Live leaderboard: Arnold Palmer Invitational

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KAPALUA, HI – Despite being in idyllic Maui, it was getting tough for Viktor Hovland to sport his trademark smile. The Norwegian superstar arrived on the island for the Sentry Tournament of Champions on the Dec. 29, set for a week of preparation after a holiday break in his home country. Alas, his golf clubs failed to join him. Flying high after recent wins at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba and the Hero World Challenge during the last two months, Hovland had put away his clubs in Oslo’s winter conditions to reconnect with family and friends over Christmas. He was content the week in Maui would bring sufficient time to get his swing back into a groove. But in the end the world No. 7 had just 24 hours to prepare after his trusty Ping sticks failed to follow him on a travel adventure halfway around the world. Hovland flew from Oslo through Paris and on to Seattle where he was left waiting for his bag for half an hour. Then he was told it had inadvertently been sent off course. “My duffel bag and my mom’s duffel bag was there, but we waited 30 minutes for my golf bag and it didn’t show up,” Hovland said. “I asked someone and they said they sent it through Salt Lake City, apparently.” The delay meant a missed connection to Maui forcing him onto another airline which complicated the search and saw his clothes delayed. “It was a big headache,” Hovland added. “But we got the clothes the next day and then it seemed the golf bag was just somehow sitting in Seattle for five days straight. “They didn’t really know where it was, so I was concerned they lost it initially. And then after a couple of days, they said they physically had it. That got me more frustrated. If you can see the bag, it shouldn’t be that hard to put it on the flight.” That left the 24-year-old doing what most do in Maui. Vacationing. “I really didn’t do anything. I worked out, ate, went to the beach… just had a vacation essentially,” he said. “I really haven’t touched a club since the Bahamas so I was planning on getting here to practice the whole last week and get back into it. Obviously, the preparations haven’t been ideal this time around.” Hovland resorted to using the clubs of his caddie Shay Knight for a little bit of practice. “He has Ping clubs, so that was good. But obviously different specs and different clubs so it wasn’t ideal but at least when you haven’t hit balls, the main thing is to just kind of get a feel for it.” Hovland’s drama wasn’t over. Replacement irons overnighted by Ping from Arizona got delayed in Honolulu and didn’t beat his regular bag which finally arrived late Tuesday night. The bag was roughed up and his back up driver had been snapped. At least he hadn’t planned to use it. In fact, he is still using a driver that belonged to James Hahn – one he was able to borrow in Mayakoba when Danny Lee accidently broke Hovland’s own driver on the range while testing out a speed drill. He would go on to win that week and subsequently still has it. With expectations now lowered for this week, would Hovland struggle to smile like has become his custom or would this equipment fiasco once again prove a good omen? “I was pretty frustrated there a couple of times,” he admitted. “But it’s not ideal that I have to spend these next couple of days to try to get back into things and find my swing. “It’s a little different case because I was playing pretty good and then testing James’ driver, it was really good. I’m still playing that driver … It’s a little different this week, but I’m getting better every day.”

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The putter remained hot during the middle portion of the match, as Johnson strung together three birdies to grab a 1-up lead on the 11th when his lengthy effort from 60 feet found the bottom of the cup. Even with the momentum in his favor, Johnson would go on to lose three of the next four holes to Poulter, en route to a costly defeat. “I felt like I played pretty well,” Johnson said. “Made some nice putts. I knew it was going to be a tough match starting out. I just didn’t hit enough fairways.” Rahm goes back to M2: Jon Rahm finished the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season ranked 3rd in Strokes Gained: Off-the-tee with a TaylorMade M4 driver. When you’re ranked inside the top-5 in any statistical category, the assumption is the clubs in the bag are working without any issues. Only that wasn’t the case for Rahm, who shelved his M4 in favor of last year’s M2 at the TOUR Championship and continued using the driver during the Ryder Cup. It’s unclear why Rahm suddenly shifted away from M4 late in the season, especially given that he never finished worse than T26 in the strokes gained category during the Dell Technologies Championship and BMW Championship; and his missed cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST was due to a balky putter and poor ball-striking week with his irons. Whether it was really a couple less-than-stellar weeks (for his standards) with the driver that led to the swap, the M2 sparked a strong week off the tee at East Lake Golf Club, where he ranked fourth in Strokes Gained: Off-the-tee. Rahm entered Sunday singles 0-2 for the week but managed to defeat Tiger Woods in a tightly contested match to squash a United States comeback that, for a brief moment, looked to be in full swing. It was Rahm’s 365-yard drive on 17 that put him in perfect position to stuff a gap wedge to three feet for the win. JT’s wedges: Vokey wedge rep Aaron Dill created something special for Justin Thomas’ maiden Ryder Cup appearance. Hoping to give Thomas some good vibes, Dill stamped stars and “Ryder Cup” on the back of his SM6 lob wedge, before adding red, white and blue paint fill to give it an American flag look. “You outdid yourself on this one AD,” Thomas said of Dill’s creation on Twitter. Thomas went 4-1 with the custom stamped wedge at Le Golf National. Free agents lead the way: Francesco Molinari (5-0) and Tommy Fleetwood (4-1) led the way for Europe in their impressive takedown of the United States. Given the success of equipment free agents last season on TOUR, it seems fitting that two key equipment free agents were at the forefront of the route. Molinari and Fleetwood were under contract with Nike Golf for their equipment until the end of 2016 when the apparel giant left the hard-goods industry. Fleetwood has remained a free agent throughout the bag; Molinari signed a ball deal with Titleist in 2017 and putter deal with Bettinardi earlier this year, but the other 13 clubs (all TaylorMade) remain up for grabs. PGA TOUR SUPERSTORE: Buy equipment here Dustin Johnson joked with reporters on the eve of the Ryder Cup that he’d “surprise” everyone with his putter selection, before confirming he’d continue with the cross-handed grip and TaylorMade Spider Tour putter that nearly helped him win the FedExCup title. While Johnson stuck to his word over the first two days of play, he opted to go away from the grip and mallet on Sunday, returning to a conventional grip and Anser-style TaylorMade TP Black Copper Juno against Ian Poulter. Johnson’s flat stick had a single white sight line on the flange and his initials stamped on the right bumper. The head shape is identical to the TP Collection Juno he used to win last year’s THE NORTHERN TRUST.

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