2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions

[Splatt]

Well, the 2023 golf season has officially kicked off with the Sentry TOC at the beautiful Kapalua Golf Plantation Course.

Who do you think takes home the W?

Will the scoring get as low as Cam Smith's win last year?

Will Billy Horschel snap a club or put some fresh dents in his bag?

Only time will tell, but I'm pumped to have golf back 

[2puttbogey]

Weather is Houston be good and wind is going to be calm all weekend so scores are going to be low again. I’m going Rahm he seems to have this course figured out. Score of -32.

[Splatt]

8 minutes ago, 2puttbogey said:

Weather is Houston be good and wind is going to be calm all weekend so scores are going to be low again. I’m going Rahm he seems to have this course figured out. Score of -32.

Rahm has started off strong and didn't look like missing anything.

Hopefully he keeps it up

[GolfSpy_APH]

I only saw the PGA tour highlights but looked like morikawa is in fine form. Hope he has a bounce back season.

[GolfSpy_KFT]

I am curious to see how Zalatoris' back holds up. After a 4 month layoff I was wondering how much rust would be there, but sitting at -4 I'd say he's in pretty solid playing form. Hoping for a healthy season for him, I really enjoy watching him play.

[cnosil]

24 minutes ago, Jnoble89 said:

I am curious to see how Zalatoris' back holds up. After a 4 month layoff I was wondering how much rust would be there, but sitting at -4 I'd say he's in pretty solid playing form. Hoping for a healthy season for him, I really enjoy watching him play.

Swing and club setup changes so the question will also be how do those changes impact his play.  

https://golf.com/news/will-zalatoris-body/

[Headhammer]

I'm sorry, but my morals prohibit me from watching a limited field, no cut event where OGWR points are awarded!

[Kenny B]

1 hour ago, Headhammer said:

I'm sorry, but my morals prohibit me from watching a limited field, no cut event where OGWR points are awarded!

Especially when the defending champion of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Players champion, and Champion Golfer of the Year is not part of the field!!!

[GaDawg]

23 hours ago, Splatt said:

Well, the 2023 golf season has officially kicked off with the Sentry TOC at the beautiful Kapalua Golf Plantation Course.

Who do you think takes home the W?

Will the scoring get as low as Cam Smith's win last year?

Will Billy Horschel snap a club or put some fresh dents in his bag?

Only time will tell, but I'm pumped to have golf back 

I am going with Scheffler to win at -26.

I have not seen or heard mention of cry baby Horschel. So glad he has not made the TV.

[GolfSpy_APH]

Man I would love it to be the Year Of Morikawa dominance! 

[Jim Shaw]

Fun to see these great players hoing head to head. A couple of takeaways from the early days in the tournament. How unique and personal all their swings are, and the best putter this week will win.. 

[DaveP043]

29 minutes ago, Jim Shaw said:

and the best putter this week will win.. 

I'd say that the winner will be the best putter among the top 5 ballstrikers for the week.  

[Jim Shaw]

All of these players are great ball strikers, and great putters for that matter, great chippers, great bunker players etc etc. Since shot link has been implemented as statistics usually, with the odd exception, it is the putting statistic that sticks out for me. A friend of mine, Ray Stewart, who played on the PGA tour for many years once said to me, “we might as well all throw the balls on the green, whoever putts best that week wins”. 

[GolfSpy_APH]

Did anyone else watch the NLU match with JT and Spieth? May have been the best hour and half of golfing tv I have seen in ages. 

I mention it here because it was at the venue and was a great way to see the course prior to the event and offered some cool course knowledge. 

[Jim Shaw]

now we are into the final round at kapaluha another takeaway for me is most of the best players in the world are hitting fades off the tee, something for me to work on this winter, power fades... like my dad used to say "you can talk to a fade, you can't talk to a hook"

[Jim Shaw]

Wow... nice little 63 by John Rahm to win the tournament..

[Middler]

Hard to watch Morikawa’s wheels fall off after 67 bogey free holes, but congrats to Rahm for posting a clutch -10 on Sunday for the win. That’s what champions do…

[Jim Shaw]

The question I have is why? Why is it so hard to win any tournament… it is easy for our armchair quarterbacks to go through the collapse but the secret sauce is “why” why did he collapse and what can we learn from it, because believe me, in tournament play we find ourselves in those exact positions. 

[ballhawk]

It's a darn shame that NBC, in their infinite wisdom, showed only half of the last round on regular TV.  I know they own ESPN, but if your going to televise only half of the play, they may as well have not shown any of it and just kept it on the other channel. Everybody does not have cable or the extra pay for channels. 

[Jim Shaw]

another question/comment about after the tournament, it didnt seem that Rahm was too interested in talking to the media, is that just me or did he give an interview?

[GolfSpy_APH]

Did watch any  of it, just had to go off scores online and such however NLU had a good recap pod talking about parts of it and with TC not on it they didn't run down the leaderboard which was kinda nice... I think. 

Good way to kick off the year and sorry to see Morikawa blow it after a stellar 67 holes. I think it makes the rest of his season a little more interesting and congrats to Rahm who I really enjoy watching. 

[Middler]

7 hours ago, ballhawk said:

It's a darn shame that NBC, in their infinite wisdom, showed only half of the last round on regular TV.  I know they own ESPN, but if you’re going to televise only half of the play, they may as well have not shown any of it and just kept it on the other channel. Everybody does not have cable or the extra pay for channels. 

Simple, to induce you to subscribe to Golf Channel. And it’s not just NBC. NBC splits content with Peacock. CBS splits content with Paramount+. Discovery splits content with Discovery+. That’s the trend…you get what you pay for, networks are a business, not a public service.

[Splatt]

On 1/9/2023 at 4:40 PM, GolfSpy_APH said:

Did watch any  of it, just had to go off scores online and such however NLU had a good recap pod talking about parts of it and with TC not on it they didn't run down the leaderboard which was kinda nice... I think. 

Good way to kick off the year and sorry to see Morikawa blow it after a stellar 67 holes. I think it makes the rest of his season a little more interesting and congrats to Rahm who I really enjoy watching. 

I think this will end up being the best thing that's happened for Morikawa and his growth as a golfer.

Might be a bit of a reality check; yes, you've already won 2 majors, but golf is still golf.

Bring on the rest of the season.

[Kenny B]

20 minutes ago, Splatt said:

I think this will end up being the best thing that's happened for Morikawa and his growth as a golfer.

Might be a bit of a reality check; yes, you've already won 2 majors, but golf is still golf.

Bring on the rest of the season.

You would think so, except he's done it before.  Morikawa had a 5 shot lead at the 2021 Hero World Challenge, shot 76 on Sunday and finished T-5.  He's going to be looking over his shoulder every time he gets in this position again.  It's going to be a demon on his back until he finally wins with a big lead.  

Playing with a big lead is tough on the PGA Tour; Scheffler lost the Tour Championship leading by 6 shots.  Tiger was probably the best at it because he hated making bogeys so much that he had just as much focus throughout the final round as he would if others were right on his tail.

[Splatt]

14 minutes ago, Kenny B said:

You would think so, except he's done it before.  Morikawa had a 5 shot lead at the 2021 Hero World Challenge, shot 76 on Sunday and finished T-5.  He's going to be looking over his shoulder every time he gets in this position again.  It's going to be a demon on his back until he finally wins with a big lead.  

Playing with a big lead is tough on the PGA Tour; Scheffler lost the Tour Championship leading by 6 shots.  Tiger was probably the best at it because he hated making bogeys so much that he had just as much focus throughout the final round as he would if others were right on his tail.

True. A bit of complacency maybe? Easier to continue playing aggressive golf when it's still any bodies tournement.

[GolfSpy TCB]

15 hours ago, Splatt said:

True. A bit of complacency maybe? Easier to continue playing aggressive golf when it's still any bodies tournement.

I'll say this.  These are the moments that define a pro golfer.  I guarantee that the next time Morikawa hits the back nine with a several stroke lead... his mind will absolutely go to this tournament.  Just like his mind probably went to the collapse in '21 on this past Sunday.  And just the fact that his mind goes there... will make it anyone's tournament at that point.   Those mental demons are hard to remove.  Golf is a cruel sport sometimes.

[Splatt]

On 1/8/2023 at 1:06 AM, GolfSpy_APH said:

Did anyone else watch the NLU match with JT and Spieth? May have been the best hour and half of golfing tv I have seen in ages. 

I mention it here because it was at the venue and was a great way to see the course prior to the event and offered some cool course knowledge. 

Just finished watching the NLU match. What an entertaining 90 minutes of golf. So good!

When they're talking about how much to fade a shot, not just fade or not, but degree's of fade. That blew my mind