The 2024 PGA Tour season kicks off in a few hours with the classic The Sentry in Hawaii, which previously invited the winners of the previous year’s tournaments from the American circuit and which since last year also includes the top fifty from the last season’s Fedex Cup.
From 7.45 in the morning on Thursday in Maui, Hawaii (18.45, Spanish peninsular time) the party will begin, and it will do so with a match that has its crumb. A lot of crumb, in fact. Because the first three players who are going to open fire from the 1st tee of the Plantation Course at Kapalua are Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Tom Kim, in that order.
We focus mainly on the first two, Morikawa and Schauffele. It is not necessary to remember that Collin was in the fight until the end last year, although he paid dearly for some final mistakes (bogeys on holes 14, 15 and 16) and was finally surpassed by a cyclone named Jon Rahm. As for Xander, he has already won this tournament (2019) and is a regular in the final top ten.
Schauffele has already played five editions of the Sentry, and a sixth in which he had to withdraw due to injury, precisely last year, after the first day. The year he won he did so with a Sunday 62 on this par 73 course, that is, with a card of eleven under, and it is mandatory to give him the favorite tag. In the 21 competition rounds he has already played, he has only signed a card above par and his accumulated goes to a resplendent record of -87. Morikawa has already played four editions and has not yet managed to win the tournament, but he has always played under par in Kapalua, except on one occasion, when he signed par. His accumulated in 16 rounds is already up to -79, a barbarity, and the worst he has done has been to finish in seventh position. Like Schauffele, Morikawa also has a 62, eleven under on this course, and he also signed it in the fourth round (year 2022, in which he finished in fifth position).
Both, as you can see, do well on this course. But each has its peculiarities. For example, let’s say that one of Schauffele’s weak points is the hole 1, which on the other hand is usually one of the most difficult in each edition. In this hole he has only made one birdie in his career and adds up to four bogeys. Morikawa, however, does not suffer so much in the first station: he credits four birdies and a single bogey on this hole. In the hole 10 something similar happens. Schauffele suffers much more and has only managed to make one birdie in his entire career, while he already adds four bogeys; Morikawa, however, sees it differently, with an accumulated -7 on this hole (eight birdies and a single bogey).
The hole 5, first par 5 of the course, is usually a piece of cake for most, let’s face it. But Schauffele’s thing goes even further: he has played it 21 times and his accumulated is -19 (17 birdies and an eagle). In fact, only on three of those 21 occasions has he made par and he has never made a bogey. In the last twelve times he has played it, he has always come out with a birdie or eagle…
Morikawa’s weak flanks in Kapalua are the hole 8, where he adds two birdies and two bogeys, and especially the hole 17, which is the only one on the course that he has not yet managed to make any birdie in the 16 competition rounds he has already played. On the contrary, he already adds two bogeys. The 17 is another of the bones of the course, although Schauffele comes out better off, with a balance of three bogeys and three birdies. There are up to four holes where Xander has not yet made any bogey: 3, 5, 6 and 14. If you think about it, it is truly a feat after 21 rounds. In this section, for example, Morikawa comes out worse off, as there is only one ‘virgin’ hole of bogeys in his record, which is the 11, where he has signed up to date fourteen pars and two birdies. Something curious, on the other hand, in this par 3 that usually gives more than one upset every year.
Watch out, in any case, with this pair of Californians who kick off the 2024 PGA Tour season, because they can come out sprinting tomorrow. In addition, the third player in this first match of the season, Tom Kim, can also join the party: the young Korean has only played one edition of the Sentry so far, last year’s, and finished in a notable fifth position with a record of -22, five strokes behind the winner, Jon Rahm, who as is well known will not be here this year to defend the title. What times those were when the Barrika, another careful specialist of the Plantation course, was always part of the game and came out with the favorite sign…
At 11.39 AM, local time (22.39, Spanish peninsular time), the last match will start, which also brings it, with Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland and Jordan Spieth in its ranks. When they come out to play, the Morikawa, Schauffele and Kim will have already headed for the last holes of their round and it would not be strange, given the precedents, that they already brought the bar very high.
