Sentry T.O.C Betting Preview
If you haven’t done so already, check out my tournament preview to see details on the course, past winners, and field qualifiers. As we dive into the outright markets, it’s important to note that depending on where you live, your access to different books and odds will vary. From where I sit in CA, my lines will be dictated by the only online book I have money at in Bovada. As I wrote in my Bankroll Builder Challenge article, I will be keeping all my bets posted in an attachment with $5 equaling a betting unit. This preview will be posted every Monday as the lines are first released, with an added update on Wednesday revealing my final betting card. With all that being said, let’s get into odds!
When diving into the odds board, it’s hard to ignore the big names and how stacked this field is. With 8 of the top 10 players in the world playing, we get treated to Rahm, JT, Morikawa, Bryson, and so many others with one of the best back drops for golf coverage. Not only are the big names playing, many have had great finishes here or have been playing well through the fall season. Justin Thomas will be hard to ignore having won this event twice to go along with two other 3rd place finishes. While Xander’s invitation into the event can be questioned, his course history certainly cannot. Xander won back in 2019 and has since finished T2 and T5 last year when just recovering from Covid. Bryson, Rahm, and Cantlay have all had top 10’s here as well but the toughest to omit from my limited betting card will be Justin Thomas.
Each week we will have to determine what data, factors, and trends can lead us to identifying the event’s winner. Using Strokes Gained (SG) data will always help painting the picture but since the season is restarting after a few weeks off, we’re going to try to piece together some trends until more data is accumulated in new season. With that in mind, I have found that the last 6 winners share three very distinct similarities. There hasn’t been a debutant winner since Daniel Chopra in 2008 so saying the winner has to have experience is an understatement. As you can see the worst finish of those 6 winners was a 22nd by Xander Schauffele and 21st by Justin Thomas who both went on to continued success at the TOC. The last trend that has matched for the previous 6 winners was found using Fantasynational.com’s Time Machine tool. When we set the parameters to view the Last 24 rounds leading up to the TOC, all 6 of the prior winners had ranked in the top 10 for Strokes Gained: Total.
Justin Thomas: 3rd at Mayakoba, 3rd at last year’s TOC, 7th SG:T Last 24 rounds
Victor Hovland: 1st at Mayakoba, 31st at last year’s TOC, 9th SG:T L24
Sungjae Im: 1st at Shriners & 9th CJ Cup, 5th at last year’s TOC, 5th SG:T L24
Cam Smith: 4th at RSM & 9th CJ Cup, 24th at last year’s TOC, 6th SG:T L24
Justin Thomas will undoubtedly be the man to beat with his course experience and matching winning trends but I will ignore his 11–1 odds and pray for a balky putter. Cam Smith’s sometimes erratic driver will not hurt him at these wide fairways but his 2 finishes here at 24th and 17th give me just enough pause to stay away. Another trend is that 5 of the last 7 winners of this event all won on their 2nd attempt. Both Victor Hovland and Sungjae Im satisfy this requirement but with Im finishing 5th here last year and Hovland 31st, I’m sticking with the former and taking the 25–1 odds. In last year’s performance, the only place Im struggled was in putting but I’m banking on him figuring the greens out as he has historically preformed much better on Bermuda.
My next selection satisfies 2 of the 3 requirements and just barely misses on the SG:T L24 criteria. With a 3rd and 4th place in the Fall Season, he just missed out in being in the top 10 of the SG:T L24 category by ranking 13th. Even more importantly, he’s played the TOC 4 times with results of 24th, 4th, 7th, and 23rd. The interesting not regarding those finishes, however, is that the two finishes in the twenties came after sluggish fall seasons while the two top 10’s all came after a top 5 in the fall season. For these reasons, I’ll be using Marc Leishman in my staking plan at 33–1.
While it is not likely I’ll be adding any more to the pre-tournament staking, I’ll keep you posted if we find any good value in tournament. Good luck to you and let’s start the New Year on the right foot! Mahalo!
