The 2025 PGA Tour season springs into action on the second day of 2025 as a 60-man field tee it up in the Sentry at Kapalua Resort in Maui, Hawaii.
Previously known as the Tournament of Champions, the Sentry has long been the first event on the PGA Tour calendar and has been staged at the Plantation Course each year since 1999, when David Duval streaked to victory by nine shots.
Each 2024 PGA Tour winner is invited, plus the rest of the top 50 on the FedEx Cup list, and the main talking point in the build-up to the tournament has been the absence of world no.1 Scottie Scheffler, who required surgery after suffering a hand injury on Christmas Day.
With no Scheffler or Rory McIlroy in the field, PGA Championship and British Open winner Xander Schauffele is a short-priced favourite as he bids to double up in a tournament which he won in 2019.
Kapalua is the PGA Tour's only par-73 course. It typically lends itself to low scoring and the key to success tends to be a sharp short-game, with scrambling and lag-putting particularly important on the Plantation Course's enormous greens.
- SAHITH THEEGALA TO WIN & EACH-WAY
- AKSHAY BHATIA TO WIN & EACH-WAY
- BYEONG HUN AN TO WIN & EACH-WAY
Theegala Poised To Go One Better
It's easy to make a case for Schauffele after his brilliant 2024 season but the world no.2 was not as his best on his most recent PGA Tour start in Japan in October and he could be caught cold after more than two months off.
Preference is for those who have had a more recent competitive outing, starting with Sahith Theegala, who finished runner-up to Chris Kirk on his second Sentry appearance last season.
Theegala is ideally suited to the Plantation Course, where his occasionally loose driving is not an issue and where his short-game brilliance comes to the fore.
He finished eighth at the Hero World Challenge in December and will be sharper than most of his rivals.
SAHITH THEEGALA TO WIN & EACH-WAY
Bhatia Can Challenge
Akshay Bhatia was also in Hero World Challenge action, finishing fourth on his tournament debut and once again demonstrating his ability to handle coastal conditions.
The 22-year-old Californian also performed superbly for three rounds of his Kapalua debut last season, going into Sunday one shot behind eventual Sentry winner Chris Kirk, before a final-round 71 shuffled him back to 14th place.
He returns with another year of PGA Tour experience under his belt - plus a second career win at the top level in the Valero Texas Open - and he could capture a third title this week.
AKSHAY BHATIA TO WIN & EACH-WAY
In-Form An A Threat
Byeong Hun An has not played since winning the DP World Tour's Genesis Championship in his native South Korea in October but he will arrive in Hawaii full of self-belief following that emotional triumph.
The win had been coming for An, who had produced months of consistent ball-striking prior to his Genesis victory, and he looks an obvious threat at a course where he finished fourth on debut a year ago.
BYEONG HUN AN TO WIN & EACH-WAY
