North Dakota is where Tom Hoge was raised. Keeping expectations low and riding the wave of strong play, he found the perfect atmosphere for The Plantation Course at Kapalua on Thursday. He scored a 9-under 64 to take a one-shot lead at The Sentry in the season opening.
Hideki Matsuyama took out a different putter after seeing someone else use it and deciding it would work for him. He was one back of a beefed-up Will Zalatoris and had a birdie-eagle-birdie stretch on the back nine that helped him get a 65.
With so much more on the line than in the past, that was the theme for the opening day of the 2018 PGA TOUR season. With some of the widest, most generous fairways they will see all year, the majority of the 60-man field is hoping to shake off some rust on The Plantation Course after taking a brief winter break over the holidays.
Only a handful of players attended the weekend at Kapalua, including the double major winner and top-ranked player in the field, Xander Schauffele. He had two unsuccessful attempts to find his golf ball, which resulted in bogeys on the back nine and a 72.
Hoge, one of the 29 players who qualified for Kapalua without winning, was unsure of what to anticipate because the field included the top 50 FedExCup finishers from the previous year.
He now resides in Fort Worth, Texas, but the weather made it difficult to practise. His first child, a boy called Thomas Bennett, who was born a few weeks ago, didn’t either.
“The first week of November was spent playing all around Mexico, after which I stayed at home. We had to take some time off because we welcomed our first child in early December. There was a lot of golf last year leading up to the TOUR Championship, in my opinion, because of the schedule alterations. At that point, I thought I was very burned out.” he said.
His putter wasn’t rusty, even if the game was. He opened with a 15-foot birdie, sank an 18-foot birdie on the third, saved par with a 6-foot putt on the following hole , then chipped in from a risky position on the fourth.
“It simply liberates you. Additionally, since you’re on Maui, set aside your expectations and see what you can accomplish.” he said.
Zalatoris showed up looking much larger. After not making it to the TOUR Championship, he took two months off to gain muscle, which he hopes would help him recover from back problems that had caused him to miss too much time.
After he had to withdraw from the Masters, he underwent back surgery, missing the final four months of 2022 and the remainder of 2023.
“I no longer feel as though I’ve undergone surgery. I realised that trying to hit it 300 yards out here while weighing 160 pounds was not going to be a prescription for longevity, so I wanted to keep lifting the ceiling.” Zalatoris said.
At 163 pounds, he departed the BMW Championship in August. When he boarded an aircraft from Dallas to Maui, he weighed 182 pounds.
This year, I hope to play my best golf towards the conclusion of the season.
The new season’s first day wasn’t too horrible. Although Zalatoris did not make any bogeys, a three-putt on The Plantation Course’s fifth par-5, the easiest hole, felt like a bogey.
Tony Finau, who had surgery on his left knee four months prior, was in the group at 67, while Collin Morikawa, Cameron Young, and Corey Conners were at 66.
On the 13th hole, Matsuyama, who had been playing in Japan in the autumn, retreated with a 3-putt bogey from 15 feet. On the next hole, he took a mediocre tee shot, but he drove a wedge to 10 feet for birdie and was on his way. He had a chance to tie Hoge until he missed all of his 3-wood on the downhill 18th and was unable to get up-and-down for birdie. He blasted 5-wood to 5 feet for eagle on the 15th, and wedge to 4 feet for birdie on the following.
The world’s top player, Scottie Scheffler, injured his hand on shards of glass while cooking Christmas dinner, thus the new season begins without him.
Additionally, it marks the beginning of a new format whereby only the top 100 FedExCup players down from 125 players ; keep their full TOUR cards for the next year.
