By RickRunGood

When I think of the Plantation Course — I think of extreme. I’m obviously speaking from a statistical sense since Kapalua is one of the most moderate places on Earth. Maui has one of the smallest average temperature variations on the planet with yearly lows ranging from 63-71 degrees Fahrenheit (17-22 degrees Celsius) and yearly highs ranging from 80-88 degrees (27-31 degrees Celsius). All of that consistency, mildness, and normality lies off the golf course.

On the course, you’re going to see things that you won’t see anywhere else in the golfing world — providing for some fun & games right out of the gate.

The scorecard reveals a course that is 7,596 yards — at sea level, of course — making it the third longest course on the PGA TOUR schedule behind Torrey Pines and the Puntacana Resort. However — it plays nowhere near that number! The significant undulation and changes in terrain create countless tee shots that will continue to roll for what feels like an eternity.

Each of the six longest drives on TOUR last year, and 18 of the longest 23, all took place on the Plantation Course.

When JJ Spaun shows up on a long-drive list, you know things are wonky. Spaun ranked 115th in driving distance last year with an average drive of just 298.8 yards. The fairway width is incredibly generous, as wide as 100 yards in some spots, which turns the Plantation Course into a statistical outlier.

It was the only course on the PGA TOUR schedule last season that did not have a negative “missed fairway penalty”. That’s likely because of a combination of 1) golfers finding the fairway at a massive clip and 2) when fairways were missed frequently, there was a little (to no) penalty for playing from those spots.

For example, hole #1 was technically the most difficult fairway to hit — with only 13.07% of tee shots finding the short-grass. The most common miss? LONG! Running down the hill and just into the rough by a yard or two. The benefit of having 50+ extra yards off-the-tee, but playing from the rough, was better than playing from the fairway 50 yards back.

Hole #4 is another good example, since it was the “second hardest fairway to hit” at just 34.6%. The 430 yard par-4 is nearly reachable off-the-tee with many players opting to give it a crack. The collection area snatches up plenty of golf balls at about 370 yards off-the-tee and only 50 yards to the pin.

Statistically, there is not a great separator off-the-tee at the Plantation Course. Distance definitely helps, but lack of distance doesn’t hurt. If you are a shorter hitter, you’ll need to play to the correct side of the fairway to get the same roll-out as your longer hitter peers. Here are the best OTT players at the Plantation Course, who are teeing it up this week.

Surely, Cameron Young and Luke List are considered bombers, but Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose, Sungjae Im, and others certainly fall into a different category.

I am a firm believer that the Plantation Course is a second-shot course and I believe it’s one of the most rewarding to great approach players. Firstly, the massive greens (8,722 sq ft) are the biggest on the TOUR schedule. With large greens, hitting the ball to the correct quadrant, over the correct ridge and leaving yourself the proper putt become much more critical.

But let’s dive deeper here — below is a graphic showing the tee shots for every hole on the course.

What do you see here? You could throw a blanket over tee-shots for basically the entire field. There is no other course on the schedule where the collection areas are so large with this percentage of the field finding those areas.

In short — every golfer is hitting their second shot from the same spot! 

It doesn’t matter if you’re Scottie Scheffler or JJ Spaun, you’re finding the same spot off-the-tee — which removes the edge from the best drivers. Now, if you set every golfer up at 100 yards from the right rough, you’re going to see a lot of different outcomes.

Nearly half of those approach shots will come from inside 100 yards — significantly more than the TOUR average. The only two “proximity buckets” that are above TOUR average are shots from inside 100 yards and shots from 100-125 yards. Clean those wedge grooves, baby!

I went to the Custom Model and fired up the best wedge players, not considering anything else — putting (80) weights on shots from inside 100 yards and (20) on shots from 100-125 yards. The results:

This is obviously anecdotal because it’s only a four round sample size but Tom Hoge gained 10.22 strokes on approach here last year. His TOUR DNA is that he’s one of the best wedge players in the world.

Russell Henley, Chris Kirk, Collin Morikawa, Brendon Todd and Hideki Matsuyama are all inside the Top 10 of the “Wedge Model” and inside the Top 11 of SG: Approach at the Plantation Course. The crossover of both approach play AND wedge play is very strong relative to success at this event.

Once you get onto the massive putting surfaces, you’ll need to avoid three-putts and roll in as many birdies as possible. The winning scores in the last eight years: -27, -34, -25, -14, -23, -24, -22, -30

Kick off your year with a birdie bonanza!

The bermudagrass greens run slow, at only 11.0 on the stimpmeter. The best putters on slow, bermudagrass greens:

Let me leave you with one final putting nugget — Scottie Scheffler has played here twice (2021 and 2023) and has never lost strokes putting. He’s up 4.4 strokes to the field in those eight rounds. His +2.95 strokes putting last year was his second best performance of the season — behind only the Phoenix Open, where he won.

I’m looking forward to kicking off another awesome year with you! Reminder that more content can be found on my YouTube Channel and in my Email Newsletter!