Sentry Preview

And away we go!

A horse race slogan to kick us off this year at a spot where it truly may be the biggest race of the season. The weather looks pretty benign, the winds don’t look overly menacing, and there’s no contrarian angle here - it’s a pedal down, birdie-fest.

That’s not exactly news to anyone who is reading this however, and instead of stating the obvious in events like this (Vincent does a fine enough job pointing out the statistical keys this week here) I’m thinking of ways to keep the course preview interesting in 2025. So, ideally I want to chat about narratives around courses and distance is obviously one that comes up here.

In fact I wrote about leaning into a wayward driving + distance bias here last year. That almost paid off with Theegs but positional Chris Kirk won. What are we to make of this?

Before diving in to the driving aspect though, I will call out the rest of the fundamental keys here as a refresher:

1. Not all birdie fests are putting contests and not all putting contests are birdie fests. But Kapalua is a quintessential example of a birdie-fest, putting contest. Incoming SG P here is consistent across winners and spike efforts are a near requirement to win this event. The last five winners have all had a spike putting effort in the ten starts prior to their win, and combined they had a whopping 15 spike putting efforts over that time frame. Vincent is projecting a +6 SG P effort for the winner this week and I think that seems in the right range. It simply starts and ends with the flat-stick this week. Proven spike upside on Bermuda is obviously a massive plus as well considering the spike putting need.

2. Birdie making skill and the ability to go low is a must. The highest correlated incoming stats here are a litany of birdie making numbers and you have to be a player capable of extremely hot rounds of golf. First round scoring being the highest correlated stat here actually makes a ton of sense in that capacity. Those are players who can hit the accelerator when conditions are at their most welcoming and Kapalua provides that daily.

3. It’s a wedge and very long iron/wood approach profile. The middle of the bag is thrown out relative to the typical tour stop. And, as Vincent notes the incoming correlations here align with that reality. Interestingly, despite in-tournament APP correlations being as low as they will be all year, incoming APP has actually been quite predictive. The last five winners have all had a spike approach efforts in the ten starts prior to their win, and combined they had 13 spike efforts over that time frame. This phenomena likely occurs because it’s very tough to separate with the APP play here (aka the approach variance decreases) but quality incoming approach play will help set up the most makeable birdie opportunities. So, some of the incoming APP form is likely inflating the putting and scrambling components due to course strategy and iron play execution making those conversions easier. 

4. Scrambling for momentum is big. Are you going to miss a lot of greens this week? Not if you have any chance of winning. But short game play really tends to separate the top of the board here and I simply don’t trust poor ARG players here. The history of winners is filled with quality short game players. 

5. From an outright perspective, course history has been huge. After looking at all the data on this event Vincent kept coming back to course history, and I agree. It’s an easy but highly quirky place so knowing how to make birdies to every pin position here and the mindset of consistent scoring is a big difference maker for veterans at Kap. 

Okay, that actually ended up being way longer than I expected. But, back to the narrative around distance. 

It’s simple right?

Biggest fairways of the year. Bomber central. I very much used to think so here but I can’t ignore the evidence building that we have to treat this in the same manner as a positional handicap.

Whether you look at the winners data or the comp courses we see the same thing - positional Bermuda players are very live here regardless of driving ability. Vincent’s scan of last year’s pressers points to a likely culprit:

“Multiple players noted that the course is playing firmer than usual, with Xander Schauffele mentioning that "Mother Nature's been drying up the ground pretty good." The firm conditions have balls rolling more in the fairways.”

When these fairways run, you get tons of wedges for every player in the field and that’s an area where positional players tend to be highly proficient. Thanks to Matt we will find out if conditions are similar this year, but weather points towards it being highly likely.

In fact, more than distance I can’t help but think of the languid, gentle draw motions OTT that Xander, Chris Kirk, Harris English, Joaco and others have rode into contention here. That’s the ideal ball flight to catch these slopes and the reality here is if you catch the slope you all end up in the same spot. I don’t think this is a requirement by any means (faders have also done just fine) but it’s a hypothesis that I’ll consider at least a bit. 

What is also true though is there’s obviously very little harm for wayward driving here. Year in and year out a handful of sprayers of the golf ball have played well. And, of course that style of play tends to be the domain of distance players because the quickest way out of professional golf is to be short and wayward. However, as mentioned, we also see a ton of great accuracy players on leaderboards here and the winner’s circle recently has two clear examples in English and Kirk.

So how do we sum up the fact that accuracy works here quite well and wayward drivers also have been able to outperform?

Ultimately, for me, that points to an opportunity to not bias in any direction with driving and ignore the bomber narrative.

There will be plenty of opportunities to weight driving heavily this year but if anything, this is a spot to devaluate it. If you can bomb it that’s great, if you mint fairways that’s also great. In the end, I’m going to be much more interested in what you’re doing in other statistical areas.

*Now anytime we devalue driving the caveat always apply that if you drive it long AND straight you are going to have an advantage every single time you tee it up. That, as almost always, remains unchanged here. 

So what does that make the profile we’re after?

It’s a week for birdie making ability, major putting upside shown through incoming spike form, moderate ARG skill to maintain momentum, barbell approach balance shown through incoming approach form, and solid course history. If a player fits that description that’s who I’ll have interest in this week and whether they have distance or not is merely a tiebreaker at best. 

With that, the model has been weighted to support a profile that’s strong with the flatstick, capable of consistent birdie making shown through their historical birdie making stats, solid wedge play plus Going for Green conversion to represent long iron/wood play, and course history.