If you like golf, New Year’s week is all about the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua Plantation. You don’t have to wait long — it starts with the Pro-Am New Year’s Day.
The week after, the rest of the PGA Tour invades for the Sony Open in Hawaii. This year, Hawaii Tourism has its putter prints all over the first full-field event of the year.
It is bringing in a former minor league baseball player/World Long Drive champion who now entertains and shatters stuff on the driving range — on purpose.
And almost every weekday has a different promotion, concluding with the tournament’s inaugural Aloha Friday (Jan. 10). Hawaii Tourism anticipates “showcasing the aloha spirit” with golfers and spectators breaking out their tropical best for an international broadcast that airs in 201 countries and territories — many extremely cold.
The tour’s third-longest running event tees off the day before at Waialae Country Club. Hawaii’s Parker McLachlin, Eric Dugas and Tyler Ota are playing on exemptions. Jerry Kelly, the 2002 Sony Open champ, and six-time Tour winner Rory Sabattini will also be here, as they have been every year since Sony took over from United Airlines in 1999.
Dan Boever has never played Sony, but he will be at Waialae the afternoon of Jan. 7 to put his special touch on the revamped Hawaii Tourism Pro-Junior. The contest between teams of five tour pros and five of the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association’s finest will go back to playing only at the 18th green. Challenges now include closest to the pin, trick shot and a challenge putt from an unusual location. Bonus points will be given at the plywood challenge.
The plywood is a Boever specialty and the imaginative and amiable trick shot legend will also offer a free hour-long show beginning at 10 a.m. at Kapolei Golf Club the Saturday before (Jan. 4).
Defining Boever’s unique skills is impossible. First off, the man can hit a putter 300 yards.
He has also hit a glow ball at night to a green 300 yards away that his son-in-law caught in a mitt. He launched one shot through two panes of glass.
Boever tees up two balls on top of each other — “you line up the dimples” — using only his foot and club. Then he swipes at it with his wedge so the bottom ball goes out and the top one straight up, where he can catch it or blast it again.
He believes his toughest challenge over the last 24 years was putting out a candle flame — 50 feet away and 5 feet below him — with a golf ball.
“The ball had to go downward and fly right over the candle flame,” Boever recalled. “Surprisingly, I did it on the very first attempt. We did multiple attempts after and were unsuccessful. Why we tried again is beyond me.”
His belief is that the greatest tricks are simply “ones you don’t see very often,” whether in front of a crowd — he averages about 80 shows a year — or needing several takes for videos.
Boever sounds like an engineer when he breaks down the tricks his imagination — and common golf situations, like hitting a slice into someone’s yard — has come up with.
But he is blatantly basic when explaining the difference between performing for kids or adults.
“If I hit my putter 300 yards, adults go, ‘Wow!,’” Boever says. “Kids look at me and say, ‘Can you break something?’ ”
He admits men are often similar. “They like seeing things get hit or broken,” he says. “Fruit, especially watermelons, because it is a huge explosion and they fly everywhere. Also golf ball pickers, boards, glass, etc.”
Boever’s goal at shows is to combine “Wow!” and “Laughter” so that anyone— no matter how old or familiar with golf — will enjoy. After about 1,800 shows, he has found his way.
The latest Sony Open field, which is not final, also includes defending champ Matt Kuchar and 2017 winner Justin Thomas, who is fourth in the current World Golf Ranking. Kuchar is 20 spots behind him.
