Preview on SBS Tournament of Champs

Milla Backhouse

The New Year celebrations have passed and the Christmas turkey has been eaten, and it is time to turn your attention to sport events again so as not to think about this dull and unbearable winter weather. It is especially true because the PGA tour is again on its way to Hawaii. Players and experts have already turned their eyes to the future events, so let us do the same.

With numerous birdies at par 73 course in Kapalua, a couple of surprises will surely wait for you. Although the players who came here after some Christmas wins may cause some doubts, but for Paddy Reed, Dustin, and Spieth, this is a good place to start a new season. Among the favourites are certainly Spieth and Matsuyama, and this is quite reasonable if we take into account the way they performed at the end of the previous year. Matsuyama did his best to gain the victories in 4 out of 5 events and Spieth succeeded to win the Aussie Open. As to Jason Day, some doubts remain, so we will follow him.

Our Favourites

As usual, we have picked some favourites for SBS Tournament of Champions and this time we have 3 of them. The first one is Jordan Spieth, who has all the chances to retain the title he won the previous year, as it seems to us. He failed to show his best last time at the Hero, but a week before that, he succeeded to gain the crown at the Australian Open. We are impressed how he managed to finish whilst some facets of his play were off. Now he comes to a place with 48 under par for the previous 144 holes. It is evident that this place is suitable for the double major winner, who was first the previous year and 2nd 2 years before. As putting is the key here, nobody is better than Spieth under these circumstances. We give him our support and are sure to see him near the top ahead of Dustin and Hideki.

Next comes Justin Thomas, who completed the year impressively. So, we believe that he has one of the best motives this week to succeed. He failed to show himself at the Safeway Open, but then, Dustin managed to win at the CIMB just next week. Not a bad finish of the year, isn’t it? And this made him one of the promising golfers at the end of the previous year. There are some doubts that he will keep his form in 2017, but we have some hopes, although his price is a bit uninspiring.

Our last bet is Aaron Baddeley. He seems to be an outsider if we look at his Aussie record. Ogilvy and Appleby were the twice winners of this event, so it can be a good prediction for Aaron who won the Barbasol previous year. At the end of 2016 he managed to show his best at the Australian Open. He began with a 74 but traded favourite in running on the last day before missing at the final hurdle. As to others, Vaughhn Taylor is also worth attention, as he is able to play in the conditions.