This Week’s Tournament Preview

This week brings us the 2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions, and along with it, the excitement all PGA TOUR and fantasy golf fanatics feel at the start of a new year of events. After what felt like a decade since Billy Horschel held the FedExCup trophy, we’re finally into 2015 with the kickoff of the first premier event of the wrap-around season.

All told it’s been a seven-week break between official FedExCup points events and now the PGA TOUR heads back to sunny Hawaii before moving into the west coast swing. This will be the 17th straight year that Kapalua has been January’s first event but this year the TOUR pushed the schedule back a week to give players a chance to recover from New Years and other personal events.

Returning TOC champion Zach Johnson and two-time TOC winner Geoff Ogilvy (2009-10) will be the only Kapalua champions in the field this week. This tournament traditionally has a stacked leaderboard with past champions looking to start the year off on a good note, so look out for some competitive golf this weekend.

The Field

Reigning FedExCup champion Billy Horschel will join Jason Day and Masters champ Bubba Watson to headline a field made up of 34 tournament winners from the 2014 calendar year. Don’t forget that Bubba jumped to 4th in World Ranking after winning the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in November, making him the highest ranked player in the field. In total, there will be seven players participating this week who rank within the World top 20.

You’ll also see a bunch of TOC first timers this week with recent winners from the fall series like current FedExCup leader Robert Streb, Ben Martin, Sang-Moon Bae, and Nick Taylor. Also be on lookout for 2014 Valspar Champion John Senden, who returns for the first time since 2007.

Here is the full field for this week’s Hyundai Tournament of Champions:

The Course

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The Plantation Course at Kapalua measures in at 7,452 yards and plays as an unusual par 73. The course opened back in 1991 as the very first Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw collaborative projects.

This beautiful cliff-side course sits atop the West Maui Mountains and comes lined with breathtaking views and extreme wind gusts, which we saw two years ago when the TOUR was forced to shorten the event after many wind-related delays. Although the wind comes into play, evidence shows that the winners of this event still manage to post great scores with six of the past seven editions having winners coming in at no worse than 18-under.

The event’s long ball hitters will use the wind to their advantage to shorten this course, so be on the lookout for big hitters off the tee and solid scramble players.

Weather Forecast for Kapalua, Hawaii (from weather.com)

Round 1 will see relatively low wind with the infamous wind gusts at Kapalua not appearing until rounds 2, 3m and 4 – topping out as high as 21mph on Sunday.

Rain should not be a factor this week, but don’t be surprised if you see a minor drizzle on Saturday afternoon. Overall the course should be pretty dry and true and the weekend wind gusts should allow for some 350-yard drives, if not more.

We’ll factor in these long-ball hopefuls as we make our selections in the picks segment below.

2013 Results

We nailed this one last year, picking both the winner (Zach Johnson) and the runner-up (Jordan Spieth) in a well-contested event. We also managed to pick up three other T6 finishes for a total of $2.6 million in fantasy earnings to kick off the New Year.

That year Zach Johnson notched his 11th career victory after draining three birdies on the back nine to card a 7-under 66 in the final round. He finished one shot ahead of the charging Jordan Spieth. Johnson’s back nine birdies proved crucial to keeping the event just out of the reach of Spieth who birdied 17 and 18.

The 2014 Hyundai TOC was a nail-biter to the last stroke with a total of five players holding a share of the lead on the final day.

For more, here is wrap-up of Round 4 from last year’s edition of Hyundai Tournament of Champions:

This Week’s Broadcast Schedule

Television Broadcasts (Golf Channel) Friday 4:30 pm – 10:00pm EST Saturday 1:00 pm – 7:00 pm EST Sunday 2:30 pm – 9:30 pm EST Monday 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST

Radio Broadcasts (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.COM) Friday 5:00 pm – 10:00 pm EST Saturday 2:00 pm – 7:00 pm EST Sunday 5:00 pm – 10:00 pm EST Monday 2:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST

Mobile Broadcasts Simultaneous coverage on the Golf Live Extra app for iPhone and iPad.



This Week’s Fantasy Notes

We can expect some solid tee shot action this week as the Plantation Course at Kapalua offers some of the widest fairways on TOUR. That said, a long ball hitter may have a slight advantage, especially if the wind is at his back.

Even though the Plantation Course is a par 73 (making it the only one the PGA TOUR), both sets of 9 come with a fair amount of challenge. Although the stat has its merits, we won’t be weighting our selections this week heavily on strictly long hitters because the course only averages a little more than 280 yards off the tee – which is not high number for a TOUR venue. So look for short and more accurate tee-to-green players to also make a possible run this week.

Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the 2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions

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Fantasy Golf Predictions YTD Stats: 2014-2015 Season

Tournaments Played 2014-2015: 6

Total Fantasy Dollars: $4,254,316 (Average = $709,052/week)

Total Top 10s: 10 out of 35 players picked (28.57%).

Total Top 3s: 5 out of 35 players picked (14.29%).

Total Missed Cuts: 4 out of 35 players picked (88.57% made the cut).

Remember to visit the The Clubhouse and our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for the 2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions with other Premium Members.

(Cover Photo Credit)

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