PGA Tour Tips: Rahm the man as Kapalua heralds start of 2023 golfing season

The battle with LIV Golf promises to dominate the golfing agenda in 2023, but this week's Sentry Tournament of Champions promises another quality winner will be crowned at Kapalua.

Australian Cameron Smith shot rounds of 65, 64, 64 and 65 to win this tournament by a shot (Jon Rahm finished second) a year ago with a score of 34-under par, which was the lowest 72-hole score in the history of the PGA Tour.

Smith would go on to win The Players and The 150th Open at St Andrews, but, while he's since defected to the LIV Golf League alongside Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed et al, who were also at the Sentry event last year, there’s still a stellar field in Hawaii with 23 of the world’s top 30 in action.

There were 38 golfers in the field a year ago – all tournament winners. This year the field is 39, with 29 of last year's winners (Rory McIlroy is the only absentee) joined by an additional 10 non-winners who made the Tour Championship due to a change in the qualification criteria. 

Rory McIlroy: has decided to bypass this week's Sentry Tournament Of Champions event

PGA Tour golfers can skip one 'elevated' event this season, and FedEx Cup champion McIlroy has decided to skip Kapalua despite winning the 2022 RBC Canadian Open. 

Smith’s wire-to-wire victory last year came in windless conditions on a soft course and the wind will be down again this time around, according to early forecasts. The cream will likely rise to the top and Rahm boasts clear favouritism to start 2023 with a win.

The big Basque shot 33-under par last year and pushed Smith all the way to the finishing line. Such is his record in this event, Rahm looks like the man to beat this week.

In five appearances, he's never finished outside the top 10 at the Plantation Course and has averaged 68.5 per round on the par-73 track designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. At 7.4, he's still a good bet with Smarkets to get his third win in his last five starts following victories in the Spanish Open in Madrid and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler and Patrick Cantlay are fancied to make life hard for Rahm, but, given the emphasis on strokes gained putting and birdies at what is still essentially a resort course, I’m going for Collin Morikawa as my second choice.

At odds of 18, Morikawa’s better value than his shorter-priced rivals and having posted T7, T7, and T5 finishes in his first three appearances in the event, it is clear that he is comfortable on the course.

South Korea’s Sung-Jae Im is another value pick. The 24-year-old finished fifth in 2021 and eighth in 2022 - he averaged 67.38 across both editions of the tournament and carded eight successive rounds in the sixties.

As for an outsider, Ireland's Séamus Power was tied for 15th on his debut last year. And while he's coming off a short Christmas break, he's a man in form after following his second win in the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in October with a T3 at Mayakoba and a T5 in The RSM Classic.

Sentry Tournament Of Champions Tips

Jon Rahm @ 7.4
Collin Morikawa @ 18
Sung-Jae Im @ 20
Séamus Power @ 38