With a nice record in this event, a game well-suited to the Waialae Country Club course, and a nice week in Hawaii already under his belt, Justin Thomas looks like a solid choice as favorite in this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii.

The only other top-10 player in the field is Paul Casey, no. 8, and he is the second pick.

Last week Thomas was named to a list of the “Ten Best-Mannered People” from 2018 by the National League of Junior Cotillions. Well of course, that plus four bucks will get you an excellent coffee. Nice guy that he is, Thomas didn’t do much last fall after a solid 4-1 showing in the Ryder Cup. He was fifth in the CIMB, then outside the top 20 in the CJ Cup and 12th in the World Challenge. Overall he’s just about where he was at this time last year, no. 2 in the world per the Hawley Ratings with a rating number about 99% of what it was then.

One area where Thomas does not match up well with the field is in his performance the last four times out vs. his overall Hawley rating. Those CJ Cup and World Challenge finishes didn’t help his ratings much. The top guy in this area is Scott Piercy, who is up to 68th in the ratings after his string of three straight top-10s ended with a top-20 in the Champions last week. Rookie Cameron Champ, who cracked the top 100 for the first time around Thanksgiving after winning the Sanderson, is second with two top-10s and an 11th in his last four appearances. Others on the upswing include Adam Hadwin, Abraham Ancer, Patton Kizzire, and Si Woo Kim.

Jordan Spieth, trying to bounce back from a disappointing 2018, is the only other top-20 player in the field. However, most of the rest of the top 50 will tee it up at Waialae, just a few miles southeast of Honolulu on the Oahu coast.

Based on the results of the last eight years, the stats most closely associated with success on this course are scrambling, greens in regulation, and driving distance, in that order, per the Hawley course fit statistics. Champ’s statistical profile is the best match among players in this field for that set of stats; Thomas is second and Gary Woodland third. The top guys tend to dominate in this area but several lesser-knowns came out of the fall events looking like they can contend. That includes Cameron Davis, Kramer Hickok, Joel Dahmen, and Wes Roach.