Sentry First Click: The debut of Model Monday, course history and more

The first event of the 2025 PGA Tour season has arrived as we are just days away from The Sentry taking place at the Plantation Course at Kapalua.

FedEx Cup points have reset, and it’s anyone's ballgame after world No.1 Scottie Scheffler ran away with the race last year before claiming the second FedEx Cup title of his career in the playoffs. 

But after playing in this event in 2023 and 2024, Scheffler will miss it this year due to a hand injury he suffered while…making Christmas dinner. 

With Scheffler - and his nine 2024 wins - out of the mix and world No. 3 Rory McIlroy skipping this event for the sixth straight year, this feels like as good of an opportunity as ever for someone to start 2025 with a win. 

Join me as I highlight some notable stats and trends to help make your picks for The Sentry this week while also sharing my first click of the week. 

As we enter year two of this column, we have the debut of a new segment - Model Monday - where I’ll fire up my trusty model from Rickrungood.com in search of a winner. 

This is a model that produced a number of winners in 2024, most notably Jhonattan Vegas 75-1 at the 3M and Patton Kizzire 150-1 at the Procore Championship. 

Let’s get to the action. 

Plantation Course at Kapalua course history 

(OTT:  Off-The-Tee / APP: Approach / BS: Ball-Striking (OTT +APP) / ARG: Around-The-Green / PUTT: Putting / SG: Short-Game / T2G: Tee-To-Green / TOT: Total)

After missing the playoffs in 2023, Justin Thomas bounced back with a solid season, returning to the Tour Championship and finishing the year tied for 14th in the FedEx Cup standings. 

However, Thomas was left off the Presidents Cup team in 2024, missing the event for the first time since making the 2017 team. The “snub” seems to have lit a fire under Thomas as he finished the year strong with a T2 at the ZOZO Championship in October and a solo third at the Hero World Challenge in December. 

Now, he starts 2025 at The Sentry after not qualifying for the event in 2024. No player in this field has performed better on this course than Thomas as he looks to add to his resume here, which already features two wins and three other top-five finishes. 

Best IN 2024 

Before we get to the model, let’s take a look at the 10 best players in this field according to their strokes gained numbers in 2024. 

(OTT:  Off-The-Tee / APP: Approach / BS: Ball-Striking (OTT +APP) / ARG: Around-The-Green / PUTT: Putting / SG: Short-Game / T2G: Tee-To-Green / TOT: Total)

I’ll have more on Xander Schauffele later. But for good reason, the two-time major winner is the favourite in this field. 

Xander was very clearly the second-best player in the world in 2024 behind Scheffler. He was No. 1 in scrambling, No. 2 in three-putt avoidance, No. 3 in Total Putting, and ranked inside the top 5 in several other categories. 

For years, we wondered if the X-man could “win the big one,” and he silenced us all in 2024 by winning not one but two majors. 

Meanwhile, Matt McCarty is quietly proving himself to be a winner. The 27-year-old won three times in a five-week span on the Korn Ferry Tour this summer to earn a three-win promotion to the PGA Tour. 

It didn’t take McCarty long to find the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour, and in his second start, he won the Black Desert Championship. Success on the PGA Tour isn’t evergreen, though and McCarty has missed the cut in both starts since his win. 

While he’s second on this list, it’s important to note that 92 of his 104 recorded strokes gained rounds in 2024 came on the Korn Ferry Tour, so take those numbers with a grain of salt. 

MODEL MONDAY 

It’s just another Model Monday. 
Trying to cash on Sunday. 
‘Cause that’s my fun day. 
My sit on the couch and watch golf day. 
It’s just another Model Monday. 

After having a subscription to Rickrungood.com for nearly five years, I stumbled upon a winning formula using his custom model tool. 

For years, I would log on to his site and crunch numbers, trying to find any stats that could point me to who would win that week’s event. It was a grind, and I’d often end up in a rabbit hole, leading to overthinking and losing. 

And then, one night it hit me. 

No matter where you play golf, if you do a few key things better than most, you’re going to contend and win events. 

Those things are: 

Drive the ball well 
Hit greens in regulation 
Make birdies 

Golf is a straightforward game when you think about it. And anyone who plays the sport tells you if you drive it well and hit greens, you’re bound for success. 

So, I punch five stats in this model each week and give it a run. Those stats are: 

Strokes Gained Tee to Green 
Birdie or Better percentage 
Greens in Regulation percentage 
SG: Total 2+ 
Total Driving 

This model led to several winners for me to close the year (Vegas 75-1 at 3M, Aaron Rai 33-1 at Wyndham, Kizzire 170-1 at Procore, Tyrrell Hatton 18-1 first-round leader at Alfred Dunhill,) so let’s see if it can stay hot as we enter 2025. 

The model is straightforward. Once all the stats are loaded, it grades every player in the field with a score of 1-100. I then take any player listed at 80 or higher and dive into some course history or anything else to help separate the names I’m left with. 

I like to look at player’s most recent 36 rounds as it feels like a decent indicator of what kind of shape their game is in. 

This week, four players meet my threshold of 80 or higher. They are: 

Xander Schauffele 88.48
Davis Thompson 83.21
Ludvig Aberg 81.34
Viktor Hovland 80.00 

Schauffele ranks inside the top 10 in four of my five categories with only his birdie or better percentage (29th) on the outside looking in. 

Meanwhile, Davis Thompson has the longest outright odds of my four-pack coming in at 50-1. He ranks inside the top 20 in all five categories. 

Over the last 36 rounds, no player in this field has a Total Driving better than Ludvig Aberg, and he is second in SG: Total 2+, meaning only one player (Nick Dunlap) is gaining at least two strokes per round more often than Aberg. 

And finally, Viktor Hovland ranks inside the top 20 in all five stats, but his status for this week remains up in the air after breaking his toe last week. 

FIRST CLICK 

Now that the stats and models are out of the way, here is my first click for 2025. 

Ludvig Aberg Top 10 +160. 

The 25-year-old has made two starts since returning from knee surgery that held him out of action for a few months, finishing T17 at the RSM Classic and sixth at the Hero World Challenge. 

The Sentry was one of Aberg’s worst finishes on Tour last year, with a T47 in an event which featured him losing strokes in every category for the first and only time in his career. 

I expect him to bounce back this year in a big way. 

Another reason I like Aberg this week is the comp this course gets to Augusta National Golf Club. Due to the wide and undulating fairways, players who often succeed in this event can have similar success at the Masters. 

Notable winners on this course and at the Masters include: Jon Rahm (2023), Cameron Smith (2022), Dustin Johnson (2018), Jordan Spieth (2016) and Patrick Reed (2015). 

With Aberg finishing second at the Masters last year, I don’t see any reason why he can’t put up a good result on this course. So, I will lock in Aberg Top 10 as my first click of the year.