In the first full-field event of 2023, the PGA Tour hops Hawaiian islands for the second event of the “Aloha Swing”, going from Maui to O’ahu for the Sony Open played at the classical Waialae Country Club in Honolulu. With legendary figures such as Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino and Ben Crenshaw having graced the property and won championships here, the course carries on still today, withstanding the test of time. Having hosted the Sony Open since 1965, it is the third oldest annual course on Tour, only behind Colonial Country Club and Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Waialae CC is known as a shot-makers golf course distinguished by its narrow corridors, sharp doglegs, unpredictable Bermuda rough, and firm greens. It is a positional track that has effectively neutralized any advantages held by bombers off the tee. In essence, this week is all about strategy, position and shot-making on a tight and flat course. In the words of Kevin Kisner, “I like that it’s a shot-maker’s golf course. It’s a shorter, ball-striker’s paradise. You’ve got to play to certain spots. I think it’s Point A to Point B and make some putts.”
Coming off four rounds at the Plantation Course at Kapalua, this week will present quite the contrast with the completely divergent Waialae CC. While Kapalua has enormous amounts of slope and is the toughest walk in golf, Waialae is one of the flattest courses on Tour and is perhaps the easiest walk. The sizes of both courses are also completely different. Whereas Kapalua has massively wide fairways, Waialae has tight tree-lined corridors. The greens are also dissimilar from each other. Kapalua’s are much bigger with more slope and grain while Waialae’s are smaller, flatter, and easier to make putts.
While not a complete birdie-fest, minus the wind-blown 2020 event, the average winning score over the past five tournaments has been 22-under par. It’s a course where if you hit good shots, you can make a birdie on almost every hole. But if you are in the rough or out of position, you have a tough scramble for par.
The Field
19 golfers who played in last week’s Tournament of Champions are making the short trip to Honolulu this week. As the course trends show, those who did not play last week will need to shake off the competitive rust and will be at a slight disadvantage.
While not the star-studded event we saw at Kapalua, it is still a quality field with eight of the top 25 and 22 of the top 65 in the Official World Golf Rankings in attendance. There are still a number of headliners including Jordan Spieth, Tom Kim, Sungjae Im, and last year’s champion, Hideki Matsuyama.
Being the first cut event of the year, the 144 golfers in the field will be “cut” to the top 65 players, including ties, by the end of Friday afternoon’s second round.
Course History
Completed in 1926 by legendary architect, Seth Raynor, the course, at what is now Waialae Country Club was first opened in 1927. Raynor was known for designing courses with exceptional routing that made players think their way around the property. It has many of the same characteristics as the classical “Golden Age” of golf courses. Almost every other hole is facing a different direction, forcing players to shape their shots and account for the wind at all times.
Raynor’s mentor and friend was the legendary course designer Charles Blair Macdonald. Many of the courses Raynor designed were influenced by Macdonald’s thoughts and ideas. He also incorporated elements from Scottish links-style courses that forced golfers to be creative shot-makers and to think their way around the property.
Unfortunately, Raynor passed away from pneumonia in 1926 just after completing Waialae. Originally named “The Royal Hawaiian Hotel and Waialae Golf Course”, it was built by the Territorial Hotel Company as part of a promotional program to develop luxury travel trade to Hawaii. And much like resort courses today, it was meant to be used by anyone staying at the hotel. Then in 1930, a collection of players at the course decided to designate it as an exclusive club in which the name was changed to Waialae Country Club.
In the years after the Great Depression during the 1930s, business started to dramatically slow due to people not being able to afford to travel to vacation spots. When a fire destroyed portions of the clubhouse in 1941, it was decided that major renovations were needed. It was slow at first because parts of the course were used to aid the military during World War 2, but in the years after things started to progress. Amenities were added and certain holes were moved and redesigned in the early 1960s.
By 1965, Waialae Country Club was ready to host a PGA Tour event. The first Hawaiian Open on the PGA Tour was held at the course in November 1965. Since then, a PGA Tour event has been held here every year with the exception of 1970. Over time there have been numerous minor renovations to the course led by architects including: Robert Trent Jones, Desmond Muirhead, Rick Smith and Tom Doak.
Past Leaderboards/Weather
Finish Position and Strokes Gained History (2015-2022)
Waialae Country Club
Waialae Country Club is a shorter par 70 course that sits at 7,044 yards. Tucked away to the east of the sprawling city of Honolulu, the course only has a couple of holes bordering the ocean. Many of the holes are hundreds of yards inland and are somewhat protected from the trade winds by the palm-tree-lined fairways.
Waialae is a tight, flat, technical, coastal track that tends to favor shorter more accurate hitters who are creative both in their strategy and shot-making skills. While those types have had great success here, bigger hitters have the potential to cut across some of the doglegs and can shorten the course even further. Overall, however, the power game has mostly proven fruitless as bombers who cut corners and end up in the 3-inch Bermuda rough will have to deal with “fliers” jumping out of the thick grass on approach. Because the big hitters do not have an advantage, Waialae does a great job of leveling the field.
The routing of the layout is excellent. The course features one of the highest amounts of dogleg holes on Tour. Raynor designed it not to favor one ball-flight type over the other as there is an equal mix of holes that turn both left and right. The variety of tee-to-green directions forces players to think and plot their way around the course.
Depending on recent precipitation, Waialae tends to play fast and firm. While it does have tight tree-lined corridors, the fairways are actually the 14th widest on Tour at an average of 35.9 yards across. Nevertheless, because the course typically plays firm and the angles are so tight, hitting fairways are at a premium. Drives landing in the fairway and bouncing into the rough are a regular occurrence. As Charles Howell III said a few years back, “It’s a course where you always have to play your angles and plan your misses.”
Many of the 83 bunkers on the course are very well-positioned and laid out in a well-thought-out and challenging manner. And unlike last week, water comes into play on four holes. The wind is by far the course’s biggest defense. Winds have been mostly calm over the last number of years here with the exception of 2020 in which Cam Smith won at a score of only 11-under. While scoring can be shaped by the strength of the coastal breezes, when conditions are calmer, there are a ton of birdies out there as it ranks as the 9th-easiest course on Tour. If the wind cooperates, scores should easily be able to push beyond 20-under again. If the wind is blowing, greens become very difficult to hit. This is one of the reasons why course history is so advantageous here because knowing the right spots to miss when the wind does blow presents an edge for those who play here year after year.
Hole Analysis
The first eight holes are among the toughest opening stretches on Tour as only the 3rd and 7th holes average under par. Four of those eight holes have a bogey or worse rate of 20% or higher. Once players hit the par-5 9th hole it becomes smoother sailing as seven of the remaining 10 holes average under par.
As is the case with most par 70 courses, there are two more par-4s and two fewer par-5s on which to score. This really puts a premium on par-4 scoring as players do not have a full complement of scoring holes that typically come with par-5s. In fact, 11 of the holes are between the 400-480 yard range.
The two par-5s are the easiest par-5s on Tour with a scoring average of only 4.32 per hole. Each is also relatively short and can be reached in two shots, setting up potential eagle putts. In fact, over the last decade, the field has averaged 0.13 eagles per round which is one of the highest rates on Tour, and on a par-70 course at that. Sitting at 506 and 551 yards respectively, it can not be emphasized how short and easy the par-5s are for everyone who can keep their ball in the short grass.
Strokes Gained Analysis
The “Correlation” chart shows how many Strokes Gained (SG) from each category (for the entire field) were correlated to a player’s SG: Total. The higher the average, the more important that area is to success. I have also included the 5-year PGA Tour course average for each metric to allow for easy comparisons to the current event. As you can see below, surprisingly, gaining with Driving Distance is still an advantage even at Waialae. SG: OTT and SG: Putting both see an increase in importance from a full-field perspective. But putting and approach are still the most important metrics at Waialae. It’s important to remember that the “Difference” column is only relative as a comparison to the average Tour course.
Analyzing the metrics from a different perspective, the Strokes Gained Average chart below looks at performance per round based on finishing position. The value percentage gives a strong indication across the board of which SG areas matter the most. As you can see below, the last five winners of the Sony Open were very successful both on the greens and on approach.
Off the Tee
With its tight driving corridors, six doglegs and positional accuracy needed for quality approach shot angles, Waialae presents a challenge off the tee. As previously mentioned, the fairway width is actually wider than average, but the corridors are much more narrow as the palm trees and other vegetation enclose on all sides.
The data shows that Driving Accuracy is 4% tougher than the average Tour course. While Driving Distance is actually slightly above average here, most players club down off the tee with irons on numerous holes as having the proper angle on approach shots and staying out of the rough is more vital than distance. Golfers hitting “less than driver” is another reason for why Driving Accuracy is not lower than it is. There are perhaps more long irons hit off the tee here than anyplace else. Justin Thomas said that he hit almost exclusively 2-irons off the tee which left him with short approaches into the greens.
Because Waialae favors accuracy over distance off the tee, it does a great job of allowing every player type to compete this week by leveling the field. Whoever can shape their drive into the best target zones on the fairway from which to access some of the trickier pin positions on the greens will have a huge edge.
With increases in distance over the years, more players have started to take aggressive lines from the tee, but there is danger with the ball running through the fairway and into the rough and having to hit an unpredictable 70-yard wedge that knuckles up to the green. The 3-inch rough at Waialae is longer than it’s been in previous years and is definitely long enough to make it difficult to control the spin. Golfers that have played here multiple times and understand where and when to lay up are going to have an advantage.
One of the subtleties of Waialae is that thanks to the angles on so many of the holes, there is typically one side of the fairway (or rough) that is a better place to be positioned for the approach shot compared to the opposite side. As Russell Henley remarked, “You just have to pick what side of the fairway you want to miss. There’s usually one side out here that’s better than the other.” Golfers that mostly play a fade or a draw can be affected by the strong crosswinds that will push the ball in the opposite direction. This is another reason why it benefits players to be able to hit all types of shots whenever the course or conditions call for it.
Approach
While the greens are very receptive with a GIR rate of 71% (5% higher than the average), this course will definitely test the short to mid-iron performance of these golfers. Over 68% of all approach shots are hit from the 125-200 yard range—23% more than the Tour average. Wedges from 50-125 yards are hit 32% less of the time, while shots from 225+ are hit 61% less than average. Many analysts have remarked about the “small” greens here (and some holes do have tiny greens) when in actuality, at 7,100 square feet on average, they are the 7th-largest on the Tour!
You will hear this many times throughout the year related to different courses, but Waialae is a true second-shot course. It is also a course where, because of the angles, it becomes target golf. On many holes, you are hitting Point A to be in the best position to hit the ball to Point B. The approach game is another area where strategy and shot-making come into play. Many hole locations are tucked into certain corners and challenging quadrants on the green requiring golfers to hit quality irons shots. Many of the greens have back-to-front sloping. Zach Johnson said that one of the keys to success is keeping the course in front of you at all times, and then once on the green to keep the ball below the pin.
While proximity to the hole from the fairway (27 feet) is much easier than the average, proximity from the rough (46 feet) is one of the most difficult on Tour. And with the rough listed at three inches this year instead of the normal 2.5, finding the fairway takes on even stronger importance.
Around the Green and Putting
The short game on and around the greens is very straightforward at Waialae. While the longer Bermuda rough has definitely posed more of a challenge (10% tougher than Tour average!), scrambling from around the greens has typically been around 5% easier than the average. As many players have remarked, those that have grown up playing on Bermuda rough and on the grainy-style greens will have a distinct advantage. Adam Scott spoke about how the need to scramble around the greens will affect everyone at some point. “I just don’t think anyone can get it around this course consistently without scrambling. It is really tough to keep it in play all day and under holes and not be in this gnarly rough.”
As is the case when “target golf” comes into play, putting is very important to success at Waialae. Last year’s winner, Matsuyama, gained a career-high 7.3 strokes putting on these greens. While there are some undulations around pin placements, overall, these greens are some of the flattest and easiest to putt on Tour.
Other than One-putt %, every other statistic from 3-putt avoidance to overall putting average is easier than normal. Raynor’s original green design was much more creative than what we see now, but much of that has been lost over time.
Even those with experience on Bermuda have mentioned how the grain on these can be tough to read. Two years ago, Kevin Na emphasized this by saying, “The greens roll great, but the only difficult part is the grains are sometimes difficult to judge. We’ve had a couple putts this week where it looks like it’s going to do one thing and it doesn’t. If you can just read these greens well, you’re going to be really ahead of the field.”
Most Important Stats For Success at Waialae Country Club
*In order of importance
- SG: APP
- Fairways Gained
- Par 4 Scoring
- SG: Putting (Bermuda)
- Birdie or Better %
- Proximity 125-200 yds
- Waialae CC Course History
- Par 4: 400-500
- Bogeys Avoided
- Rough Proximity
Early Weather Forecast – Honolulu, Hawaii
