PGA DFS Tournament Breakdown: Sony Open
Long-time grinder, stlcardinals84, breaks down his top PGA DFS tournament picks in various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for the Sony Open. Which golfers should you be targeting to try and take down the big DFS tournaments? Find out below!
After an agonizing month and half with no significant PGA TOUR action, we can all rejoice in the fact that golf is back in our lives here in the middle of January! Since golf is basically a year-round sport, a 4-6 week break always feels like forever. It’s great to be back into the swing of a new PGA TOUR season, with some fresh faces bringing new PGA TOUR cards into the mix, old veterans back in action, and perhaps some returnees from LIV at some point. We’re looking at you, Brooks Koepka.
In any case, the 2026 season lid-lifter will be the Sony Open in beautiful Hawaii. It’s always nice to see these beautiful coastal island courses at start of the year, but it makes me jealous living in the midwest where winter rages on. I have to live vicariously through warm sunshine on my television. As for the tournament, 120 golfers will tee it up to start the season at the historic Waialae Country Club.
This is one of the more predictive courses that we see on the PGA TOUR, and course history is plentiful given that this tournament has been contested at Waialae ever since its inception in 1965. Outside of the course changing from a Par 72 to a Par 70 in the middle of that stretch, most of the course is largely unchanged. It is a relatively easy course by today’s PGA TOUR standards, but we can say that about many of the courses that are on the regular rotation these days.
As for the course, Waialae sets up as your traditional ball-striking paradise. It is a shorter course that measures just over 7,000 yards from the tips. With distance not being a priority, those who can pepper fairways and greens with consistency are the ones who tend to succeed at Waialae. It’s also a course with tighter fairways than what we will see on many of today’s TOUR stops. Many golfers will club down off the tee, with accuracy and placement being more important. Scoring tends to be on the lower side when the coastal winds are not a factor, though the course can play more difficult in windy conditions. Keep a close eye on our PGA weather page for updates in case there ends up being a wave advantage at hand.
Ah yes — wave — Hawaii —- see what I did there? We’re in midseason form with the dad jokes.
Let’s move along to some of the tournament options that I like to start out the 2026 season!
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Tournament Breakdown for the Sony Open
Russell Henley
DraftKings: $10,300
FanDuel: $12,000
When you think about sustained success on coastal and island courses, Russell Henley deserves to be one of the first names mentioned no matter how strong the field is. I’m not saying he’s turning into Scottie Scheffler, but Henley has become a consistent force on the PGA TOUR over the past few seasons, and I don’t think he gets enough recognition in the national media for that success. He seems somewhat happy flying under the radar though, and he certainly won’t be a DFS afterthought this week. Even though he will carry some ownership, I am happy to target Henley in GPP builds. He has top-12 finishes in 4 of the last 5 editions of this tournament, his game is perfectly suited to Waialae, and he has both a high floor to go along with a 1st-place ceiling. Over the last 36 rounds, he ranks 7th in this field on approach and 2nd around the greens, and those skill sets are a primary reason why he plays well on this specific course.
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