The 2024-25 PGA TOUR season is about to enter overdrive with The Sentry, the first of its eight signature events with elevated purses, set to take place at The Plantation Course at Kapalua in Hawaii from January 2-5.
Since the golf season is year-round and the back half of the season is stacked with important events, many top players have eschewed the fall tournaments and will be making their first starts of the season at The Sentry, marking an additional dimension for DFS players to consider ahead of the tournament.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $500K Pitch-and-Putt [$100K to 1st] (PGA TOUR).
The Plantation Course at Kapalua is one of the longest and most wide-open courses on the circuit, measuring 7,596 yards, and it’s the PGA TOUR’s only Par 73. However, despite its distance — including a 667-yard finishing hole — the tournament typically yields some of the lowest winning scores of the season. Because the Plantation Course is extremely hilly and the January weather in Hawaii is warm — with highs averaging 71 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the month — this weekend should be a bomb-fest, with plenty of drives over 400 yards and plenty of birdies. That’s why I like one of last year’s breakout players, Akshay Bhatia ($8,900), to perform well at The Sentry.
The 22-year-old has been in good form recently, finishing fourth in the invitational Hero World Challenge and tying for second at the Dunlop Phoenix on the Japan Golf Tour in October. He has a well-rounded repertoire, performing well above the PGA TOUR average off the tee, on approaches to the green, and with the flat stick. Although he has struggled with chipping yips at times, the potential that caused him to forgo college and turn pro straight out of high school in 2019 is obvious.
In particular, Bhatia’s elite performance on the putting surface — he finished 33rd in Strokes Gained: Putting — should serve him well on a course that has large, undulating greens made of unpredictable Bermuda grass. The Plantation Course routinely ranks among the harder putting courses on the PGA TOUR, adding 0.007 strokes per hole on putts between five and 15 feet and 0.015 strokes on putts longer than 15 feet, per Data Golf. The greens are the only real defenses on a course that ranks as the sixth-easiest that the PGA TOUR has visited since 2015.
Bhatia tied for 14th in 2024 in his first appearance at The Sentry, fading on the final day with a 71 (-2) after opening with rounds of 69, 64, and 66. He got better at finishing as the season went on, closing with a 67 (-5) to claim his first PGA TOUR victory in a full-field event at the Valero Texas Open in April.
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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skills and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.
