TOUR Insider: Accuracy over power wins at Waialae

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Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Mark Wilson is the defending champion at this week's Sony Open in Hawaii.

HONOLULU -- Chris P. Jones knows exactly what it took for Mark Wilson to win the 2011 Sony Open in Hawaii.

"We got a little bit of luck early in the week," the veteran caddie this week. "In the first round he (Wilson) pulled a drive left at 8, it hit a tree and bounced back just outside that hazard."

That "hazard" is a canal only 240 yards from the tee on a 454-yard hole. Wilson's ball was just outside the ditch and all he could do was chip back to the fairway. He then played his ball, from well outside 200 yards away, onto the green and one-putted for par.

"The same thing happened early Sunday morning on the ninth," Jones recalled. "His drive went right off the tee into the bank of the canal. There was one little weed that held the ball up or it would have gone down into the water and we were lucky we could punch out. From there we hit a utility wood onto the green from like 240 and he one-putted for birdie. Those two shots, they could have been bogeys or worse and he turned them into a par and birdie."

Wilson ended up winning by two strokes. But Jones did not attribute the win entirely to luck.

"When we met at the course, early in the week, I was wondering how his game would be, because I didn't think he had done that much in the winter," he said. "He is such a good ball-striker but from the first day he was just making everything with his putter."

Jones says the Waialae course sets up for a player like Wilson, someone who is not overly long and hits a lot of greens.

"It's a ball-strikers course, for sure," Jones said. "The wind blows here all time and it's a cross wind, so you have to be able to control the shape and flight of the ball. The greens are small and it doesn't necessarily favor a long hitter because there are so many doglegs you can drive through the fairway."

Long hitters frequently hit 3-woods at Waialae, negating some of their advantage this week.

"We just hit drivers off the tee and were fine and maybe a little lucky a time or two " laughed Jones.

Wilson may have gotten a few lucky bounces but the real key to his 2011 victory was taking advantage of the good breaks, turning a fortunate bounce into victory.

Will somebody use a similar path to the winner's circle this week? We'll see.

CASE OF THE CRACKED DRIVER: Webb Simpson noticed at last month's Chevron World Challenge that his driving distance was shorter than usual, but he shrugged it off, thinking it was just the cold weather. But he continued to have distance problems at the Franklin Templeton Shootout, and considering that event is in Florida, he couldn't blame it on the weather problems then.

Then while playing with Keegan Bradley in the second round last weekend at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, Simpson noticed that Bradley's 3-wood was going farther than Simpson's own driver.

Caddie Paul Tesori had a suspicion than something might be wrong with the equipment. Sure enough, he checked and saw a hairline crack from the middle of the club to the top.

"If you run your fingernail down it," Simpson said. "You could kind of feel it. You could see it but you had to look pretty closely. It was about a third of an inch."

Luckily for Simpson, he had a backup driver. It went into play prior to the third round ... and Simpson finished tied for third.

LEONARD'S A ROCKET MAN: The Sony Open in Hawaii is the first full-field event of the PGA TOUR season and it's always fun to see new products and equipment changes. The talk of the driving range this week is TaylorMade's "RocketBallz" 3-wood. The club has a horizontal slot on the soleplate engineered to maximize COR, or trampoline effect, to USGA limits.

Justin Leonard is a believer.

After years with Nike, Leonard is now on the TaylorMade staff for everything but his putter, which continues to be a Scotty Cameron.

"I needed to make a change and it's been great," Leonard said. "You can't believe how hot the 3-wood is. I would say I get another 10 yards of carry with it."

The club was not ready for distribution until the last week of December and TaylorMade officials estimate 30 players will put the club in their bag this week.

Sorry folks, the "RocketBallz" line of TaylorMade clubs aren't available to the public until February.

PRESENT FOR MOM: Keegan Bradley won more than $4.2 million in 2011, so he wasn't going to impress his family with expensive presents over the holidays. Instead, he gave his mom a white jump suit.

"She's going to caddy for me at the Masters's Par-3 Tournament," grinned the PGA Champion. "That was my present to her. I am going to enjoy it as much as she is."

Expect a large contingent of the extended Bradley family on the Augusta National grounds this April.

VALIANT TRY: You have to admire Lucas Glover for trying. He limped through the Honolulu airport looking like Chester from a 1960's television episode of Gunsmoke. Glover wrenched his knee while enjoying the ocean last week at the Hyundai Tournament Of Champions and withdrew.

A WD seemed likely this week as well, judging from his limp at the airport.

"If I can't play, then I can't play," he said then. "We'll see. There are worse places to spend the week than here if I can't play."

On Wednesday, Glover did indeed withdraw.

AND MY PICK IS ... Charles Howell III. Howell has a great track record at The Sony Open in Hawaii, posting five top-10 finishes in 10 starts including a tie for second in 2007. He has a naturally low, boring flight trajectory that will serve him well with the annual winds that seem to cross each hole.

Howell won more than $2.5 million in 2011, posting seven top-10s and is ready to win for the third time on the PGA TOUR.

Fred Albers is a course reporter for SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio and is inside the ropes this week at the Sony Open in Hawaii. For more information on SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio, click here.