week of golf so let’s get into it!

The Course Preview ⛳

Waialae Country Club

Par 70 | 7,044 Yards

Greens: Bermudagrass

2024 Winner: Grayson Murray (-17) | RIP :(

First Tee: Thursday, January 8^th at 12:10 pm ET

Waialae Country Club is a Par 70 set-up that extends just over 7,000 yards. This is one of the most established venues on the PGA Tour. Waialae CC has hosted this event every year since 1965. Given its PGA Tour history which stretches back six decades, Waialae CC is one of the more traditional courses on the entire circuit. This track features narrow fairways which can be some of the toughest to hit on TOUR. Average fairway accuracy here is often around 55% most years. The rough isn’t extremely penalizing to play out of, so we will typically see golfers accomplish a higher-than-average green in regulation percentage (69.1% GIR% last year) even if they’re routinely missing fairways. With several doglegged holes and tighter optimal landing zones on the fairways, this course is generally more about strategic ball placement and shot shaping with sharp iron play and a strong short game – not so much about pure power and prowess off the tee. The average driving distance in this tournament last season was 291.6 yards. On approach shots, golfers will be targeting above-average-sized Bermudagrass greens that do not have very much slope or undulation.

The wind is the primary course defense here but as long as those winds are manageable, we’ll see plenty of birdies fall throughout this tournament.. more on that in the weather section below. Since this is a Par 70, there are only two Par 5s on the course. However, those two holes are extremely easy and are reachable in two shots by essentially the entire field, so we’ll likely see quite a few eagles drop in this week as well. In good conditions, a winning score can be expected to surpass the 20-under threshold as has been the case in six of the last ten years. This should be a great week filled with some primetime golf and excellent views to admire on TV. Best of luck!

Weather & Tee Times ⛅

Click the image above to view the most up-to-date forecasts.

⚖️Weather Verdict: Winds are mainly going to be an issue on the weekend, but they won’t exactly provide cakewalk conditions over the first two rounds either. I believe we can give a small advantage to the PM/AM wave, since they’ll mostly avoid the worst of the Friday winds. That said, every golfer is going to contend with windy conditions regardless of their tee time so weather should not play a major factor in DFS decision making this week.

Sony Open in Hawaii Tee Times

Key Stats to Consider 📊

1. Strokes Gained: Approach | 25%

2. Par 4 Average | 20%

3. Birdie or Better Percentage | 20%

4. Short Iron Accuracy (Proximity 100-175 Yards) | 15%

5. Strokes Gained: Around the Green | 10%

6. Strokes Gained: Putting | 5%

7. Good Drive Percentage | 5%

PGA Tour Stats Page

Sony Open DFS Model Standouts 🏅

Below are the top 25 ranked golfers in both my overall model and my key stats model. Below that are the top 25 leaders in average finishing position over the last five and last ten starts. The players ranked on these lists do not necessarily mean they are the top golfers I’m targeting for this week's event, but many of these guys should no doubt be favorable DFS options.

Overall Model Rank: A golfer’s ranking (within the current field) in my personal DFS model, which weighs all of the key stats listed above in this newsletter, as well as factors like course history, recent form, recent average fantasy scoring results, and odds to win.

Key Stat Rank: Provides a golfer’s overall rank (within the current field) in my "key stats only" model, which considers only the key stats listed in the section above with the specified percentage weights allocated towards each statistic.

Sony Open DFS Cheat Sheet📑

Click the Cheat Sheet above for the higher-quality direct image link

Alternative Cheat Sheet Direct Image Link

Cheat Sheet QR Code:

That will do it for our PGA preview! Best of luck this week and, once again, feel free to hit me up in the LineStar chat or on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries with any questions.