Kapalua provided the stunning backdrop to the PGA Tour’s first elevated event of a revamped 2023 schedule.

Waialae packed it in tight for the first PGA Tour full-field event of the year.

Two polar opposite golf courses, two vastly different fields and yet whether it was Jon Rahm coming back from seven shots down on a Sunday to win the Sentry Tournament of Champions or Si Woo Kim closing birdie-birdie to win the Sony Open in Hawaii, one constant remained.

“No matter what field it is, it’s so hard to win on the PGA Tour,” Kim said after winning the Sony Open at 18 under par. “(The Sony) still has a lot of good players, big name or not. Still, like, all the players (are) really good out here.”

That played out over and over again during the PGA Tour’s two-week “Aloha Swing” through the Hawaiian islands.

Collin Morikawa and Jordan Spieth are two of the biggest stars on the PGA Tour. They have won multiple major championships. They are ranked in the top 15 in the world.

And they leave Hawaii dumbfounded after two shocking and almost unbelievable turns of events during one stroll through an 18-hole golf course.

Morikawa seemingly had it all figured out. He had worked with different people on his short game, his putting, his chipping and his driving and it led him to a six-shot lead over 54 holes without making bogey at the TOC.

Sunday was supposed to be a coronation. After going winless throughout an entire season for the first time in his pro career, Morikawa was set to take home the first elevated event of the year with a first-place check of $2.7 million.

All it took was a stretch of three consecutive bogeys — his first of the entire tournament — and suddenly Jon Rahm, who was six shots back of the leader at the turn, had a PGA Tour victory for the seventh consecutive season.

“No matter the lead, if it’s a regular course you have to expect somebody’s going to come and shoot 64 or 65,” Rahm said one year after his 33-under total wasn’t good enough to win the same tournament. “Out here you have to expect that somebody’s going to shoot a very low number.”

Morikawa tied the PGA record for the biggest 54-hole lead lost at six shots, and yet it wasn’t the only stunning collapse in paradise.

When the Sony Open in Hawaii field was announced, only four of the top 20 in the World Golf Ranking were in the field after 17 of 20 competed on Maui.

The biggest name to play both weeks was Spieth, who returned to Waialae for the first time since 2019.

Everything was good to go to begin as Spieth shared the first-round lead with two others after an opening 6-under 64.

But while fellow leaders Chris Kirk and Taylor Montgomery remained at the top of the board Friday, Spieth started free-falling and couldn’t make it stop.

He ended up bogeying five of his final 11 holes to shoot 5-over-75 and become the first golfer to miss the cut with a share of the first-round lead since Matt Every in 2020.

Only six golfers have done it over the past 10 seasons.

“It was a weird, weird day,” Spieth said after the round.

All four golfers ranked in the top 20 in the world missed the cut at Waialae, but the lack of big names didn’t take away from the excitement on Sunday.

Seventeen players found themselves within three shots of the lead in the afternoon when Hayden Buckley and Kim pulled away down the stretch.

Buckley made three birdie putts of 16 feet or longer in a five-hole stretch on the back nine to make his move.

All it did was fire up Kim, who won golf’s “fifth major” — the Players Championship — when he was 21.

Kim heard the roar behind him after Buckley’s birdie putt went in and then chipped in for a birdie of his own from off the back green.

He then birdied 18 after hitting a 5-iron out of a fairway bunker from 222 yards onto the green for a relatively easy two-putt.

When Buckley’s birdie putt on 18 scooted just left of the hole, Kim had his fourth Tour win in hand and his first since the 2021 American Express, played the week after Waialae.

“If I play every tournament, it’s getting hard and harder, I feel like,” Kim said. “It’s not easy out here.”

It’s clearly not.

How this season plays out will go a long way in determining what the PGA Tour looks like moving forward. Events like the Sony, left out of the elevated event schedule, might see their fields lose a big name or two.

But if the Sony Open proved anything over the weekend, elevated or not, these are still some of the very best golfers in the world.

And it’s still incredibly difficult to win on the PGA Tour.