Tony Finau is doing just fine

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Tiger Woods carded an opening-round even-par 70 at The Honda Classic. He trailed by three shots when he finished his round after a difficult and windy morning at PGA National. Rd. 1: Tiger Woods hole-by-hole No. 10 (par 4, 505 yards): Drive barely misses the right edge of the fairway and settled down in the first cut of rough. Second shot runs just over the green into the first cut of rough. Chipped to 1 foot, tapped in par putt. Score: Even par. No. 11 (par 4, 450 yards): Tee shot into right intermediate rough, but 151-yard approach settles to 19 feet, 6 inches. He drains the birdie putt. Score: 1-under par. No. 12 (par 4, 438 yards): Tee shot misses slight left this time, ball settling into the rough. Moves his second shot 190 yards up the fairway, and chips to three feet, five inches before making the putt to save par. Score: 1-under par. No. 13  (par 4, 388 yards): Hits 292-yard tee shot into the fairway, from where his 93-yard approach settles to five feet, three inches from the pin. He birdies again to get to -2, a solid and surprising start for a guy who missed the cut by a mile at the Genesis Open last week. Score: 2-under par. No. 14 (par 4, 465 yards): Woods belts a driver 316 yards into the left fairway, but his 161-yard approach misses the green to the right. He chips up to four feet, 10 inches and drains the par putt to remain -2. Score: 2-under par. No. 15 (par 3, 179 yards): With the tees moved up about 20 yards this morning, Tiger’s first shot goes 158 yards and settles 18 feet, six inches away from the pin. Routine two-putt par to remain at -2, among the leaders. Score: 2-under par. No. 16 (par 4, 434 yards): Throttles back a bit with the tee shot, a 267-yard shot that finds the left fairway. Alas, approach shot flies 171 yards and lands in left greenside bunker. Splashes out and watches ball roll eight feet, five inches past the pin, then misses right-to-left curling par try. Bogey drops him back to -1 and out of the lead. Score: 1-under par. No. 17 (par 3, 190 yards): With the tees back a bit today, hits 200-yard first shot straight at the stick but watches ball bound into the rough, just barely left of the fringe. He’s short-sided himself, but a deft chip leaves him just five inches left for the par save. Remains at -1. Score: 1-under par. No. 18 (par 5, 545 yards): The breeze is up, so it doesn’t seem like a go-for-it type of morning. Woods hits the driver and finds the fairway. From roughly 300 yards out, there will be no going for the green in two. Long iron lay-up also finds the fairway, but 98-yard pitch shot is way short, barely making it to the green and leaving him a 40-footer for birdie. Two-putt par means he’ll make the turn at 1-under. Very solid start. Score: 1-under par. No. 1 (par 4, 373 yards): Hits long iron 236 yards down the fairway, but bails out away from the water with his 136-yard approach shot, leaving himself a tough two-putt of 41 feet, five inches. Lag putt comes up just under four feet short, and with the wind whipping at his pant legs, Woods drains the par putt to stay at -1. Tough conditions out there. Score: 1-under par. No. 2 (par 4, 441 yards): Woods tugs iron off the tee, ball veering off into left intermediate rough. Still able to get enough on 159-yard approach shot, though, and watches ball stop 25 feet, two inches short of the pin. Birdie try also short, but easy two-putt pars are good in the breezy conditions. Score: 1-under par. No. 3 (par-5, 533 yards): Woods loses his driver right, his ball finding the fairway bunker, from which it will be impossible to reach the green in two. Extricates himself nicely, leaving himself 150-yard approach from the fairway into a stiff breeze. Attempts to play a knockdown shot but hooks his third into left greenside bunker. Fourth shot clears the sand but settles into rough short of green, leaving him 13 feet, nine inches from the pin for par. Bellied wedge comes up three and a half feet short for par, and he blasts his bogey putt five and a half feet past the pin. Makes that one for a double to go from -1 to +1. Score: 1-over par. Leaderboard update: Woods double-bogey 7 at the par-5 third hole sends him spiraling down the board to T24 (+1). FedExCup champ Justin Thomas is in the lead at -4 on a very windy day at PGA National. No. 4 (par 4, 392 yards): Hole is playing downwind today, and Woods strafes an iron 292 yards down the fairway. Hits sand wedge for 99-yard second shot and knocks it to six feet, six inches right of the flagstick. Trying to bounce back after messy double at the previous hole, he rolls in the bounce-back birdie to get back to even. Score: Even par. No. 5 (par 3, 208 yards): Tough hole with water left. Tee shot misses slightly right and short, but catches portion of the green, leaving himself 52 feet, nine inches away. Lags his first putt to four feet, four inches and makes the par to remain even. Tied for 12th at the moment, four off the lead. Score: Even par. No. 6 (par 4, 437 yards): At one of the toughest holes on the course, hits driver way right and laughs. From not a great lie in the right rough, 184 yards away, he aims at the water left and, planning a cut. Takes a wicked cut at the ball, which goes over the trees and winds up in the sand trap between the green and the water. Tremendous shot. Splashes out to within inches for an amazing tap-in par to remain even. Score: Even par. No. 7 (par 3, 232 yards): Woods loves the tee shot, which is straight at the stick, but as Justin Thomas before him learned it’s impossible to stop the ball downwind like this. Ball trundles into rough behind green, and Woods chips up to 3 feet, 10 inches and makes the putt for par. Remains even par, a very good score on a blustery day. Score: Even par. Leaderboard update: With Justin Thomas bogey in the group ahead of him, Woods at even par is just three off the pace. He’s also looking at a birdie putt of just under 14 feet at the par-4 eighth hole. No. 8 (par 4, 428 yards): Splits the fairway with a 3-wood, leaving a 167-yard approach shot that bounds up onto the green. Sizes up a birdie putt of 13 feet, nine inches, settles himself over the ball and tugs it just slightly, settling for a par to remain at even par with one hole remaining. Solid day so far, just three back in tough, blustery conditions that have gotten the better of many. Score: Even par.  No. 9 (par 4, 429 yards): Playing his last hole of the day dead into the wind, Tiger hits 3-wood off the tee 266 yards, the ball finishing just slightly right of the fairway, in the first cut. From 178 yards, approach is dead at the flagstick and comes up 20 feet, seven inches short. Woods gets set over the birdie try and charges the putt well past the hole. He’s still got a ticklish four-footer for par, which he makes, the ball curling all around the hole and dropping. He will sign for an even-par 70. With the best score of the morning wave just 67, by Daniel Berger, Morgan Hoffmann and Justin Thomas, and the field averaging some two and a half shots over par, a very encouraging start for Tiger Woods. Score: Even par.

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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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