Riding waves in Hawaii brings joy to many but when it comes to golf betting how do you make sure you’re on a long ride to happiness rather than jumping on a large closeout on the North Shore?

Before lack of light forced the suspension of the opening round at the Sony Open in Hawaii with 10 players still to wrap up their efforts, the leaderboard at Waialae Country Club was tight at the top.

A total of 52 players were all within four shots of the lead shared by former FedExCup champion Jordan Spieth, two-time event runner up Chris Kirk and leading rookie Taylor Montgomery.

The key now is pinpointing which players can be expected to continue to surge and might be worth backing, and which might find themselves stuck in a riptide and might need to be laid?

It’s not an exact science but given the trends of the past, like the reliance on putting in recent times for winners at Waialae, we can take an educated shot at it.

BACKS

Chris Kirk (-6, T1)

In his 12 previous runs at the Sony Open in Hawaii Kirk has four top-10s and was twice a runner-up including 2021. Is now 38-under in his last nine rounds at Waialae with eight of them at 66 or better. Kirk sits fourth in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting knowing 12 of the last 13 winners have been inside the top 10 of the statistic for the week.

Denny McCarthy (-5, T4)

McCarthy has a huge advantage in the second round, due to go off in the first group off the 10th tee with next to no wind forecast and perfect conditions. McCarthy is in just his second Sony Open in Hawaii appearance (T48, 2022) but is one of the games great putters and on perfectly fresh rolled surfaces he could easily improve his current tournament rank of 14th in Strokes Gained: Putting. He managed a 65 despite missing twice from inside 10-feet, a rare occurrence for McCarthy.

Maverick McNealy (-4, T11)

McNealy ranks fourth this season in Strokes Gained: Putting and ranked 15th in the metric over the first round at Waialae suggesting he’s had no trouble figuring out the Bermuda speeds.

BONUS: The three players above did NOT play at the Sentry Tournament of Champions last week. As such they will need to buck a trend that has seen eight of the last nine winners at the Sony Open in Hawaii play at Kapalua the week before. The top players on the board who played last week are:

Jordan Spieth (-6, T1)
J.J. Spaun -4, T11)
Russell Henley (-3, T22)
Brian Harman (-3, T22)
Chez Reavie (-3, T22)
J.T. Poston (-3, T22)
Hideki Matsuyama (-2, T41)
Tom Hoge (-2, T41)
Chad Ramey (-2, T41).

LAYS

Austin Smotherman (-4, T11)

In just his second Sony Open appearance (MC, 2022) Smotherman was on fire on the greens, ranking first in Strokes Gained: Putting at +4.022. The problem here is it is out of the ordinary. Leading into the tournament Smotherman ranked 120th on the PGA TOUR in the metric losing on average -0.130 strokes a round. It seems to be asking a lot for him to keep it up considering he holed 127-feet, 9 inches of putts on Thursday and also ranked 129th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee.

Ben Griffin (-5, T4)

For much the same reasons as sited with Smotherman, Ben Griffin’s 110-feet, 9-inches worth of putts was awesome, but also an outlier. Griffin has ranked 157th in SG: Putting this season but was the sixth best in the field Thursday. Also, despite being 99th in SG: Off-the-Tee this season, he improved to ninth in the opening round. Keeping it up will be tough.

David Lipsky (-5, T4)

Cue the broken record but seeing Lipsky gain +2.422 shots on the greens when his previous average this season has been -1.191 and ranked 199th on TOUR leave it very hard to have faith going forward. Lipsky managed to shoot five-under despite missing twice inside 10-feet, one of which was inside 5-feet and ranking 114th in SG: Off-the-Tee.

BETMGM Round 2 Jordan Spieth Specials

Not due off till the afternoon wave, special markets have been set up for co-leader Jordan Spieth in round 2.

To shoot 66 or lower: -125

Six or more birdies/eagles: +100

To birdie the 1st hole: +275

To make an eagle: +500

Bogey Free: +500

Some food for thought:

• Spieth’s scoring average at Waialae is 67.23 with seven of 13 rounds at 66 or better.
• Spieth had seven birdies on Thursday, making it five of 13 rounds with six or more birdies at Waialae.
• Spieth birdied the first hole (his 10th of the round) on Thursday, just the second time he’s birdied the hole. His only other birdie came opening the fourth round of 2017.
• Spieth has yet to make an eagle at Waialae.
• Spieth has never been bogey-free at Waialae.