2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions: Top 10 Power Rankings at Kapalua

Matt Fitzpatrick makes his Sentry Tournament of Champions debut this week. It’s hard to believe this is his first time at Kapalua. Until his 2022 U.S. Open win, all his victories came on the DP World Tour.

Fitzpatrick finished 36th in the final 2020-21 FedEx Cup standings, missing out on the Tour Championship (and subsequently the 2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions) by six shots.

Looking at his style of play, Kapalua is not a perfect venue for him, but his game is better suited to take it on now than it was early in his career.

Fitzpatrick has added distance to his game without compromising much in the way of accuracy. He’s still solid on and around the greens, which has made him more of a well-rounded golfer and one who can survive and even thrive on big ballparks that predominate the pro schedule.

He ranked 10th on the PGA Tour last season in strokes gained off the tee per round (.636), seventh around the green (.452), seventh tee to green (1.368), and second total (1.792).

The 28-year-old Englishman is up to a career-high ninth in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Since the 2022 Tour Championship in August, Fitzy has stayed sharp compared to many of his PGA Tour peers.  He collected a pair of top-fives in five DP World Tour starts and took T-13th at the CJ Cup in his lone official start of the 2022-23 PGA Tour season.

The Northwestern alum also teed it up last month at the Hero World Challenge, taking T-13th in the 20-player event.

I’m not going to pick Fitzpatrick to win given the number of horses for courses in the field, but I can see him being a factor late on Sunday.