Now, the real fun begins.

After last week’s winners-only event on Maui with just 33 golfers in the Sentry Tournament of Champions field, this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii will look like a lunch break in Manhattan by comparison. The first full-field event of the 2019 calendar campaign welcomes 156 of the PGA Tour’s finest, including 23 who teed it up at a Plantation Course that would tire the Honolulu Marathon winners.

Yeah, you need a cart.

That won’t be the case at this week’s Sony Open, where Waialae Country Club offers a more traditional tract than the 70-yard wide fairways and equally large greens located on the side of a mountain in picturesque West Maui. And while Waialae would lose in a beauty pageant to the Plantation, it offers its own brand of misery if you can’t keep your drives in the short stuff.

It also helps if you played in the first week of January. The last five winners here at the Sony teed it up the week before on Maui, dating back to Jimmy Walker’s victory in 2014. Since these two tournaments joined at the hip in 1999, 14 of the Sony Open winners played at the TOC, giving gamblers the kind of edge they like. It’s easier to pore over 33 golfers before making a decision than it is 144.

Duh.

It’s also possible someone playing in his first year could be lifting the trophy high on Sunday, as Russell Henley managed to do in 2013, or successfully defend his title, as Walker (2015) and Ernie Els (2004) did. Patton Kizzire, are you taking notes? This year’s Sony Open defending champion played well enough last week on Maui to garner a tie for eighth with Jon Rahm and Webb Simpson at 13 under for the event.

Kizzire finished 10 strokes off the torrid pace of eventual winner Xander Schauffele, who came from out of the pack on Sunday to shoot a course-tying 62 and beat Gary Woodland by one. Schauffele is back in his hometown of San Diego taking a couple of weeks off, but Kizzire is here plying his trade and hoping for a repeat performance of a year ago.

You might recall the 32-year-old Kizzire was pushed into bonus panels before securing the win on the seventh playoff hole over James Hahn. No, it wasn’t as exciting as Texas A&M’s seven-OT win over LSU late last fall, but it was a satisfying victory nonetheless for the Auburn alum, his second on tour.

“I told my wife, Kari, when we got here, I said, I just feel comfortable here,” Kizzire said. “It’s so nice staying right on the beach; country club feel. Everybody in Hawaii is nice, so it feels good.”

As for how well things went after he won here last year, that answer was more tempered.

“Well, the rest of the season wasn’t what I wanted,” Kizzire said. “I think a little bit of expectations got me a little bit and started trying too hard, trying to change a few things to get a little better to give myself more chances. But it was all necessary, all part of the growing process. New opportunities and new things are sometimes difficult and I didn’t handle them as well as I could.”

Kizzire is one of nine past champions in this week’s field dating back to Jerry Kelly, who won here in 2002. He will be defending his Champions Tour title next week on the Big Island and would certainly enjoy four rounds on Oahu to help him shake off the Wisconsin winter rust. He is not the only senior golfer in the field, as Vijay Singh, who won here in 2005, Steve Stricker, Kenny Perry and Davis Love III are also in the house.

There are some notable names in the field this week, including former world No. 1s Singh, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott and Luke Donald. There are also two players currently among the world’s top 10 in past Sony Open champion Thomas (fourth) and Bryson DeChambeau (fifth), as well as 10 of the world’s top 30, including Masters champion Patrick Reed.

He is one of 13 major winners in the field and one of four Americans who played in the Ryder Cup, joining Thomas, DeChambeau and Spieth. Spieth is a believer that Waialae is the perfect course for him and is looking to regain some of the luster he lost over the course of the season. He came to Hawaii in 2018 as the No. 2-ranked player in the world. He has dropped to No. 17 and would like nothing better than to challenge for the championship come Sunday.

And of course, he is not alone in that goal.

Stricker and Charles Howell III have never won this event, but have come oh so close. Howell has cashed $2.64 million worth of checks here and Stricker has pocketed $1.22 million. It’s a quality field that offers a little something for everyone, starting Thursday morning at 7 and ending sometime Sunday evening with one golfer happier than all the rest in this field of 144.