Nelly Korda showed calm dominance as Team U.S. finished off a golf gold-medal sweep at the Olympics

The PGA TOUR shifts from Maui to Oahu this week, and while the state may be the same, the island change calls for a dramatically different style of golf. Gone are the sweeping elevation changes of Kapalua and in comes the flatter, European and Hamptons-inspired Waialae Country Club, home of the Sony Open in Hawaii. Waialae pre-dates Hawaiian statehood, was featured in a popular 1960s comedy flick, and has been part of the PGA TOUR schedule since 1965. That’s a lot of tournament film to study, but Waialae still packs a few new punches every January. 1. It pays tribute to legendary courses When golf course architect Seth Raynor and his then-associate Charles Banks crafted Waialae in the early part of the 20th century, they looked to some of the famous courses of the day for inspiration. Raynor designed the first hole, now a 488-yard par 4, with the “Road Hole” from the Old Course at St Andrews in mind. Like the 17th hole in Scotland, the first hole in Hawaii demands an approach shot into a shallow green with a deep bunker guarding in front. No. 7 at Waialae is a sibling of No. 6 at National Golf Links of America in Southampton, New York, one of the trademark courses of Charles B. Macdonald, Raynor’s mentor. Both par 3s play short – the back tees at National Golf Links stretch to 141 yards and the Sony Open hole reaches 162 yards – but both provide a layer of bunker troubles in front of a wide green. Raynor originally surrounded the entire green with sand as a further tribute to Macdonald, but today it’s only in the front. Waialae’s par-3 17th hole employs a “redan-style” green that was recently restored to Raynor’s original vision with a large bunker on the left and four smaller bunkers to the right of the green. Macdonald and Raynor were important figures in establishing the redan concept in the U.S., bringing it over from its origin at North Berwick Golf Club in Scotland. The par-3 fourth hole at Waialae, with its 55-yard green including a deep swale running across the middle, is said to take its shape from the Biarritz Golf Club in France. Unfortunately for Raynor, he never saw the full fruit of his labors, as he passed away in January 1926, one year before Waialae officially opened. 2. The front and back nines are flipped Hawaiian golf is primetime golf in the contiguous United States. And to make sure fans see the most picturesque views of Oahu as they watch the late-night action, the Sony Open swaps the front and back nine for tournament play. There are two notable reasons for the change. First of all, aesthetics: The back nine holes (front nine for members) best highlight the beauty of the Hawaiian sun setting in the west. Second, this affords the opportunity to use the par-5 dogleg left 18th hole (ninth hole for members) as a dramatic finishing hole. While the 18th only played 546 yards in 2021, a series of bunkers at the dogleg require a precise tee shot to set up a feasible second shot into the green. Last year, Hideki Matsuyama made up a five-shot deficit on the back nine and then won the Sony Open in Hawaii in a playoff with one of the best shots he never saw, a 3-wood into the sun on 18 to 3 feet for an eagle to beat Russell Henley. In 1983, Isao Aoki holed out for eagle from 128 yards to become the first Japanese player to win on the PGA TOUR. No matter what the contenders do on 18, it’s almost always entertaining. 3. It’s a mad, mad ‘W’ The most iconic feature of Waialae is the “W” formed by four coconut trees behind the 16th green. This formation is on purpose, and while it has only been around since 2010, its history goes back more than 50 years. In 1963 – two years before the debut of the Sony Open – Stanley Kramer’s “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” debuted in theaters, and it featured one of Hollywood’s all-time star-studded casts with Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle and Sid Caesar, among others. The film’s plot revolved around a group of individuals racing to uncover $350,000 hidden under a W-shaped tree in the fictional California city of Santa Rosita. Waialae member Ethan Abbott estimated he was around 9 or 10 years old when he originally saw the movie. His boyish enthusiasm about the film never left him, and as an adult in the 2000s, he started lobbying the course to create its own W. After some initial pushback, Waialae relocated four trees from the hundreds on the course, planting them behind the No. 7 green for members. The entire alteration cost $3,500 and came from a gift already earmarked for a project on the course. While the trees are tricked into thinking they are growing straight, they now form one of golf’s iconic images, with the “W” appearing on Waialae merchandise and earning the club a series of national landscape awards. Weddings have even become common at the “W,” a prime photo opp spot for golf enthusiasts. But did Abbott hide any cash under the trees? That remains unknown. 4. Justin Thomas has the course record In 2017, Justin Thomas arrived at Waialae directly from a victory at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. He backed that up with an opening-round 59 at Oahu, a new course record, surpassing Davis Love III’s 60 in 1994. Thomas started on the back and book-ended his round with eagles on No. 10 and No. 9. At age 23, Thomas became the youngest player to ever shoot a sub-60 round. Along with the 18-hole record, Thomas proceeded to set the 36-hole, 54-hole and tournament records at the Sony Open, finishing at 27-under 253 to beat Justin Rose by seven strokes. The Sony Open was Thomas’ third of five wins en route to his 2016-17 FedExCup title. 5. It’s a flat track The Sentry Tournament of Champions field climbs as high as 510 feet above sea level at the Plantation Course at Kapalua. At Waialae, players can leave their hiking boots back at the hotel. The Oahu course has an elevation change of roughly 10 feet. While Waialae includes features unique to Hawaii – coconut, monkey pod and kiawe trees, along with Pacific Ocean views – water hazards are minimal and 83 bunkers span the grounds. Breezes can play a factor, but after the mountains and unexpected winds of Kapalua, Waialae presents a more subdued atmosphere.

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The PGA Tour’s Dylan Frittelli says it was hard not to feel like an outcast Thursday but said playing despite a positive coronavirus test was still fun.

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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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