The course: Wai’alae Country Club
The course is a Seth Raynor designed course and opened in 1926. The course comes in at just over 7,000 total yards. This course offers a great variety of tee to green routes that can make it very difficult in windy conditions. It can cause players to have to change their approach hole to hole never allowing them to get too comfortable. The course has many dog legs that are protected by palm trees and inconveniently placed bunkers. Meaning accuracy off the tee to get to the right 2nd shot angles will be vital for any players success.
Stats to look at for this week:
As noted above the course favors the accurate hitters over the big bombers. On this course it is better to sacrifice some distance to have a better approach shot. There are not many spots where long hitters can cut a dog leg and get to landing spots where the shorter hitters cannot which really evens the playing field. Driving accuracy off the tee will be a great stat to look at this week but it is certainly not the end all be all this week. If players can avoid bunkers and give themselves good angles for their approach, there will not be much Penalty for being in the rough. Another stat to look at will be players GIR from 150 to 200 yards out as 12 of the 18 approach shots on this course will be from this distance. So, players who excel from these distances should be able to capitalize. Another bit of information to keep in mind is that 7 of the last 9 winners of this event have played the week before at Kapalua. There are about 30 players in the field who played at Kapalua last week and many of them the top players in this field. Just another piece of information to keep in mind when making your bets this week. Below I will give a few players I like to be in contention this week.
Abraham Ancer – Checks off all the boxes I am looking for this week. He played at Kapalua last week. He is hitting Fairways at the 8th highest rate on the whole tour at %72. While also ranking in the top 40 in GIR% from 150-175 yards hitting %75 of greens from this distance. He performed well last week with a top 20 finish look for him to continue his good run of golf dating back to the masters.
Daniel Berger- While not the most accurate of the tee he still comes in the Top 100 for FIR% so far this year. While being inside the top 20 for GIR% from 150 to 175 yards hitting a whopping 79% of greens form that distance. He also had a tremendous showing last week at Kapalua finishing in 10th look for him to carry that momentum into this week.
Keegan Bradley- Did you think you were going to get a preview without Thick Stuff favorite Keegan Bradley? It does not hurt that he hits on the key areas for this tournament as he is Top 50 in FIR% and Top 100 in the GIR% from the distances we covered. He also finishes in the top 20 in distance to the cup when approaching from 175 to 200 yards. This makes him a good bet to finish in the top 30.
Harris English- Coming off a huge victory at Kapalua Harris English is playing some of the best golf of his life right now. He has 4 top 10 finishes in his last 5 outings. He finishes just well enough in the areas that we have highlighted and that combined with hot streak he has been on and his hot putting give me reason to believe that he will be in contention this coming week. Looking to make it back to back wins!