Brooke Henderson takes Lotte Championship lead

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It’s the annual flex officially known as the Sentry Tournament of Champions. RELATED: The First Look | Five Things to Know The new year always opens with a special field at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course on Maui. Win a PGA TOUR event and you’re in, but there are extra-special considerations contributing to the construct of 39 commits in this first full week of January 2023. The full breakdown, what each qualifier can expect on the only par 73 of the season and more is detailed below. POWER RANKINGS: SENTRY TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS The other 24 in the field will be ranked 16-39 in Tuesday’s Draws and Fades. (There are no Sleepers for the tournament.) For the record, 40 golfers qualified for the Sentry Tournament of Champions. (Rory McIlroy is the only eligible entrant taking a pass, and that’s not unusual for the world’s top-ranked talent. He’s qualified now a dozen times and has appeared just once (T4, 2019).) However, this year’s competition is a tournament of champions and those who qualified for the TOUR Championship in 2022. Ten golfers gained entry through the secondary conduit, including Sahith Theegala and Cameron Young, neither of whom has prevailed in a PGA TOUR event. As unconventional as it seems to invite non-winners to compete at Kapalua, it’s not unprecedented. It’s straight from the playbook of the 2021 field that was modified to accommodate 16 qualifiers from the TOUR Championship at the conclusion of the 2019-20 season that was interrupted for three months due to the pandemic. All of that now is just a history lesson because the new opportunity to earn a spot no longer is unique or temporary. It is now a constant. And that’s because the Sentry TOC is the first of the designated events on the PGA TOUR schedule. With it is an 83-percent increase in the total prize fund to $15 million. In addition to $2.7 million, the winner will bank 550 FedExCup points. There is no cut in the traditional, four-round contest. As a designated event, those who finished 2022 among the top performers in the Player Impact Program are required to compete if eligible. Of the 23 who qualified for bonus prize money, 17 are at Kapalua this week. (Each is allowed to sit out one of the designated events, so McIlroy, who finished second in the PIP, must appear in all remaining tournaments in the series for which he is eligible.) Naturally, the winner of the Sentry TOC automatically will become the first qualifier for the 2024 edition of the event, which will return to its leadoff position on the schedule for the first time since 2013. While all of these enhancements and modifications are occurring, Kapalua promises a familiar test to those who have given it a go before; well, at least to everyone who has shown since the course was renovated prior to the 2020 staging. Five returnees didn’t qualify in the interim. There also are 13 debutants in the field, including Adam Svensson, who was the last qualifier and first breakthrough champion of the 2022-23 season at The RSM Classic. For the fourth consecutive edition, Kapalua can stretch to 7,596 yards, but in this land of extremes, there’s more bark to that than the bite. Last year’s scoring average (among 38 golfers) was 68.217. Not only was that a record low since the course assumed its role as host in 1999, but it beat the previous mark (in 2003) by almost a full stroke. A standard set of four par 5s are sprinkled on the hilly track along the northwestern shore of Maui, but Kapalua boasts only three par 3s. No matter the par, the course’s only significant defense is wind, and that, of course, is variable. Moderate trade winds (from the northeast) are forecast throughout the tournament, and the strongest pushes will be felt in the middle two rounds, but by no means will they gust infamously like they did last in 2020. With fair conditions otherwise welcoming the field, scoring overall should be only slightly higher than last year. Because this is a shootout, the champion and bulk of the close calls will have lifted the averages of greens in regulation and converting those chances into par breakers. A target of 24-under 268 (or an average of 6-under 67 in every round) is reasonable. In respecting wind and due to Plantation’s full-time job as a resort course, bermuda greens are governed to max at just 11 feet on the Stimpmeter. The worst rough is trimmed to 2¼ inches, but the fairways are among the most forgiving and easiest to find all year, so the scorer’s mentality has the green light. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.com’s Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous perspectives. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Draws & Fades SUNDAY: Payouts and Points, Medical Extensions, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Rookie Ranking * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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When Jon Rahm became world No. 1 this weekend with his three-stroke triumph at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, it should have surprised no one. RELATED: What’s in Rahm’s bag? Rahm has been a world-class player since his junior days, holding the top spot in the World Amateur Golf Ranking for a record 60 weeks. Now he’s a four-time winner on the PGA TOUR and currently eighth in the FedExCup standings. It was only a matter of time until he reached an achievement that even his fellow Arizona State Sun Devil Phil Mickelson has yet to reach: the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking. With more eyes trained on the top dog in professional golf – he’s just the second Spanish player to hold that distinction; the first was his idol, Seve Ballesteros — it’s a good time to dive into the equipment that he uses. Rahm’s bag is actually a very interesting case study, and it’s in the simplicity that makes it work. Although the optics of Rahm’s bag have changed a bit from time to time, the foundations have remained constant since his college days. GolfWRX chatted with Chris Trott, Director of Global Sports Marketing for TaylorMade, about the TM staffer’s sticks. GolfWRX: Going from M5 to SIM metal woods, what specific benefits did Jon see in the new head? CHRIS TROTT: Jon actually changed very quickly. Obviously, he’s world No. 1 now, but if you look at his start to the season, a lot of the groundwork was there before the break. Overall, the SIM was just a more consistent driver for him. Of course, speed is always the thing as well, SIM added speed and never has a TOUR player turned that away. Honestly, you find these guys one mile per hour and they’ll take it In regards to the rest of the metals, spin in the fairways was a plus point, then the V steel technology and how that plays into the turf interaction and feel has been a win with all the guys. GolfWRX: Jon has been loyal to the Aldila Tour Green since his college days. What about that shaft benefits him beyond the feel and his loyalty to it? From a fitter’s perspective, does he sacrifice anything staying in that shaft? TROTT: Shafts are such a personal thing, and it’s rare that a player will not be required to adjust/evolve between generations of wood models, but obviously there is something about that shaft he loves. Trust comes into the equation and with a player at his level, it becomes more about the shaft manufacturer figuring out their next alternative that works for Jon but also embraces new tech. Personally, I think if you stay in an old shaft for 10-plus years, you do lose some benefits that tech offers, but like all fitting at the top level, it becomes about the player making the final decision. Plus, it helps that this particular shaft was best in class, albeit a few years back. GolfWRX: He was the first player on TOUR to go into the TW grind wedge. How did that come about? TROTT: Anytime Tiger is in the presence of the Team TaylorMade athletes or he puts his name to anything, all these guys (players, marketeers, golf teachers, club fitters), we all take note. The photoshoot and seeing how everyone watches Tiger is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Having spoken to Tiger about his wedge, the sole design is such that the different degrees of bounce and touchpoints of the camber is leveraged for different shots. And while I haven’t directly asked Jon, I think that appealed to him. He likes to play a lot of creative shots, he likes to feel shots like his idol Seve, and he has great respect for Tiger and other top performers like his love for Kobe Bryant, so I think being able to use that wedge was attractive. The interesting part though, when you look at his wedges in detail, is that he still puts in the high toe in the lower loft. Again, it rings true for his creativity and the fact that all the different models appeal to him GolfWRX: TM has some new irons seeding slowly out on TOUR. Is Jon the type of player to switch quickly? Slowly? What’s that process like? Rory seemed to jump in quickly. TROTT: [Matt] Bovee [Senior Manager of Product Creation] and the crew have taken Jon’s feedback and put many of his preferences into this new model we have coming. I expect him to change fairly quickly — he better now that I’ve said it! This isn’t the first time Jon has had direct input into a club — the High Toe “4 way camber” sole was all Jon’s doing, and he played that religiously for a while. The original plan for that was TOUR-only, and it did so well we added it to retail. GolfWRX: What can the weekend golfer learn from Jon Rahm’s short-game approach? TROTT: Have fun with it and be confident! It’s no fluke when you watch him pitch or chip, the guy is a worthy holder of the No. 1 spot. When it comes to the short game, his imagination is off the charts, and that’s where his true magic lies. Like I mentioned, he idolized the king, Seve. Getting more technical, I think he turns his body well when he pitches, and I think he has the ability to control the low point very efficiently out of the rough. Obviously the chip-in on 16 was unreal, but to control the low point like that with the consistency he does shows there’s a lot of body control opposed to throwing the bounce at the ball — like we have all experienced. It’s great to see and I’m excited about what he can do in the fall with the majors coming up. Good times for TaylorMade and Jon, and it’s amazing to have a front-row seat. JON RAHM WITB (7/20/2020) Driver: TaylorMade SIM (10.5 @ 10 degrees) Shaft: Aldila Tour Green 75TX 3-wood: TaylorMade SIM (15 @14.5 degrees) Shaft: Aldila Tour Green 75TX 5-wood: TaylorMade SIM (19 @17.5 degrees) Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI (Black) 8X Irons: TaylorMade P750 (4-PW) Shafts: Project X Rifle 6.5 in PW Wedges: TaylorMade MG High Toe (52-09SB) MG2 (56-12SB, 60-11TW) Shafts: Project X Rifle 6.5 Putter: TaylorMade Spider X (Chalk) Grips: Golf Pride MCC Ball: TaylorMade TP5

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