Sentry Tournament of Champions: Kapalua’s first-timers

There are 14 rookie winners taking part this year, which makes up nearly half the Sentry Tournament of Champions field.

The 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions should be a wide-open event if for no other reason than the field itself.

Of the 34 players qualified to compete in the $6.5 million event, 14 will be debuting at the challenge. That’s because the 2018-19 Tour season produced such an abundance of first-time champions.

So while Dylan Fritelli, Collin Morikawa, and Tyler Duncan aren’t names we normally associate with a $1.3 million first prize, they and their fellow rookies will be at Kapalua in force alongside such luminaries as defending champion Xander Schauffele, 2019 runner-up Gary Woodland, Dustin Johnson, and Justin Thomas.

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With rookies representing such a numerically meaningful portion of the field, which one has the best chance to actually challenge for the title? Their task may be made somewhat easier by the roster of eligibles who won’t be showing up, a list that includes Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Justin Rose. For reasons of health, schedule conflicts or personal preference, each has elected to skip the Sentry.

The simplest way to handicap a field, particularly a small one like the 34-player Sentry Tournament of Champions, is to look for the hot putter. The flaw in that system is the inherently flighty nature of putting performance, which on Tour comes and goes with each passing week.

Indeed, among the 20 best putters on tour during the 2019 season – as measured by Strokes Gaines Putting – only four actually won an event, and one of those (Rose) isn’t playing at Kapalua. The others are Graham McDowell, Kevin Kisner, and Rickie Fowler.

Identifying the hot putter isn’t much of an aide, either. Of the 20 best putters this season, applying the same metric, only three – Kevin Na, Kevin Kisner, and Lanto Griffin – will be at Kapalua. Griffin is one of the 14 first-timers. He ranks 12th on the current putting charts.

But if you’re rating the chances of rookies, Griffin’s name is likely to be toward the top of the list. He’s one of four first-timers with a win this season. Griffin claimed the Houston Open’s $1.35 million first prize in October.

The other rookies coming to Kapalua for the Tournament of Champions with a 2019-20 season victory are Sebastian Munoz (Sanderson Farms), Joaquin Niemann (Greenbrier) and Tyler Duncan (RSM Classic).

Griffin is also coming to Kapalua with a Strokes Gained Putting Average this season of better than a full stroke per round. Statistically, that sounds like a significant edge, although it’s certain to moderate as the season ears along. Last year the best tour putter only gained nine-tenths of a stroke per round by his work on the greens.

At 1.015, he’s one of four rookies who is currently sitting above six-tenths of a stroke per round advantage on the greens. The others are Max Homa (.881), Munoz (.695) and J.T. Poston (.679).

At the other end of the scale, four of the first-timers to the Tournament of Champions are lugging around negative performances on the greens thus far this season. Those four are Fritelli (-0.11), Keith Mitchell (-.228), Martin Trainor (-.335), and Corey Conners (-.922).

Still, the flighty nature of putting makes relying on it a bad plan. A better plan, assuming there is a good plan, is to look at two measures, recent performance and overall Strokes Gained.

Four rookies have landed at least a pair of top 20 finishes in their most recent five starts, suggesting they may be worth a second look. Those four are:

Griffin. He followed up a t18 at the Shriners with his victory at Houston, then with another t18 at Bermuda.
Conners. He tied for 13th at the Sanderson, for 12th at the CZJ Cup, for sixth at the Zozo and for 20th at the prestigious WGC-HSBC. That’s as consistently hot as anybody in the field, rookie or otherwise.
Duncan. He tied for 18th at Bermuda, three weeks before winning the RSM.
Nate Lashley. Lashley’s four starts this season include a tie for third at the Greenbrier and a tie for 20th at the CJ Cup.

If you are more comfortable just going with Strokes Gained, then four first-timers stand out. They are Munoz, Griffin, Niemann and Poston, each averaging better than 1.5 Strokes Gained thus far this season. For the record here’s the full Strokes Gained data for this season’s Sentry TOC rookies.

Player: SG

Sebastian Munoz: 1.906
Lanto Griffin: 1.774
Joaquin Niemann: 1.683
J.T. Poston: 1.569
Dylan Fritelli: 1.382
Collin Morikawa: 1.329
Adam Long: 1.076
Nate Lashley: 0.954
Corey Conners: 0.946
Tyler Duncan: 0.731
Sung Kang: 0.654
Keith Mitchell: -0.405
Max Homa: -1.393
Martin Trainor: -2.923