With little else to go on in terms of recent form, it's no wonder the market has reacted strongly to a record-breaking Tournament of Champions as Cameron Smith became the latest world-class golfer to complete a Hawaii double. To fend off the world number one in the way he did must go down as a career-best from the mulleted Australian and there's no urge to undermine a brilliant all-round display which saw him add a string to his bow with a field-leading performance off the tee.
It's easy to argue that as a former Sony Open winner he must now be the man to beat at Waialae, a course which contrasts starkly with Kapalua. Last week we had elevation changes, wide fairways and huge greens – this week we've a flat, narrow, old-fashioned course with smaller targets, yet Smith has proven adaptable and is clear favourite as he bids to emulate Ernie Els and Justin Thomas and win these events back-to-back.
That price is now 18s generally and 20/1 in places after the withdrawal of Bryson DeChambeau, but that's fine, because it further weakens the field versus a stronger Tournament of Champions which featured eight of the world's top 10 players. There's only one of them here, and that's newly-minted Smith, who ranks 10th.
Matsuyama being twice the price of the Aussie might just look like a misjudgement come Sunday and I thought he was quite an eye-catcher last week, shooting 69-65 over the first two rounds on his first start for more than two months. Come the end of the week he'd slipped to 13th, hamstrung by his putter, but there were plenty of positives given he said he'd played precisely three times since winning the ZOZO Championship in October.
Leishman has made all 12 cuts here and hit the frame for us last year at a bigger price, shooting 66-65-65-65 to share fourth but playing the final hole of the tournament in the belief a birdie might get him a play-off. It was a performance built on quality iron play and he'd demonstrated that in 2020, finishing down the field because of a stone-cold putter having led the field in strokes-gained approach.
His tee-to-green stats over these last two renewals have therefore been right up there with ball-striking behemoth Matsuyama, underlining how much he loves Waialae, and he's sure to benefit from a pipe-opener at Kapalua. Leishman has four top-10s in 12 here, but his record when it's his second start of the year rather than his first reads three top-10s in four, making it one-in-eight without.
This record of improvement from first to second start extends all the way back to his rookie season. In 13 years of PGA Tour membership, Leishman has a win and four top-fives on his second start of the year, and has only finished outside the top 30 twice. That win came in 2020 at Torrey Pines, another favourite stop where he'd regularly contended, and it also came on his first start since watching Smith win the Sony.
These two won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans together last year, and have long been close friends and teammates. When Leishman won the Farmers he said that seeing Smith win 'gave me a bit of determination' and he was on hand to celebrate with him on Sunday. Those first few weeks of 2020 in fact saw Smith, Leishman and Adam Scott win on the PGA Tour, Min Woo Lee and Lucas Herbert win on the European Tour, and Stephanie Kyriacou win on the LET. I for one wouldn't be surprised were we to witness another spate of Aussie winners over the coming weeks and months.
The best correlating form guide to this is El Camaleon, where four Sony Open champions have also triumphed despite its brief history, but next on the list could be Harbour Town – where Grace secured his first PGA Tour title. His second then came last February in Puerto Rico, reinforcing the profile of a player at his most comfortable by the sea.
This week's forecast suggests the wind will be significant enough to matter without making for a real grind, but there is some rain around and both would play to the strengths of Grace, winner of the Dunhill Links as well as in Doha and at Fancourt, courses which have long favoured links specialists and those who relish playing in a breeze.
The German was 54th in 2018 and 43rd in 2019 but while those results may not set the pulse racing, it's significant that he gained strokes both off the tee and with his approaches each year. It was Jaeger's putter which kept him to low-leaderboard obscurity, ranking 67th and 63rd and doing a heck of a lot of damage.
Typically, Jaeger's short-game is where he gains an advantage, and in the embryonic stages of this season he's first in strokes-gained around-the-green among those who've played 16-plus rounds, as well as comfortably inside the top 30 in putting using the same measure. In his last full season on the PGA Tour he was fifth around the greens, with Sony winners Na, Thomas and Jimmy Walker close behind.
"I would say I'm probably a pretty good chipper and putter," he said earlier this season. "I think I've kind of realised that I got to play to my strength and if I have a good week that I hit it good, I'm going to be up there in contention. So that's kind of the motto going forward."
Having been 48th and 52nd around-the-greens over the last two seasons, Lee's short-game is a strength and we saw it here last year, when he ranked third in that department and closed with a round of 64 to sneak inside the top 20.
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Posted at 1825 GMT on 10/01/22