Much has been made of this year’s Sony Open possibly being the PGA Tour’s final trip to Hawaii. (At least for a while.) Finances don’t mix well with smart schedulers, no matter how you support them in that beautiful Hawaiian sunshine. But if there was a quintessential way to sum up the Tour’s Hawaiian experience, this tournament does it all.
Everything about Saturday describes what’s good and what’s lacking in Pacific island golf on this particular weekend in mid-January. Finally, we have a second-rate field – with all due respect to everyone involved – with many top professionals, most of whom have played well in this tournament before. And despite top 10 players like Russell Henley and JJ Spaun and Bob MacIntyre all showing up, the likes of Collin Morikawa and Keegan Bradley and Tony Finau all left before the weekend even started.
What is to blame there? Not Hawaii, really. We’ll call it what it is: their first event of the year. Their first real competition photos in months. Similar to the Dubai Invitational, which is played over 8,500 miles, the Sony feels like pre-season golf, certainly not far off from fall season golf. Only Ryan Gerard – the man who ran across the Atlantic in December in pursuit of an invitation to the Masters – can say his 2025 season continued without a break here in Hawaii. Everyone else has been returning to form.
And yet, that doesn’t mean golf wasn’t compelling, as long as you turned your back on the NFL’s division-round games.
Even though players recorded sweaty rounds now in the mid-60s out of Wai’alae Country Club earlier in the week, Friday evening and Saturday afternoon brought a brisk breeze through Honolulu, making the classic Tour course a fitting test. The temperature was in the upper 70s, sure, but the wind was blowing between 30 and 35 mph, with most of the crosswinds approaching the Wai’alae greens.
“Honestly, I feel like I played better yesterday, but I hit better today,” Chris Gotterup said, his face high. His 2-under 68 is two back of Davis Riley’s 12-under lead. Gotterup was one of a group of players who mentioned how the wind can play funny tricks on your mind, even if you’re just laying there.
Saturday’s average score came in above the average, something we don’t usually see in a course we usually cover. If Sunday’s winner finishes at 15-under or better, it will be the highest score won since 2020. Perhaps an island way of saying one of two things: Good life! Or maybe you should stay longer.
However, no Tour event will face the same storms as the one Sony will experience on Sunday. As we’ve learned over the decades, the NFL dominates all television companies in America, sports category or otherwise, and has a couple of different sports on the circuit that will crush any interesting golf that Sony can offer. If the tournament is lucky, a snowy game in Chicago will end with a bang so the best golf fans can turn up for the last few holes on sun-kissed O’ahu.
Even next week’s Tour event — which will be competing with the NFL’s conference championship games — will do more damage. Thanks in part to the cancellation of last week’s The Sentry, next week’s AmEx will have its strongest field in years when World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler starting his season.
In that sense, Hawaii’s loss will be California’s gain. We may find ourselves repeating that phrase for many Januarys to come.
