Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions

2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions Fantasy Sleeper Report

Back into the breach we go!

After the winter hiatus, PGA TOUR golf is back with – okay, maybe not a bang, but certainly with a palpable sense of excitement of what’s to come in the weeks and months ahead.

Great expectations are holstered this week because the Tournament of Champions isn’t exactly the best betting heat, but it’s a fun way to get back into the swing of things with five sleeper picks – you can find out more about our plays below.

One of the other factors that makes this a difficult event to bet on is that it is a complete putting shootout, played at a course where the previous PGA TOUR record for lowest 72-hole score was shattered by Cameron Smith (-34) last year.

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The Plantation Resort at the Kapalua Resort – remember, this is the two-week Hawaiian Swing – is as sublime to look at as you would expect from the island, and the warming temperatures are just what are needed following the snow blitz that has hit the States.

But the wide-open fairways of the Ben Crenshaw design, and the huge Bermuda green complexes, ensure that all players in the field have a decent shot at glory, and with just three Par 3s on the real estate the emphasis is more on birdies and eagles than it is nuance or a test of all-round golf. 

So it’s many of the best players in the world – eight of the top ten of the OWGR are making the trip – taking on a course that, barring the odd stiff breeze, repeatedly yields to low scoring. Like we say, a tough betting heat.

The likes of Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas will be dusting off their clubs under the Hawaiian sun, with all of last season’s winners on the PGA TOUR invited – the 39-man field is then topped up with those that finished inside the top-30 of the FedEx Cup standings last term.

It will be a top-class field then for the Tournament of Champions, but who are the sleeper picks that can upset the odds on Maui?

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Seamus Power – 50/1 – After winning the Bermuda Championship, Seamus Power franked his efforts with T3 at Mayakoba and T5 at the RSM Classic.

The takeaways? He’s in fine fettle right now, and is most comfortable when playing by the coast with a breeze ringing in his ears.

The Irishman also finished T3 at the Sony Open in 2022, and so all of the evidence points towards success for Power this week. He’s got the game to mix with the best in the business (T9 at the 2022 PGA Championship), so perhaps 2023 will be the year he steps up to the plate.

Keegan Bradley – 50/1 – Is there a more curious player in world golf than Keegan Bradley?

Blessed with immense talent, Bradley is a major winner with an impeccable tee-to-green game, but who seems to routinely trip himself up with the odd errant tee shot or abomination with flat stick in hand.

Whisper it, but 2022 may just have been the year in which Bradley finally found the missing piece for his jigsaw. He putted much better, for the most part, and that helped him to a fifth PGA TOUR title at the ZOZO Championship, solo fifth at the Players Championship and a top-10 at the U.S. Open.

At the age of 36, has the penny finally dropped for Keegan Bradley?

Tom Hoge – 80/1 – When we talk about golfing greatness, it’s never been said that great careers have been launched off the back of winning the QBE Shootout.

But winning is fun, and after prevailing at Pebble Beach during the 2021-22 campaign, Tom Hoge joined forces with Sahith Theegala to clinch the QBE at the end of 2022.

It’s not a huge surprise, given how good Hoge is from tee-to-green, and neither is it a coincidence – he’s gained strokes on the greens in fourth of the last five events he has played with ShotLink data available.

Can he kick on in 2023 and continue his upward curve?

Sepp Straka – 100/1 – Sepp Straka has been tipped as a potential future Ryder Cupper for Europe after a fine breakout in 2022.

He helped himself to five top-10 finishes last year, including a maiden voyage into the winner’s circle at the Honda Classic and a playoff loss at the Sanderson Farms, on his way to a seventh-place finish in the FedEx Cup race.

The Austrian’s tee-to-green game isn’t consistently good enough – that’s an area he will need to improve upon, while his putting stroke also tends to be in and out of form….but when he’s good, Straka is very good indeed.

Mackenzie Hughes – 100/1 – Regardless of the surface or where he is in the country, Mackenzie Hughes has a happy knack of putting well – it’s unsurprising then that he added to his PGA TOUR title haul in 2022.

That victory was precipitated by an improvement from tee-to-green, and if the Canadian can continue in that vein going forward then he can be a more considerable presence on the PGA TOUR.

You can never quite tell what you’re going to get from Hughes, but for your 100/1 you’ll be getting an excellent putter who plays well in the wind and seems to know how to win.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Sentry Tournament of Champions here.

Sleeper Report Predictions This Season (2022-2023)

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