Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2018 Sony Open in Hawaii

The 2018 Sony Open in Hawaii Fantasy Sleeper Preview

Another year, another dominant display from Dustin Johnson. While some of us are setting our New Year’s resolutions to be better at something – or at least try harder, those terms simply don’t enter the psychology of the world number one, who on any given day seems capable of blitzing any golf course as he sees fit.

Okay, so conditions at the Tournament of Champions last week were agreeable, but the manner in which DJ demolished the field – especially over the weekend – was confirmation, if any were needed, that while the likes of Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm took many of the headlines in 2017 it’s still the world number one who is the man to beat this year.

Luckily for all those who are staying on at Hawaii for the second leg of the island swing, DJ has decided to have some downtime this week and so the field opens up somewhat, with reigning champion Justin Thomas and British Open winner Jordan Spieth taking the spotlight. The former will have legendary caddie Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay on his bag this week with regular sidekick Jimmy Johnson on the injured list, and it will be intriguing to see how that pairing plays out.

Jordan Spieth of the United States plays a shot on the ninth hole…

Jordan Spieth of the United States plays a shot on the ninth hole during the final round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club on January 7, 2018 in Lahaina,… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

It’s an intriguing week for Bones to come on board, because while Honolulu’s Waialae golf course isn’t physically demanding (Par 70, 7044 yards on flat terrain) it certainly requires effective strategizing to pick your way around these tree-lined fairways. The Bermuda greens are small in stature too, and require clever course management to decode the best angle of entry.

It’s an assignment that has led to an eclectic roll-call of recent former winners, ranging from Russell Henley to Fabian Gomez and Johnson Wagner, and typically we would also be factoring the wind into any bets we place. But so far the forecast is looking rather benign, and if that is the case then a simple birdie-fest is likely to unfold even though there are just a pair of Par 5s to work with.

The breeze can act as something of a leveler at Waialae, but with minimal wind forecast we really do have to focus our attentions on classy ball strikers with a penchant for island golf and an ability to keep the ball in play.

With that in mind, who are we backing this week?

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2018 Sony Open in Hawaii Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The 2018 Sony Open in Hawaii Fantasy Sleeper Report

Mix and match these players with your usual rosters (or play them separately) to get the most out of your picks this week.

Si-Woo Kim – Vegas Odds 60/1 – His outstanding win at THE PLAYERS Championship is slipping further and further into the recesses of time, but at TPC Sawgrass Kim proved that he is a young star not to be forgotten too easily.

Unfortunately, his game didn’t really kick on from that point, and continuing injury problems, particularly with his back, haven’t really aided matters.

But so far in this 2017/18 campaign, there have been green shoots of recovery. In among the missed cuts and lowly finishes there has been a third place finish in the OHL Classic – Mayakoba being one of our correlated courses remember – plus a respectable tenth at the Tournament of Champions last week.

The Korean’s stats this season so far are self-explanatory: 23rd for Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, 37th for SG Approach….and 232nd for SG: Putting. But he ranked 11th with flat stick in hand at Kapalua, so perhaps that aspect of his game is trending in an upward direction.

Jamie Lovemark – Vegas Odds 66/1 – With back-to-back top 10s at Waialae, there is clearly something about this track that suits Jamie Lovemark’s eye.

The Californian backed up his T7 finish in 2016 with T4 last year, and after a good few weeks off to work on his game away from the spotlight, he will surely be confident of making it a hat-trick.

Could he go further than that and claim his maiden PGA TOUR title? It’s certainly viable: this is a guy with a trio of top-three finishes on Tour after all, and surely he will break his duck at a course he enjoys.

Few have suited the tee-to-green game of Lovemark quite like Waialae, so backers should get a decent run for their money.

Emiliano Grillo – Vegas Odds 75/1 – There’s a phrase in sports betting that refers to backing the same players time and time again without seeing any reward for your outlay: you’d say ‘I’m in danger of falling over the cliff with Player X…’

Regular followers of this column will know that we’re no strangers to putting our hard earned on Emiliano Grillo, the talented Argentine who is yet to truly flourish on the PGA TOUR. Could 2018 be his year?

His wraparound campaign form was encouraging enough, with the obvious highlight for us in the context of a prospective Sony Open challenger being the T9 at the OHL Classic in his last outing.

Grillo managed to qualify for three FedExCup events at the tail-end of last season, which suggests his upswing in form has been on a medium-term basis, and we are reluctant to give up hope on a 25-year-old who has already broken his Tour-level title duck, finished in the top-10 of two FedExCup starts and finished T11 at THE PLAYERS Championship.

JJ Spaun – Vegas Odds 75/1 – It’s hard to define anybody as an in-form player given the lengthy break that all players not all involved in the Tournament of Champions have faced over the festive period.

But if JJ Spaun comes out of the stalls this year as he ended 2017, the young gun is in for a very bright 12 months indeed.

The 27-year-old recorded a trio of top-20 finishes during the wraparound season, with T10 at Shriners and T14 in the OHL Classic backed by his best performance as a PGA TOUR pro in his last start: falling agonizingly short in second place at the RSM Classic.

You sense that Spaun might feel he ‘belongs’ as an elite-level golfer now; it will be interesting to see how that manifests itself in 2018.

Brian Gay – Vegas Odds 100/1 – When your average drive is just 277 yards in length, you really need to make the most of your opportunities on shorter tracks and the Par 70s when they come along.

That is exactly what Brian Gay seems to do. His record at Waialae is superb: nine cuts made from ten starts and five finishes of T25 or higher, with two of those being top-10s.

Gay was also T17 at the RBC Heritage in 2017, which is one of our correlating courses, and in his last start the 46-year-old finished solo third at the RSM Classic.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the 2018 Sony Open in Hawaii here.

Sleeper Report Predictions This Season (2017-2018)

[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”2.50%” bar_text=”1 out of 40 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent=”12.50%” bar_text=”5 out of 40 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”42.50%” bar_text=”17 out of 40 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=”0%” bar_text=”0 out of 8 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”12.50%” bar_text=”1 out of 8 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”57.50″ bar_text=”23 out of 40 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

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