Scouting the Routing: A Course Preview for the 2025 Sentry Tournament of Champions

2025 is finally here, and with it comes an abundance of dates to circle on our golfing calendars. From the Ryder Cup's return to U.S. soil to three historic Major Championship venues and a brand new rotation of “Signature Events,” which will continue to feature the best and brightest names the PGA Tour has to offer, there is plenty to look forward to as a golf fan (and bettor).

The first such headline event comes from the island of Maui. In its recent history, the Tournament of Champions has gained a certain reputation for the dramatic, as the last six tournaments in Kapalua have featured two sudden-death playoffs, a scoring duel of historic proportions, no winning margin greater than two shots, and Sunday comebacks of five and seven shots.

This year's rendition promises to give us a similarly star-studded showdown, as 22 of the OWGR’s top-3o will be kicking off their 2024 campaigns on the stunning coastlines of Kapalua. Before we get into the illustrious odds board on tap for golf bettors on Monday morning, this piece will serve to set you up to make those crucial decisions before the market shifts later in the week. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report for Kapalua’s Plantation Course and the 2025 Tournament of Champions!  

The Golf Course

The Plantation Course at Kapalua - Par 73; 7,596 yards

Past Champions

• 2024 - Chris Kirk (-29) over Sahith Theegala
• 2023 - Jon Rahm (-27) over Collin Morikawa
• 2022 - Cameron Smith (-34) over Jon Rahm
• 2021 - Harris English (-25) over Joaquin Niemann (playoff)
• 2020 - Justin Thomas (-14) over Patrick Reed/Xander Schauffele (playoff)
• 2019 - Xander Schauffele (-23) over Gary Woodland

Kapalua by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):

• Average Fairway Width - 49.0 yards; Third widest on the PGA Tour
• Driving Accuracy - 70.6%; Second highest on Tour
• Average Driving Distance - 311.6 yards; Highest on Tour
• Missed Fairway Penalty - 0.36; 13th highest on Tour
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: +0.087; second easiest on Tour

As you can tell from the numbers above, Kapalua is about as stress-free of a driving venue as you’ll ever see in professional golf.

Over the last three seasons, only St. Andrews, Augusta National, and Black Desert have offered players more generous landing areas off the tee, and the downhill nature of many tee shots (One, seven, 17, and 18 in particular) make Kapalua’s routing much less daunting than the 7,600 yards on the scorecard would suggest.

There is trouble to be found around Kapalua if players do happen to miss these expansive fairways, as the Plantation Course ranks in the top half on tour in both Missed Fairway Penalty and Penalty Fraction (the percentage of missed fairways that result in a penalty stroke).

However, it should be noted that you’ll have to be exceptionally wild off the tee to find the more punitive portions of the golf course, as Kapalua’s rough penalty of just 0.14 ranks as the second-lowest mark on the schedule. 

Between the aforementioned width of the fairways and a buffer zone of benign rough providing a barrier for squirrely tee shots, only the exceptionally inaccurate will find themselves facing the penalties on offer around this layout. As last year’s average mark of 311 yards will tell you, players will have no reservations about swinging away with their drivers off of almost every tee box.

When it comes to assessing the optimal driving profile around Kapalua, I’d prefer to take a player who can fully utilize the forgiveness provided by these 50-yard wide fairways.

There has been a strong correlation between driving distance and success here at Kapalua, as over the last two years, nobody has managed to register a top-5 driving performance around Kapalua while ranking below field average in distance -- and all but one of those ten parlayed their elite driving display into a top 15 finish that week. 

Kapalua by the Numbers (Approach):

• Green in Regulation Rate - 76.4%; second highest on the PGA Tour
• Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: +0.016; 11th easiest on Tour
• Key Proximity Ranges:
  • <125 yards (accounted for 30.6% of approach shots last year)
  • 200+ yards (29.0%)
  • 150-175 yards (17.5%)

Approach play routinely ranks as one of the most crucial facets in projecting the outcome of any golf tournament. Still, with the sheer volume of second shots we expect to see from the fairway (plus a projected winning score well into the 20s), iron play will be my key differentiating factor in determining which players truly have the upside to take this title down. 

In fact, throughout this event’s history, a whopping 39% of strokes gained by top-5 finishers have been on approach. With players forced to keep the pedal down for all four days, metrics like Birdie Chances Created become much more important, as a winning score above 20 under is much more difficult to attain on a diet of putts exclusively outside of 15-20 feet. 

Unlike many of the wedge-fests we saw in the Swing Season, Kapalua does feature quite a bit of variety in terms of the approach yardages we project to see from players throughout their rounds. The three most prevalent historical ranges come from inside 125, outside of 200, and from 150-175, so players will have to utilize a multitude of different shots and clubs to create birdie opportunities. 

This medley of proximity ranges leads me more in the direction of general approach metrics like SG: APP and Birdie Chances Created, but I will be building a separate weighted proximity model given the sheer importance of identifying the field’s best iron players. I’d go as far as to say if a player isn’t rating out as an elite option using either of those two methods, he has no place on my outright betting card.

Kapalua by the Numbers (Around the Greens):

• Scrambling Percentage - 57.3% 
• Sand Save Difficulty - +0.011; 15th most difficult on Tour
• SG: Around the Green Difficulty: +0.011; 15th easiest on Tour

Of the three tee-to-green metrics, the greenside surrounds at Kapalua have provided the greatest historic challenge to player scoring. The Scrambling Percentage here sits slightly below the PGA Tour average (57.3 vs 58.7%), and last year, only 14 courses on the schedule made it harder for players to gain strokes around the greens.

However, when the best ball-strikers in the field are projected for a Green in Regulation rate over 80%, it severely limits the opportunities those with elite short games will have to accentuate their superior ability.

I’d expect much of a player’s short-game prowess to be tested in getting up and down for birdie on one of Kapalua’s four Par 5s, so I’ll be using Par 5 scoring as a bit of a placeholder for the traditional short-game metrics. 

As testing as Kapalua’s greenside surrounds may be, ball striking will inevitably win the day in a tournament where winning scores may approach 30 under par. In my overall modeling, I’ll have a far below-average weight on SG: Around the Greens, Sand Saves, and Bogey Avoidance.

Kapalua by the Numbers (Putting):

• Average Green Size - 8,722 square feet 
• Agronomy - TifEagle Bermudagrass
• Stimpmeter - 10.5/11
• 3-Putt Percentage: 4.1%
• Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: -0.006; 10th most difficult on Tour

As we’ve grown to expect in recent months on the PGA Tour, the eye-popping scores we project at Kapalua this week will place as high an emphasis on putting acumen as we could see all year.

Only one of the last five ToC Champions has managed to capture this title whilst gaining less than five strokes to the field on the greens, and the field leader in SG: Putting at Kapalua has finished no worse than third since 2020.

Most of the difficulty on Kapalua’s greens comes from the sheer size of these complexes. At over 8,700 square feet, the greens at the Plantation Course measure over 45% bigger than the average course on the schedule, and as a result, three-putt percentages are over a full point higher than the Tour average (4.1 vs. 3.0%).

There’s certainly an argument to be made for metrics like Approach Putt Performance and Three-Putt Avoidance, as Kapalua ranks as one of the toughest courses on Tour to putt from outside 15 feet.

Besides these more general putting metrics, I’ll be placing a special emphasis on a player’s historic acumen on slower Bermudagrass complexes.

As is the case with many windswept, coastal venues, the green speeds here at Kapalua tend to rate out as some of the slowest on the PGA Tour. Courses like Pebble Beach, Harbour Town, Corales, and past iterations at Kapalua will all provide solid parallels for the putting conditions I expect this week.

Key Stats Roundup: 

• Driving Distance
• Strokes Gained: Approach -- with particular emphasis placed on proximity splits from <125 and >200 yards
• Birdie Chances Created
• Birdie or Better %
• Strokes Gained: Putting - particular emphasis on 3-putt avoidance and a positive track record on slower Bermuda greens
• Par 5 Scoring
• Kapalua History + a proven aptitude in easy scoring conditions 

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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

The Sunday Shortlist

Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.

Sam Burns

Sam Burns extends the U.S. lead to 2UP with a birdie putt on 13. 🇺🇸📈

📺 Golf Channel 📱 NBC Sports app | #PresidentsCup pic.twitter.com/fRcoOCDY7B

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) September 26, 2024

With the flurry of top results, he showcased to conclude the 2024 playoffs, it's a pity we didn't get to see Sam Burns in a meaningful capacity to end the calendar year. He did come a half-point away from sharing top American honors with Xander, Patrick, and Collin in September's President's Cup but put forth a rather lackluster 14th-place finish in his only stroke play showing at the Hero World Challenge.

On paper, however, Burns shines as one of the best course fits in the field at Kapalua.

His immense distance will play extremely well around these ultra-forgiving fairways, and among the top names in attendance, there is nobody who is likely to run the tables on these Bermudagrass greens. In fact, despite a rather pedestrian history at the Sentry over his first three starts, Burns has never lost strokes on the greens (even gaining a season-best 5.1 strokes on the greens here in 2023).

Burns also ranks inside the top 20 in my weighted proximity modeling (focused primarily on wedge/long-iron play); he ranks sixth in Total Birdie Chances Created and ended his 2024 season by gaining strokes on approach in five consecutive starts (including the Open Championship and all three legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs).

I always like Burns's chances best on easier Bermudagrass tracks with less emphasis placed on middle-iron play and driving accuracy. Kapalua checks every box in those regards, and given his recent run of results, I don't believe 35-1 fully encapsulates his upside this week. There are still decisions for me to make in regard to the top of my card, but I will not be passing up on these current Burns numbers.

Eric Cole

It's no coincidence that the biggest long-shot we saw over the course of the 2024 Signature Event schedule came right here 12 months ago: where a 150-1 Chris Kirk held off a Sunday charge from Sahith Theegala (who opened as high as 90-1).

Simply put, the tee-to-green examination at the Plantation Course may as well be a grade school spelling test for the best players in the world, so a top finish could really be argued for anyone in this field who can catch a hot putter from within 15 feet.

With a collection of names like Brian Harman, J.T. Poston, Kevin Kisner, and Harris English having populated the first page of recent Sentry leaderboards, it is clear that there is an avenue for this particular profile of putting mavens to overthrow the top dogs in the year's first marquee event.

Enter Eric Cole -- who finished 14th here on debut last season and profiles as well for Kapalua's layout as anyone in my modeling (save for the two favorites Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa). Cole ended his sophomore season on Tour with seven top-20 finishes in his last 12 starts and resumed his showcase of the elite iron play that carried him to the 2023 Rookie of the Year distinction.

Over his last 10 starts, Cole has gained an average of 2.1 strokes per tournament with his iron play (nearly double his already lofty career-long baselines) and nearly three shots per tournament with his short game. He also rates out as a top-5 wedge player (inside 125 yards) over his last 75 rounds and leads this field in both Birdie Chances Created and Par 5 Scoring.

His biggest statistical deficiency (off-the-tee) will be mostly mitigated by Kapalua's wide open layout, and although he isn't likely to reach the ultimate heights of our 2022 Champion at Kapalua, his profile is awfully similar to what we saw from Cameron Smith before his breakout season three years ago.

He'll be a locked-in top 10/20 bet for me this week, and at prices bordering on the triple digits in a field with plenty of question marks at the top, I'm more than happy to take a small position on Eric Cole to finally cash his long-awaited breakthrough.

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