The Sentry Predictions, Best Bets, Free Picks and Odds January 2-5

The Sentry Betting Preview

WagerTalk golf handicapper Nick Borrman offers his thoughts on The Sentry teeing off from Kapalua Resort in Kapalua, HI! Nick discusses the guys at the top of the odds board, a long shot to win and other expert picks surrounding The Sentry starting on January 2nd!

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The Sentry	The Sentry Betting Notes
When:	January 2-5
Where:	Kapalua Resort in Kapalua, HI
Defending Champ:	Chris Kirk
Current Favorite:	Xander Schauffele (+550 at DraftKings)
TV:	Golf Channel, NBC

The Sentry Odds Board

Top-10 Total Strokes Gained over the last six months (betting odds via FanDuel , DraftKings and others)

The Sentry Betting Preview

The PGA Tour returns for the 2025 season with the first of eight Signature Events of the season.

The prize purse remains the same this year at $20M with the winner taking home a whopping $3.6M. Plenty to play for in the first event of the new year.

To qualify for this event, one must have won a PGA Tour event in 2024 or finished the season ranked inside the Top-50 of the FedEx Cup standings.

Of the 64 players to meet either of those criteria, four are absent this week. Scottie Scheffler is the notable player missing and it’s not because he chose to skip.

You have probably heard of the incident over Christmas which required surgery to remove glass shards from his hand, though luckily, he is only expected to miss 3-4 weeks.

In addition to Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry all took a pass on teeing it up at Kapalua.

The Sentry features no cut as everyone in the field is guaranteed four rounds to work themselves back into competitive shape.

It’s hard to find a lot of info on how the players spent their off-season’s as some in the field have been playing, while many have not played much in terms of competitive golf since the Tour Championship.

With that understanding, don’t put too much stock into short term trends like the last three months of the Strokes Gained graphic.

The Plantation Course always plays easy relative to par with winning scores of at least 25-under each of the last four years.

The reason scores are low is the course features very wide fairways and large greens. Hard to find too much trouble, especially when the wind isn’t blowing.

The course seems long by the yardage on the scorecard at roughly 7,600 yards, but it doesn’t play that way with a lot of elevation change that helps shorten the playing yardage. The Plantation Course is also unique as a Par-73 with only three par 3s to go along with four par 5s.

Weather looks fantastic all four days. Temperatures should reach the low 80s, and winds will be almost non-existent except for a 10-15 mph forecast during Thursday’s opener, before disappearing the following three days.

Rain is always a possibility, but likely just in the form of a quick shower, nothing too imminent. Without the course’s only defense, expect players to go low once again this year.

The Sentry Outright Winner

Justin Thomas +1000

The data tells us to stick with one of the top players in the field when betting Outrights in Signature Events, so we will leave the longshots to the Top-10/20 markets.

That leaves me stuck on JT this week, which as the second favorite, isn’t that sexy of a pick, but he deserves the nod.

Thomas played twice this fall, finished T2 at the ZOZO Championship at the end of October and then most recently a solo 3^rd at the Hero World Challenge where everyone finished well behind Scottie Scheffler.

With fairways as wide as they are and swails likely putting both short and long hitters in similar landing zones, the statistic I like the most this week is Approach play which correlates with Proximity to the Hole.

Important to set yourself up with plenty of good birdie looks considering better than 25-under is likely needed to win.

That being said, Justin Thomas fits that mold ranking #1 in the field in SG Approach over the last six months.

Clearly that has helped him with prior success at this event as Thomas is not only a two-time winner, but has also finished inside Top-5 an additional three times.

The Sentry Top 20 Finish

Akshay Bhatia +115

Bhatia made a name for himself last year with eleven Top-20 finishes including a win at the Valero Texas Open, his 2^nd PGA Tour win after claiming victory on another island at the Barracuda Championship in 2023.

He followed up the 2024 season with a T2 in Japan in November and solo 4^th at the Hero World Challenge just a few weeks ago.

Akshay can get a little streaky with his ball-striking but his putter is usually on the money and that is certainly needed this week. In a tournament that will likely feature a winning score pushing 30-under par, his ball-striking deficiencies could be masked while his putter makes up for it and keeps him pushing low scores.

That’s exactly what happened here last year in his debut where he finished T14 thanks to averaging +1.33 SG Putting per round.

I like his converging trends of current form and course history to keep him near the top this week at a good price.

See you next week for the Sony Open in Hawaii!

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