SONY OPEN CHEATSHEET: Bets, Weather, New Underdog Drafts, DraftKings Notes

Jan 14, 2026

2026 SONY OPEN PREVIEW

Since it’s OPENING WEEK on the PGA TOUR, I’m doing a special LIVE SHOW Wednesday evening to take any question you may have and run through the latest news. It starts at 8pm ET. Oh, I’ll be giving away the last FREE ENTRY into the One and Done Contest too.

LIVE at 8pm ET: 2026 Sony Open Q&A 🔴 Betting, Fantasy Golf & FREE One-And-Done Entry | First Round Leaders

In order to get in the FREE ENTRY draw you need to have a paid entry into the One and Done to begin with. There is less than 1000 spots left with about 16 hours to go, so pick one up so wait a year to have another chance to play!

JOIN THE MAYO CUP ONE & DONE CONTEST FOR 2026

SONY OPEN QUICK BETS

Aaron Rai +4000 (Boosted to +4200 Currently at Coolbet 👀)
Chris Kirk +4500
Matt McCarty +5000
Daniel Berger +7500
Billy Horschel +8000

BOMBS

Pierceson Coody +10000 (With Top 5)
Austin Eckroat +125000 (With Top 5)
Joe Highsmith +60000 (With Top 5)

FIRST ROUND LEADER

All AM Wave Players

Keith Mitchell +5500
Austin Eckroat +8000
Adam Schnek +11000 (With Top 5)
Cameron Davis +12500 (With Top 5)

ONE AND DONE

Mayo: Rai
Geoff: Kitayama
Cust: Taylor

HOT LINKS

SONY OPEN PICKS

Aaron Rai +4000 — If you’re trying to find the perfect combo of accuracy, irons, putting, and course comp success, you’re going to be spending up for Russell Henley. If you’re good with taking three of the four and praying for a respectable putting week at four times the odds, Rai’s the guy. Winner at the Wyndham in 2024 and recently a champion at the first stage of the DP World Tour playoff sin Abu Dhabi, Rai’s up to 23rd in the world rankings, and sits fourth in this field in driving accuracy, seventh in approach, and 19th in comp course performance.

Daniel Berger +7500 — Berger started the 2025 HOT, with multiple Top 3 finishes and Top 25s in nine of his first 12 starts, including The Masters, PLAYERS and signature events. Over Bergers final 10 starts, he failed to finish inside the Top 30 in any event; possibly explained away by a finger injury. But it’s clear what the problem was: Chipping. Berger remained on the most accurate players off the tee and his irons were solid, but he started losing almost a stroke PER ROUND around the greens. This from a player who hadn’t finished a season in the negatives since 2018. Clearly something mental. Berger’s won at comp course Pebble and Colonial already in his career, so this is a very reasonable price on a high-end player who may have gotten his act together over the break.

Chris Kirk +4500 — Kirk fades it perfectly for this course. Couple that with his excellent form to end the Swing Season and his impeccable course history and we’ve got a lurker on our hands. Beyond annual success at the Sony Open, Kirk has won in Hawaii before at Kapalua while picking up wins at comp courses PGA National and Colonial in his career.

Matt McCarty +5000 — McCarty is accurate off the tee, excels in the key approach range (150-200), and can putt the lights out. Notched Top 15s in each of his final two swing season starts to end 2025 too.

Billy Horschel +8000 — Spent most of 2025 injured, but has looked spry in his TGL appearance. If Horschel’s truly back to full health he’s the exact skill set you’d want here at a pretty deep price.

Austin Eckroat +125000 (With Top 5) & Joe Highsmith +60000 (With Top 5) — Both former PGA National winner, which has shown a ton of crossover on leaderboards with similar strength of fields. Don’t have too much faith in Hightsmith but the odds are so long, why not? If Eckroat can’t putt — something he does about five times a year — his accuracy/Irons combo is perfectly suited for this course.

WEATHER

We didn’t have to venture far into the 2026 PGA TOUR to start dealing with weather concerns. Current forecasts from Waialae show consistently harsh winds all day Friday and Saturday, so all players appear like they’ll have to adapt equally. Thursday, however, looks to be a different story.

The overnight rain is projected to stop just before first tee into relatively benign conditions. For most of the AM wave, there is expected to be low winds versus the 20+ mph consistent wind waiting for the PM wave.

I use terms like “Looks”, “Forecasted”, “Expected” and “Projected” because this is weather we’re talking about. It’s the only thing with a lower hit rate than people who give out golf picks. If that rain persists a few hours longer, there’s far more rain than expected and there’s a delay, it pushes all the players in the easier side into gusty conditions.

One of the fortunate things from this forecast is that the high winds are expected to stay for days after this brief lull. So, even if AM wave players miss the low wind hour in swift conditions, it’ll simply put them in the same scenario as the PM wave. Making it an excellent spot to take a home run cut.

All of my first round leader bets this week come from the AM wave.

Sony Open Windtower: Waialae Beach Park / Oahu

2026 SONY OPEN DRAFTKINGS

I spelled out the potential wind advantage and I decided to stack up that wave. I’ve entered 75 DraftKings lineups this week — So far. Lock isn’t until Noon ET on Thursday, so I have plenty of time to stew in all morning and talk myself into more. You know how it goes — and 35 of those lineups are built with only players from the AM wave.

This is being reflected in the projected ownership as well. In fact, these numbers may get more staggered if more people decided to look into the weather. Of the top sic projected owned players, only one is from the PM wave (Hideki)

Stats & Tools Provided by Betsperts Golf Rabbit Hole

Now, I’ve been known to be wrong, so I did make 10 lineups with just the PM wave players as well. Since almost no one will be doing this, the unique combo of players can give you extreme leverage if the weather somehow equals out.

Here’s a list of players I used in that wave.

NOTE: Access to both Fantasy National and the Rabbit Hole tools will both be available under one sub by the end of the month. They’re working out the back end kinks to make sure it’s functional from Day 1.

2026 SONY OPEN UNDERDOG

There are two season-long PGA Best Ball contests with spots still remaining if you wanted to get for the year. But there’s also a BRAND NEW DRAFT FORMAT fro 2026. Underdog is now offering Player Drafts for the ENTIRE EVENT instead of just a single round. It’s so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, much better.

Six people draft teams of six against each other. Most points overall from all those drafts wins. Simple, quick, and a ton of fun. Plus, since it’s a brand new game, no one has the proper strategy yet. If you can figure it out you can win a ton. And if you do figure it out, let me know please.

For the Sony Open, I build my rankings (under the rankings tab on the Underdog desktop site) and used only players from the AM wave. Here’s what I have through 21 drafts. I’ll likely switch up my rankings and drop my top exposure players down a bit so blemd my teams a bit better. There’s going to be a learning curve.

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