The RotoWire Golf Rundown is back for 2024. With Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm absent from the Sentry, Keith Stewart of Read The Line and RotoWire’s Len Hochberg discuss whether anyone can stop Scottie Scheffler, plus the keys to conquering Kapalua and their favorite DFS and betting plays.
Aloha everyone it’s time for 2024 and the RotoWire rundown you know me I’m Keith Stewart from read the line and of course I am joined by RotoWire Senior Golf writer award-winning Len hawber Len happy New Year how are the holidays for you very good Keith happy New Year back
At you looking forward to another uh golf season a calendar year of golf uh so ready to go yeah 0 to 60 miles an hour really quick for this 35 week run of the FedEx Cup point series four majors eight Signature Events um what else can we
Throw in there maybe the Olympics I don’t know we’re going to be there every week breaking it down giving you the rundown week one we’re off in Maui familiar spot the sentury no longer the Tournament of Champions although we have a lot of winners there 59 guys in the
Field although everyone seems to be talking about two guys that aren’t there one who went to live that’s John ROM and the second Rory who tends not to play in Maui he’s taking a little more time off for the new year that was the big three last year with Scotty Sheffer going in
Going into the 20203 season 2024 starts can anyone beat Sheffer at kaaloa I mean what’s gonna happen here you know when you say can anyone beat Scotty Sheffer at kaaloa the first name that comes to mind is Scotty Sheffer um you know as great as he was last year and he was
Great he did win the Hero World Challenge ending a long winless drought especially considering the way he he played all year but you know I am still waiting to see how Scotty Sheffer putts this year in 20202 24 202024 um you know it would could have
Been a a season for the history book books it was a season for the history books even without his putting but I’m going to wait and see kaaloa especially difficult uh to putt the enormous enous greens the largest we will see on tour all year here in week one about 8700
Square feet on average a lot of undulations and trickiness and not overly fast so that’s my concern with Scotty shuffler I am and at $1,000 in DraftKings he is not one of my picks this week well I tell you what Len you and all the other people who think that
Scotty doesn’t have a chance I’ve got news for you I know it’s just week one but but I gotta I got I gotta set you straight here kaaloa last year was Scotty sheffer’s best putting performance he gained almost three Strokes with the Putter and came in seventh he’s played there twice both
Times coming in the top 13 um he’s the best ball striker in the world I don’t love him at plus 625 and I don’t know that i’ bet him to outright but in the prop Market in the live betting Market there’s a ton of places you could take
Advantage of him top American if you want to add that to an outright you could go first round although I wouldn’t go there with his skill set I might wait a couple rounds and you can get him at plus 650 as the third round leader um so
There’s all sorts of options there um I fear for the field in this case though because when it comes to caloa the favorites do tend to play very well in the last 10 years there’s only been one winner with pre-tournament odds over 22 to1 and that was Harris English so uh it
May be it maybe what we saw a month ago at the hero but we shall see I mean the reason I like Sheffer is because his skill set really mirrors what you need at kaaloa that par 73 scorecard it’s Unique but tell me more about what’s unique there at
7,596 yard layout yeah I think the first thing that comes to everybody every everybody’s mind is length because it’s a long course I think it’s the third longest course they will see all year besides the largest greens third largest course behind Tory Pines and punana in the Dominican Republic um so people
Think you got to hit the ball far but really kind of everybody hits the ball far here even the shorter hitters get the downhill downwind experience and I’m looking more at the short game uh as I mentioned the greens are very difficult to negotiate especially for first timers
There are about onethird of the field 17 18 19 first timers here and the golfers always talk how difficult the greens are and how you have to come back a couple of times to really get to the feel for it so I’m looking at short game uh
Scrambling as well as putting last year John ROM won he led the field in putting Colin moow was runner up he was second in putting Max H tied for third he was fourth in putting really this will come down at least to the between the winner
And the and the alsoo Rands the the guys right behind them should come down to who does better on the greens yeah as usual you are spot on there with your course analysis you know if you look at the last five winners on average they’ve gained over five Strokes against the
Field with that flat stick uh it’s definitely one of those places where you’ve got to hit quadrants of the greens and then you’ve you’ve got to make 25 plus birdie putts I mean the average winning score over the last 5 years is 25 under so you probably need a
Couple Eagles in there too it it’s just a fantastically um great opening week layout it’s so entertaining and one of the unique things about this and I’ll add to the course preview is that with those 100 yard wide Fairways and all the all the terrain changes there’s a lot of
Collection areas off the te so the guys tend to you know basically sit in the same area and approach all all the greens from the same places and I think that this place takes a bit of a bipolar player if you hear me out on this for a
Second I know that sounds strange but when you look at the approach there’s nine holes there’s two long par 3es there’s four par fives and then there’s three par fours over 500 yards those are all long iron approaches yet eight of the nine remaining holes you need a
Wedge in your hand so you’ve got to be great with a wedge and inside 100 yards getting the ball in scoring position to make all those birdies and then on those longer holes you got to be able to hit those par fives and two with a long iron
So I think with you the putter for sure and this kind of bipolar you know polar opposite approach game I think that’s going to lead to the contenders and of course that leads us to how we close every week at the rundown with some names Len give him the DFS names for
This week at the Sentry yeah well I’m going to like I mentioned I’m going to steer clear of Scotty sheffler not that I don’t think he’ll do well but he’s $1,000 and I think we can spend our money Better In other places Rory was the number two guy the prices came out
Before we found out that Rory wasn’t going to play which was interesting Victor hlin number three at 10,500 he is my top guy this week he has never finished better than 18th in this tournament but over the past 12 months since last year at caloa he has become
An incredibly I’ve never seen a play in improve in one area of a game in such a short period as Victor havlin has with his short game it’s really been the one weaknesses his of his game before that and now he is a a complete player he’s
Not the best wedge player he’s not the best chipper and pitcher on tour but with the rest of his game it’s good enough I look for him to do uh very well mentioned Max Homer earlier Max Homer has played this course three times before he’s improved every year from
25th to 15th to to time for third last year again a great putter on occasion he could be right there really my favorite play $99,100 Colin morawa I don’t know why there are so many guys ahead of him he’s played this tournament four times he’s never finished worse than seventh
He really should have won last year but he had C collapsed on the final round in the final round and by collapsed I mean he shot only one under 72 while John ROM beat him by nine shot on Sunday to steal the tournament ludig aerg I think will
Be a very popular pick at $8,700 but he’s a coar rookie here at caloa I don’t know if he can really win and I think maybe overall we should pump the brakes a little bit on lud gabber at the start of this year but at 8700 I
Like him a lot moving into the sevens Eric Cole 7,400 he just never went away last year after the Honda he came out of nowhere and just decided to stay JT posting at 72 hey when you got to make putts let’s take a flyer on one of the
Top Putters in the field Cam Davis at 7100 he’s on my short list of guys who really can take a Next Level leap in their career this year we already saw at the end of last year in the second half of last year a lot of top 10 I really
Think this is his time to take the next step in his career and my one final pick Bargain Basement down at 6200 Luke list very interesting Keith the difference between the DFS pricing and the betting odds Luke list is at 6200 better than only five guys in the field on the DFS
Side of things but on the betting side he’s 100 to one there are about a third of the field about 20 guys Christ longer odds than him so I I like the odds makers here I think they’ve got luk list pegged pretty well here much more so
Than the DFS guys and we can take advantage of that with a $6,200 price yeah I don’t think we’re going to see uh too many ludig oberg prices in the 8K range you know going forward for the season I’m with you on pump the braks it’s not like he’s going to win every
Week but boy he looks steady when it comes time to ball striking and this is a ball Striker’s paradise and speaking of paradise I think you’ve also been reading my notes because when I start to break down the betting board at the top my guy I to win for sure is Colin morawa
His odds started out the week plus 1600 plus 1500 it’s already down to plus 1200 I’m not the only one that thinks this revenge is definitely one of those things that’s got to be on his mind last year he started the final round with a six- shot lead and he eventually lost to
John Rah he was the first guy to shoot under par in a PGA Tour event and lose in six years in the final round boy I tell you and his skill set it just matches impeccable wedge game player great long iron player and he put well
There in the mid Zone I like Matt Fitzpatrick he’s been posting all over social media we know he’s practicing his length and his scrambling ability makes him awesome on the par fives there he won in the fall he was fourth at the hero and then and this is where I think
You were really stealing my notes but the Australians always play well at caloa and at 80 to1 plus 8,000 Cam Davis is the only guy I’m going to take a flyer on down there at the bottom of the board as I said earlier it tends to the
Favorites tend to do very well here but Cam Davis is one of those guys he didn’t start the year healthy last year and he is this year that fall was really really strong great wedge player he’s been there before he has experience and in the last 20 years we’ve had six
Australian winners he’s coming off summer down under so you know he’s going to be in good form and he’s gonna be ready to take down the field of 59 you know we got 38 of the top 50 in the official World Golf Ranking here here at
Kaaloa do you have one other name or do you have one other thought for the century before we wrap up the rundown well when you mentioned Matt Fitzpatrick I I was shaking my head and I agree with you on Fitzpatrick he actually is in the
Picks in my one of my pics in my article that will be up later today on Roa wire I just didn’t mention him here he’s a little bit high priced at 9500 uh that’s but he did finish seventh here as a kaaloa rookie last year which
Really has a has me feeling good that he was able to figure out the greens pretty quickly and now he’s got four rounds under his belt there he could do even better this year so I like that pick a lot Keith I tell you you know a lot of
People they’re goingon to model out guys like turl Hatton and Tommy Fleetwood but you know what as an Englishman Fitzpatrick wins and I get you I mean Colin morawa being cheaper on the DFS sport I mean this is why you and I get together for the Run down because the
Comparison that you brought up earlier about Luke list really Rings true for our listeners and our viewers I mean you have to pay attention to these things which Market are you playing and where is the best value fits on the betting board probably a better value than on
The DFS board but good plays in both places if you can budget for them there’s no doubt about it that’s what makes the rundown so much fun so here we are every Tuesday you can join Len hawber and I and you know what it’s not
Just Tuesday the rest of the week you go to rootwire and you’ll find all of Len’s work right there and for me you can go to readthe line.com and you could check me out as well the rundown will be back next week for the First full field PGA
Tour event of the year we’ll still be island hopping out there in Sony so in that note or in that vein Len guess what Aloha it means goodbye I’ll see you in a week my friend nice props Keith see you then okay
