Matt Kuchar is a little past the midway point of a five-week stay in Hawaii.
A strong showing over the weekend allowed him to move from the bottom to near the top of the Sony Open in Hawaii leaderboard.
Kuchar shot a 4-under-par 66 to finish tied for seventh during Sunday’s final round at Waialae Country Club.
Kuchar finished at 13-under 267, five shots behind winner Si Woo Kim.
Kuchar, who shot 6 under in the third round, birdied three of his first four holes Sunday to get to 12 under. He sank another on No. 9 and finished with birdies on Nos. 17 and 18. He bogeyed Nos. 8 and 13.
“I was really excited about getting off to that start,” said Kuchar, who won the 2019 Sony Open in Hawaii. “I thought, ‘This could be my day. Let’s keep it going.’
“To shoot 4 under was a good round. I was thinking after 3 under through four, I was going to try to go for 8 or 9 under, and 4 under was all I could manage.”
Kuchar, 44, has grown to love the islands and he’s had eight top-15 finishes in his last 10 Sony appearances, so it’s easy to see why he can’t wait to arrive here each year.
Kuchar said he and his family left for Hawaii the day after the PNC Father Son Challenge in Orlando ended on Dec. 18. Kuchar and son Carson finished tied for fifth.
“Yeah, I love Hawaii. Kind of everything about it,” said Kuchar, the highest finisher among eight former Sony champions in this year’s field. “Just love it over here. My family loves it. We stay active. Do as many activities as you can cram into a day and try to do the same thing over and over again.
“We have fallen in love with the facility, Kohanaiki (Golf Club) on the Big Island, and come over as soon as we can.”
Kuchar recovered nicely from a rough start in Thursday’s opening round. He opened on the back 9 and bogeyed his first three holes. Kuchar then went bogey-free over his next 44 holes.
The slow start surprised Kuchar, who trained the previous three weeks at Kohanaiki.
“I looked at (caddie Brian Reed) after the first hole, bogeyed the 10th hole on Thursday and I said, son of a gun, I knew I was playing really good golf and made a bogey from nowhere, and bogeyed the next two,” Kuchar said. “I thought, this is crazy. I’ve been playing as good as I can remember. I’ve been out training on the Big Island at Kohanaiki and playing some really good golf.”
Kuchar’s family hangs out with Parker McLachlin’s family while in Hawaii. McLachlin, a Punahou School graduate, missed this year’s Sony cut.
“Parker and I have been friends since college days. I remember the first time I met him was at Waikoloa on the Big Island,” Kuchar said. “Played a college tournament there. We were paired, same group and been friendly since.”
Kuchar attended Georgia Tech, while McLachlin played for UCLA.
The pair compete in ping pong, tennis, pickleball, basketball and other activities while in the islands.
“Certainly competitors, but pretty easygoing,” Kuchar said of the sports competitions.
This year’s Sony leaderboard wasn’t loaded with big names and Kuchar believes it’s a result of the tour’s development of young players.
“Yeah, listen, the tour has got a fantastic system of kind of bringing new guys in and trying to keep your job is a tough thing out here,” Kuchar said. “Every year there’s a whole crop of new guys that are competing for everybody’s job. There’s a thousand guys lined up to take my spot. It takes a while to learn everybody. I feel like I get until kind of at least through the West Coast (swing) before I feel mostly familiar with getting the names right and the faces right.”
Kuchar said he will spend the next two weeks in Kona before leaving for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California, which starts Feb. 2.
