TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS: The most unusual year that anyone can remember has officially been put to rest, and the PGA Tour begins 2021 the way we all wish we could start our year: at a luxury resort on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
Not all Tour players made the trip, of course, as this is a select event comprised only of those who won a tournament the previous year. At least, that’s traditionally the makeup of the field– this year, due to the COVID situation, all players who were eligible for the 2020 Tournament of Champions have been granted an exemption, so we have 42 guys set to tee it up this week, including 8 of the world’s top 10. Not a bad way to kick off 2021, eh?
The course, Kapalua resort’s Plantation Course, has hosted this event for the past 22 years, so it’s familiar ground for most of the field. A Crenshaw/Coore design, it features relatively tight fairways and large, segmented, undulating greens that can be a real challenge if you’re not putting the ball in the right spot. That means iron play is at a premium this week, as is par-5 scoring– the four par-5s can and must be taken advantage of. The course is not particularly challenging from tee to green, and it took anywhere from 21-under to 30-under to win this tournament from 2015-2019. Last year, however, the wind howled, reaching 30-35mph at times, so Plantation played to its maximum difficulty, with 14-under reaching a playoff that was eventually won by Justin Thomas. But with milder conditions expected this week, a birdie-fest should be in the offing.
Thomas returns to defend and is can currently be backed at 8.8 at BETDAQ– only Dustin Johnson (7.8) is shorter. It’s hard to argue with a bet on either one of those two, considering their recent form and the fact that each has won this tournament twice, but in my opinion the maximum value on the board this week lies in the 20/1-40/1 range… there are several intriguing options around that price point. With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Hideki Matsuyama (22.0)- Though he hasn’t won in awhile, Matsuyama has quietly returned to top form recently, finishing 28th or better in 5 of his last 6 events, including a runner-up showing in Houston just two starts ago. And now he comes to a place where he’s literally never played a bad round: Kapalua’s Plantation Course. In four career appearances at this tournament, Matsuyama has not finished worse than 4th, and he was runner-up in 2017. His precision ball-striking is ideally suited for Plantation’s tight fairways and segmented greens, and he’s been rolling the rock well for the past couple of months, so he should be well-suited to contend. He’s a terrific value at better than 20/1.
Viktor Hovland (29.0)- Unlike most in the field, Hovland has never played the Plantation Course in competition, so there’s an element of unpredictability with him this week. That being said, given his ball-striking ability– he’s the consummate fairways-and-greens master– he seems to be ideally suited for this event, and he should be full of confidence after winning in Mayakoba last time out, when he closed with rounds of 63-65. It marked Hovland’s fourth top-15 finish in his past five starts, so the excellent play has been a pattern, not just a one-week thing. And we’ve seen him succeed in the biggest events over the last couple of years, so we know he won’t be afraid of the moment should he find himself head-to-head with someone like Johnson or Thomas on Sunday. Given his form, and the fact that he only has to beat 41 other guys this week, Hovland is an absolute bargain at nearly 30/1.
Joaquin Niemann (54.0)- I’m going with the trifecta of elite ball-strikers this week by backing Niemann at what I think is a very fair price. His battle with COVID kept him out of the Masters, which is a shame because he had been playing extremely well in the weeks prior, logging four consecutive top-25s, including a T6 at the CJ Cup. He returned to action at the RSM Classic and has seen his results steadily improve in his last three starts, T44-T23-T12. And he knows his way around the Plantation Course after playing well on debut last year, shooting 10-under in howling winds to finish 5th. Niemann’s putter will have to cooperate, but he’s been a good trajectory these past couple of months and we know he can dial it in with the irons at an elite level. At better than 50/1, you could do a lot worse.
