D.J. still dominant as Tour resumes in Hawaii
- The PGA Tour took a five-week break after playing 26 times in 27 weeks from June to December
- Dustin Johnson has commanding leads in world ranking and FedEx Cup
- Majors will be at Augusta, Kiawah Island, Torrey Pines, Royal St. George’s
Viktor Hovland closed out the fall portion of the PGA Tour’s 2020-21 season with a victory at the Mayakoba Classic, ending a stretch of 26 tournaments in 27 weeks, covering parts of two FedEx Cup seasons, under harsh, but necessary COVID-19 restrictions.
The Tour didn’t lose a week of the final 14 of the 2019-20 season once it resumed golf in June, then played the first 12 tournaments of the current season, taking a week off for Thanksgiving.
And this week, it will resume after a five-week break with the Sentry Tournament of Champions, at the Kapalua Plantation in Hawaii. The first round will be Thursday, with the tournament airing in primetime on Golf Channel and NBC.
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With an adjustment to the eligibility requirements that allowed anyone who qualified for the Tour Championship to play (as opposed to only taking the winners of the previous calendar year), the field is the strongest since it was moved to Kapala in 1999.
Leading the way is world No. 1-ranked Dustin Johnson, who won the Masters in November, two months after capturing the FedEx Cup championship, U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, defending champion Justin Thomas, PGA champion Collin Morikawa and two of the previous three Masters champions, Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia.
In terms of the looks and sounds on the PGA Tour, the Tournament of Champions will be much like the events since last summer when the Tour resumed play under its COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Player, caddie, staff and volunteer testing will still be required and only 200 fans will be admitted, restricted to the area behind the 18th green.
Upcoming events on the Tour into its’ California swing also will not allow fans just yet. The Tour announced that it will put a limited number of tickets on sale for The Players Championship March 11-14 at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course, but hasn’t yet set a number.
Here’s the key re-set information to the PGA Tour:
FedEx Cup
Johnson’s Masters victory was his third top-six finish or better in the new season (he tied for sixth at the U.S. Open and tied for second at the Vivant Houston Open) and three starts has been more than enough for a healthy 252-point lead over DeChambeau. Hovland is third (268 points back), followed by Stewart Cink, Patrick Cantlay, Carlos Ortiz, Jason Kokrak, Thomas, Matthew Wolff and Garcia to round out the top-10.
Since withdrawing from the 3M Open in July after a 78, Johnson has finished 12th or better in all eight of his starts, with three victories and three seconds. Johnson’s scoring average during that span is 67.56 and he has shot a cumulative 90-under par, including a 30-under in winning The Northern Trust and a record 20-under to win at Augusta.
Players Championship
The last tournament where fans were allowed en masse for a PGA Tour event was the first round of The Players Championship on March 13, 2020, with the tournament canceled a day later. Depending on the reach of the COVID-19 vaccines, fans may be allowed later in the summer but it appears it will be a sparsely-attended Players this year.
But it will at least be a 72=hole tournament, thanks to the Tour’s COVID-19 protocols that took the lead among major professional sports in showing that there could be safe competition under pandemic conditions.
Major happenings
Because the fall playings of the Masters and U.S. Open were counted on the 2020-21 schedule, there are six majors in the current FedEx Cup season. Barring further issues involving the pandemic, the Masters will resume its normal spot on the calendar April 8-11.
The PGA Championship, which had been moved to August last year but remained on the previous FedEx Cup season, will be May 20-23 at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C.
The U.S. Open is scheduled for June 17-20 at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., marking a return to the public course since Tiger Woods’ dramatic playoff victory over Rocco Mediate in 2008 — when Woods played 91 holes that week on a broken leg.
The Open Championship, which was canceled last year, will be July 15-18 at Royal St. George’s.
Teams meetings
Because the Olympics and the Ryder Cup were canceled last year, those events will move to this year, making the golf schedule in the late summer and fall even more crowded.
Olympic Golf, provided Japan can still hold the Games, will be July 29-Aug. 1. The Ryder Cup will be Sept. 25-27 at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis.
Playoffs start in Northeast
The top-125 on the points list through the Wyndham Championship Aug. 12-15 will advance to the FedEx Playoffs, which begin Aug. 19-22 with The Northern Trust at Liberty National in Jersey City, N.J.
The top-70 after that advance to the BMW Championship, which also will be in the Northeast, at the Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md., Aug. 26-29. The top-30 in points then advance to the Tour Championship Sept. 2-5 at East Lake in Atlanta.
Other tours
The PGA Tour Champions resumes Jan. 16-18 with the Mitsubishi Electric Championship in Hawaii, while the Korn Ferry Tour begins Feb. 18-21 with the LECOM Suncoast Classic near Sarasota.
The PGA Champions will return to the First Coast with the Furyk and Friends Oct. 8-10 at the Timuquana Country Club.
The playoffs systems on those two tours were carried over to this season. Bernhard Langer has lead of less than $27,000 over Ernie Els on the PGA Tour Champions money list and Will Zalatoris had a big 281-point lead over Taylor Pendrith in the Korn Ferry points race.
Jim Furyk, who won his first two Champions starts, is seventh on the money list entering the year.
Jared Wolfe of Nocatee is fifth on the Korn Ferry points list.