KAPALUA, Maui >> Mark Rolfing and a few close associates popped open a bottle of Dom Perignon at the Plantation Course restaurant a few hours after David Duval secured the Mercedes Championships in 1999.
It was the first time the winners-only golf tournament now known as the Sentry Tournament of Champions was played in West Maui and marked a monumental shift in the PGA Tour schedule that has remained in place ever since.
Not only was this exclusive gathering of golfers introduced as the first event on tour, it also set up the opening full-field event of the year on Oahu as it transformed from the Hawaiian Open that began in 1965 to the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Both tournaments have had their ups and downs over the past 19 years. Rolfing has championed both from the beginning and is a critical element to them still being at the top of the PGA Tour calendar. He may be a golf analyst by day for NBC and the Golf Channel, but at night he kept thinking of ways to keep both viable for local fans of professional golf.
The Sony Corp. has remained true to Waialae Country Club through the years, but this tournament on the Ben Crenshaw-designed Plantation Course has gone through its fair share of sponsors as the 20th gathering of the world’s best golfers begins today in what is expected to be ideal conditions.
Mercedes doesn’t attach its name to just any sporting event. It truly believed that the world’s best, which included Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els would keep coming to Maui each year to ply their trade and bring a large television viewing audience with them.
As they liked to say back then, “The PGA Tour starts here…”
Unfortunately, Woods and Mickelson eventually abandoned this event for various reasons. A European surge also took place at the turn of the century, leaving some of the bigger names a half a world away. Quite frankly, this tournament gradually lost its luster. Newspapers also cut back on coverage, the Mercedes folks left, West Maui went bankrupt and this tournament was thought to be in jeopardy.
But over the past few years as Woods and Mickelson became less relevant, the young guns who now rule the tour kind of liked this crazy course built on the side of a volcano. So much so, this week the top five golfers in the world and seven of the top 10 decided to begin the new year in Kapalua.
That’s right, the top five in the world are here. That would be No. 1 Dustin Johnson, No. 2 Jordan Spieth, No. 3 Justin Thomas, No. 4 Jon Rahm and No. 5 Hideki Matsuyama.
During his opening press conference of the year on Tuesday, Spieth, who won this tournament in 2016, reiterated this was one of his favorite courses he plays each year.
“It’s nice coming back here,” Spieth said Tuesday. “I look at four or five courses in a year where for whatever reason I seem to have success, whether I’m playing great or feel like I’m kind of just kind of getting through it and this is one of those places.
“So to start the year out the way that I have, the previous three times, has been a nice springboard to kind of feeling like house money, right? Feeling like you’re kind of free rolling as you go in after a strong start in the beginning of the year. So looking forward to this week and next week (at the Sony Open in Hawaii).”
Thomas said he’d love to begin each year at Kapalua. And Johnson has done just that, except once, dating back to his win here in 2013.
Yeah, there can be some weather issues here. It can get windy and it can spit rain from time to time, but when 100 million people in the United States are freezing their butts off this week, 75 degrees sounds good, wind and rain included.
Thomas is the defending champion. You might recall the PGA Tour Player of the Year won in dramatic fashion over Matsuyama by three shots and then went to Oahu and not only shot a 59 in the opening round but went on to set the 72-hole tour scoring record to win by 100 shots (not!) over Justin Rose.
It just seemed like it after becoming the first golfer since Els in 2003 to win the first two events of the calendar year. He went 49 under in the two tournaments and said Wednesday that the two Hawaii events helped set the course for a breakout campaign that included his first major win at the PGA Championship.
“Yeah, it’s great to be back anywhere that you had the opportunity to defend and I’m fortunate enough to where I’m going to be able to do that a lot more than I have in the past this year and I’m very excited for it,” Thomas said. “But it’s obviously a tremendous place here at Kapalua. The views are unbelievable, it’s a fun golf course.
“For a lot of us who have taken this long time off in terms of competition, it’s kind of an easier way to ease back into it, just with the scores being low and the fairways and greens being generous. But yeah, it should be a fun week.”
And he’s not alone in liking the layout. His junior golf partner Spieth likes it here, too. In three appearances on Maui, the Dallas native has never finished lower than third. He has a scoring average here of 67.67 in 12 rounds and has rolled in an average of 7.2 one-putts per round.
Johnson finished tied for sixth last year and one month later won at Riviera to become No. 1 in the world and has been ever since. Maui is one of Johnson’s favorite destinations on tour.
“This is always a great place to start the year,” Johnson said. “Yeah, I enjoy coming back here. I’ve been here quite a few years now, so it’s a place I really enjoy coming. What’s not to like about Hawaii?
“This golf course, it’s a good golf course for me, I like it. It’s big, it’s pretty long, I can hit a lot of drivers. So I enjoy it. I enjoy being here.”
Rahm is making his first start on Maui, while Matsuyama tied for third last year and finished second in his two other starts at the Plantation, setting up an exciting four days to open 2018.
There are 34 golfers teeing it up today in the $6.3 million tourney. Last year, there were 32. Of that group, only nine returned, giving you an idea that Woods and Mickelson may have left the scene, but the young talent they helped inspire, have gladly taken their place.
