With the return of the PGA Tour to Hawaii next week comes the return of Justin Thomas. His victories at Kapalua Plantation and Waialae Country Club launched a player of the year season.
The tour’s return also brings the debut of Tyler Ota at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Ota has been the Hawaii State Golf Association player of the year the last three times. Since capturing the 2015 Manoa Cup, he has been the state’s most dominant amateur.
That amateur status means he won about $20 million less this year than Thomas, who earned $9.9 million and got a $10 million bonus by claiming the year-long FedEx Cup.
They do have something in common. Both graduated from high school in 2011. It has become a magical year for the game of golf. Jordan Spieth also graduated that year, along with Daniel Berger, Emiliano Grillo, Patrick Rodgers and Ollie Schniederjans.
All but Berger and Grillo — and Ota — will be at the Sentry Tournament of Champions next week on Maui, where 11 of the 32 who have committed are 25 or younger.
Seven of the world’s Top-10 golfers will be at Kapalua, including the top five (Dustin Johnson, Spieth, Thomas, Jon Rahm and Hideki Matsuyama), for probably the first time in its 20-year history on Maui.
Thomas and Spieth won the last two TOCs, and simultaneously became the faces of golf’s new generation.
Last season Thomas joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Spieth as the only players to win five times in a season, including a major, before they turned 25. Thomas knows it will be difficult to follow that up.
“I think the hardest part is going to be staying in the moment and recognizing that it’s a new year,” Thomas said. “It’s a new opportunity for great things and I just need to continue to work hard.”
Thomas also became the youngest in tour history to break 60 last season. It happened in the opening round of the Sony Open. He will defend that championship when it celebrates its 20th anniversary, Jan. 11-14 at Waialae.
Maui’s Mark Rolfing is home the next two weeks to broadcast Hawaii’s two PGA events and host “Morning Drive” for Golf Channel. He thinks Woods, coming back from yet another injury, ought to be at Sony too.
“It would serve Tiger well to go places he has not been before and really be welcomed by the community,” Rolfing says. “When Tiger was playing his best, people carried him on their shoulders, whether he was hitting it well or not. There was this sort of mana around Tiger that carried him to great heights. If he came to the Sony Open, where he has not been before, there would be that kind atmosphere.”
Rolfing doesn’t think Woods will be at Waialae but Ota, who grew up mimicking Woods in Casey Nakama’s kids’ program, will be — hoping to make his own mana.
It took him five tries, but he finally earned Sony’s amateur exemption last month. He used to watch the tournament with his grandfather, and dream.
“To be able to play in a PGA Tour event at home,” says Ota, who now works for Golf Concepts. “Nothing can get better than that.”
It has not come easily. Ota says he truly began enjoying the game when he joined Nakama’s program at age 10. The impact Nakama — like Rolfing, a Hawaii Golf Hall of Famer — has had can’t be measured. Ota considers Nakama and wife Jeri “family.”
“With Casey’s help I won two OIA individual titles and a couple Francis Browns, but I still couldn’t perform in the ‘bigger’ tournaments,” Ota recalls. “He kept encouraging me and helped me mechanically and psychologically get over the hump. A few wins later and fastforward to today when WE made it to the Sony Open.”
Nakama hopes that is not all Ota accomplishes next week. He wants him to join Allan Yamamoto (1975), Donald Hurter (1981), Tadd Fujikawa (2007) and Kyle Suppa (2015) as golfers who earned the amateur exemption and played the weekend.
“For a lot of amateurs, getting into Sony is the goal,” says Nakama, known best for coaching Michelle Wie. “I told Tyler that’s not the goal. The goal is to play four days and make the cut. The goal is not just to enjoy getting in, it’s to get to work and enjoy the weekend.”
Tickets and information for the Sentry TOC and Sony Open are available at pgatour.com or sonyopeninhawaii.com. Kids 18 and under are free with a ticketed adult at Kapalua. Kids 12 and under, with a ticketed adult, are free at Waialae along with all military and dependents with official military ID.
Kapalua will have free parking at Lahaina Civic Center, with free shuttles to the Plantation starting 15 minutes before gates open and running until play ends. Information about the Sony Waikiki Shuttle ($3) and the free shuttle from Hunakai Park (Jan. 8-14) and Kahala Community Park (Jan. 11-14) is available on the website.
This year a bike valet is also available at Waialae Beach Park Access Road, in partnership with Hawaii Bicycling League. Sony will donate $10 to the league for each bike that utilizes the valet Jan. 11-14.
