Quick look at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

It’s that time of year again, when you turn on the TV for the Sentry Tournament of Champions and ask yourself, “Why did I go another year without booking a trip to Kapalua?” The PGA TOUR’s 2022 winners and those who finished in the top 30 of the FedExCup will open the year in the first of the new designated events that will feature the game’s top players competing for elevated purses. Kapalua has become known for its scenic vistas, low scores and wild finishes. A big reason for the theatrics? The uniqueness of the venue. The Plantation Course is not your everyday TOUR layout. Severe elevation changes and dramatic slopes make for an unpredictable four days in paradise. This course was the firstfruits of the famous design partnership between Bill Coore and two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw, and it is celebrating its 25th time hosting the Sentry Tournament of Champions. To mark this milestone, and the debut of a new era for the PGA TOUR’s schedule, here are five things to know about the venue where the PGA TOUR annually celebrates the New Year. 1. SEVENTY-THREE’S COMPANY Ernie Els won at 31 under in 2003, and Jordan Spieth nearly caught him with a winning score of 30 under in 2016. Last year saw the lowest score in relation to par in the TOUR’s history (34 under). These scores for a four-round event may seem crazy until you check the scorecard. Kapalua is the only par-73 course on the PGA TOUR schedule, as it comes with just three par 3s. The long holes are long and the short holes are short. The course has seven holes that regularly play longer than 500 yards – four of those are par 5s – but also has four par 4s playing shorter than 400 yards (all on the back nine). Weather, especially the wind, is often a factor in Maui, but players making the trip to the South Pacific better be ready to make some birdies. 2. EXCITING FINISH From the tee box, the 18th hole provides one of the most beautiful vistas in golf, looking straight down into the Pacific Ocean with mountains in the distance. But the journey, more than one-third of a mile when played at its longest, brings danger into play. The par 5 can stretch all the way to 667 yards, making it one of the TOUR’s longest holes. With a wide fairway, players can take a rip off the tee but need to catch some help from a ridge if they want to attack in two. It is site of the first 400-yard drive in TOUR history. Jonathan Byrd hit it in first round of the 2003 tournament. The fairway slants sharply from right to left, and players often use those contours to feed their second shots onto the green, as well. It’s the safer route, as the entire left side of the hole is lined by a penalty area full of thick vegetation. The green also is guarded on the left by bunkers that penalize any misses short or left, especially to the left-side hole locations. Justin Thomas found the hazard in 2020 and made a bogey to fall into a playoff with Patrick Reed and Xander Schauffele, which Thomas eventually won after playing No. 18 three more times. A more conservative second shot is directed out to the right, where the contours will guide the ball back toward the green upon landing. However, if the ball does not get a kick, a downhill pitch shot awaits. While having a par-5 as the 18th hole seems like an obvious birdie opportunity to finish each round, the 600-plus-yard gauntlet also provides a long strip of danger en route to the clubhouse. Birdie is manageable. Eagle is feasible, but risky. 3. RENOVATION PROJECT When the Plantation Course opened in 1992, Coore and Crenshaw made sure to use the West Maui Mountains and Pacific Ocean for stunning views on every hole. Those features won’t change, at least for a few thousand years. But the course’s firmness had decreased at a much faster rate and required a fix after almost three decades of existence. “Years ago, you would hit a tee shot and it would chase and chase and chase unbelievable distances. But as the grass grew and grew for 30 years, a lot of that element was lost,” Coore said before the 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions. “The course had gotten so soft that it was easy pickin’s for TOUR players and really long for resort players.” In 2019, 100 acres of the Plantation Course’s fairways were stripped and regrassed with a new surface: Celebration Bermudagrass, a denser playing turf than the original Bermuda. This surface could be mowed tighter and controlled against year-round trampling. “The idea at Kapalua always was to land a shot 60 yards short of a green and let it roll on,” Coore said in 2020. “In recent years, a ball landing 20 yards short of a green would just stop. It will play differently. … Players will be able to use side-slopes to feed shots to a flag. And drives will roll out farther, sometimes closer to trouble.” The greens, which had shrunk over almost three decades, were expanded closer to their original sizes. “There’s no question our greens needed a little more calming to offer some more pin positions,” Crenshaw said. 4. STEEP SLOPES Most tourists may come to Maui for the beach. TOUR players come for the elevation. The Plantation Course reaches a high point of 510 feet and spans 316 acres of property. The following week’s Sony Open at Waialae Country Club on Oahu will peak at roughly 10 feet of elevation change on a 120-acre property. The Kapalua Golf website embraces the elevation change by noting, “This course offers plenty of downhill tee shots. You’ll feel like one of the pros when – with the aid of the aggressive slope of the 18th fairway – you will enjoy hitting one of the longest drives of your life.” While most holes feature ocean views, there is no water on the course. However, various canyons, including the notorious penalty area on 18, provide potential trouble. Mountains, not water, define Kapalua. The steep slopes mean the scorecard doesn’t tell the entire story. Holes can play much longer, or shorter, than advertised. Take, for example the 550-yard 17th and 541-yard 15th. The former is a par-4, while the latter is a par-5. The first and eighth holes are two more downhill par-4s that stretch longer than 500 yards. 5. QUARTER CENTURY The 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions marks the 25th time Kapalua is hosting the Sentry Tournament of Champions. It saw some dramatic finishes right from the start. David Duval won the first Sentry at Kapalua during a hot streak that saw him supplant Tiger Woods atop the world ranking. Duval won by nine – the largest winning margin at Kapalua – then shot a final-round 59 to win The American Express in his next start. He won THE PLAYERS two months later. The next year, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els engaged in a memorable duel that set the stage for Woods’ greatest season. They matched eagles on the 72nd hole to go into a playoff, which Woods won with a 40-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole. He went on to win three majors that year and Els was runner-up in two, albeit 15 shots behind Woods at the U.S. Open and eight behind him at The Open. Jordan Spieth followed up his incredible 2015 – in which he won two majors and the FedExCup – with an eight-shot win in the 2016 Sentry. The next year, Justin Thomas swept the Hawaiian events, winning the Sentry Tournament of Champions and Sony Open. He won the Sentry by three before shooting a first-round 59 at the Sony en route to a seven-shot win. Thomas went on to win that year’s FedExCup and his first major at the PGA Championship. Two years later, Xander Schauffele shot a final-round 62 to rally from five shots back and win his third PGA TOUR title. It is the lowest final-round score by a winner at Kapalua. Thomas, who won the Sentry again in 2020, and Jon Rahm then became the first players to shoot 61 at the Plantation Course, doing so in the third round last year.

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CHIBA, Japan — Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama had three birdies in five holes on the back nine and eagled the 18th for good measure for a five-stroke victory at the PGA TOUR’s ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP on Sunday. RELATED: Full leaderboard It was Matsuyama’s first PGA TOUR win in his native Japan, although he’s only had one previous attempt. In 2019, Tiger Woods won the inaugural ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, the first PGA TOUR event in Japan, and last year the tournament was moved to California due to COVID-19 restrictions. Matsuyama finished with a 65 and a 15-under total of 265 at Narashino Country Club. It was his seventh PGA TOUR victory. If there was any doubt, Matsuyama hit a three-wood to about 12 feet with his second shot on the par-5 18th. Asked when he thought he had clinched his home tournament, Matsuyama said through an interpreter: “Probably my second shot at 18, that was probably the clincher.” Americans were tied for second at 10-under: Brendan Steele shot 66 and Cameron Tringale 69. Open champion Collin Morikawa had a final-round 69 and finished 10 strokes behind Matsuyama. Tokyo Olympics champion Xander Schauffele shot 68 and was at even par on the tournament, Rickie Fowler had his second consecutive 71 and finished at 3-over. “It wasn’t quite the same experience, didn’t play as well, but I enjoyed being here despite the lockdown and COVID rules,” Schauffele said. “I saw some of my family here, which was really cool. I don’t get a big opportunity to see them, so that was kind of the shining moment for me.”

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ORLANDO, Fla. – Yes, Tiger Woods currently has limitations in his post-crash golf game, but here’s the twist: Ten months after he rolled an SUV down an embankment in Los Angeles and sustained devastating leg injuries that required multiple surgeries, he is fine with where he is. Patient, even. For Woods, who alongside Jack Nicklaus is the best to ever play this game, Friday’s return to golf at the PNC Championship pro-am at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club had a singular purpose, which was to join his 12-year-old son, Charlie, take a few swings, work on the short game a bit (he exhibited nice touch around the greens), and simply have fun. It had been a long, tough year. “It was an awesome day,” Woods said after his round was done. It marked his first round in an event since he played with Charlie in last year’s PNC. “It was just awesome to be back out here playing and being out there with my son, and we just had an absolute blast.” Friday’s pro-am round was an opportunity for Woods to return to some level of normalcy, climbing back inside the ropes to play a game he has known for about 44 of his almost 46 years. (Woods turns 46 Dec. 30.) He warmed up just a few spots down from Lee Trevino and Vijay Singh. Bubba Watson stopped by and gave him a hug. (“Good to see you,” Woods told him.) There were familiar scenes. He wrapped white tape around his finger, and there were no shortage of mini-reunions, with people inside golf’s moving circus genuinely glad to see him back. Woods said he felt nerves standing on the first tee (he didn’t hit a great tee shot), but soon he and Charlie each stuffed nice short iron shots into the green at the par-4 opener. When Tiger rolled in the 18-foot birdie putt, a 60-ish father turned to his grown son along the ropes and said, “Expect anything less?” Woods has been the rare athlete who shoulders massive expectations and exceeds them. This go-around, as he readies to turn 46, we should expect less. That just part of the new deal. Woods moved gingerly during points of his round, and after a few holes of his second nine, he appeared to be gassed. He said this was probably only his second or third round back after his Feb. 23 crash. As he builds himself back, he acknowledges his endurance is lacking. The last full swing he took in the scramble format was a 3-wood at the par-5 14th hole. He only chipped and putted. But physically, he passed his first test. “It’s going to be awhile,” Woods said. “I couldn’t walk this golf course even right now, and it’s flat. I don’t have the endurance. My leg is not quite right yet and it’s going to take time. I told you in the Bahamas (at the Hero World Challenge), I’m a long way from playing tournament golf. This is hit, hop in a cart and move about my business just like I would at Medalist (his home club). “Being able to play tournament golf and being able to recover, practice and train and hit balls after a round and do all of the things that I need to be at a high level, I’m a long way away from that.” All well and good. Here’s the point: Golf can, and will, wait for him. On Friday, it simply was time to exhale and look to the skies and be thankful Tiger Woods (a) is alive and (b) is back playing golf once again. Saturday, Tiger and Charlie will join Justin and Mike Thomas in the PNC’s opening round, teeing off at 12:18 p.m. Tiger said Friday Justin is like the big brother that Charlie never had. For Justin, Tiger has been the big brother that he never had. It’s a terrific dynamic. Friday, a limited crowd at Ritz-Carlton (an estimated 3,000 spectators) got to join in. Young and old delighted in Woods’ return, even if he didn’t hit all the shots. Given how far he had to come and how hard he had fought to get here, being back meant something. “Being able to be in position to compete this week is remarkable,” said NBC’s Notah Begay, Woods’ former Stanford teammate and longtime resident in his inner circle. “He’s moving well, he feels good. There’s no endurance. It’s almost as if he’s on a pitch count. He’s got only so many full swings in him each day, and he knows that. “But it’s good for him to be in a place where he’s OK with that. I know that’s come from a lot of maturity and coming to terms with the reality of an accident that could have been catastrophic, and being in a good place with it. I think he has really matured through this whole thing, and you see it out there. He’s really having a great time.” Former PGA TOUR Champions winner Jim Thorpe, 72, was in the crowd on Friday, as well. When he is home, he’ll flip on old golf highlights on the television. When his young granddaughter and grandson see Woods on the screen, they react differently. “I’m so happy to see him back,” Thorpe said. “I think a lot of us who played the game understand that he will never be the old Tiger. … Being here to play with his son, the reception that he got from the people, golf needs him. Golf wants him back. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of magnificent players out there. But there is only one Tiger.” Woods, who put a new driver and golf ball in play, bombed a bleeding cut down the par-4 second, and hit a beautiful baby draw off the tee at the par-5 third. He loves to shape his shots. He may not possess his usual speed and pop off the tee, but he was hitting it longer that many expected. When he caught an iron heavily off the tee on the par-3 fourth – his first poor swing, really – he climbed back in his cart, looked over to a television reporter and shrugged. “I haven’t played in a while,” he said, rustling a sandwich out of a bag in his cart. Charlie, at 12, once again was a standout. Hitting lots of good approach shots, leading off the scramble team by putting first and showing the way off the tee. He poured in a birdie putt from above the hole at 18, and his father smiled again, bumping fists with him. Tiger said they don’t want their good friends Justin and Mike Thomas to repeat as the winners of the Willie Park belt this year, but the reality is, they are happy to be here. For Team Woods, it’s going to be a memorable weekend. Even before his SUV crash, Woods had endured 10 surgeries – five on his back, five on his knee – and somehow, he finds a way to climb back and keep punching. This comeback is different from the rest. Woods admits his right leg “was pretty messed up.” But every time he falls, he finds a way to stand back up. “I think he has alien DNA,” Begay said of his longtime friend. “His ability to repair not only physically, but mentally and emotionally, is second to none. I don’t think we’ve really seen anything like it in sports.”

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