Organizers have long had a good idea of who will play in the 144-man Sony Open in Hawaii field next week (Jan. 12-15) at Waialae Country Club. The mystery that surrounded the much smaller Hyundai Tournament of Champions’ field this week on Maui is now resolved.

Of the 39 PGA Tour winners from last year, 28 will tee off at Kapalua’s Plantation Course on Friday.

The tour, which now runs the season-opening tournament, was releasing names intermittently on Facebook. Players had until Friday to commit and a quarter of those eligible passed. Keegan Bradley is the only major winner from 2011 on Maui. None of the world’s top five — Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer and Adam Scott — will be here.

That leaves No. 6 Steve Stricker as Kapalua’s top-ranked player. He and Webb Simpson (10) are the only golfers in the top 10. There are five rookies from last year (Jhonattan Vegas, Chris Kirk, Scott Stallings, Bradley and Brendan Steele) and 12 first-time winners.

Stricker and 2008 Sony Open champ K.J. Choi are playing for the sixth time. David Toms, who won at Sony in 2006, is playing for the eighth. This is his first trip to Kapalua in four years, but Toms has four top-10 finishes at the Plantation.

Vijay Singh was the oldest to win here, capturing the title in 2007 at 43 years, 10 months and 16 days. Stricker (44), Toms (45) and Michael Bradley (45) could all beat that this year.

Jonathan Byrd will defend his championship. He beat Robert Garrigus in a two-hole playoff a year ago.

The tournament is starting on a Friday for the first time since it moved to Kapalua in 1999, in an effort to put broadcast distance between its final round and the NFL playoffs. Organizers want to finish by 3 p.m. Monday, before the BCS National Championship game begins. The Deutsche Bank Championship is the only other tour event with a Monday finish.

The field is playing for $5.6 million, with the winner getting $1,120,000. Last place is $60,000. Frederik Jacobson, Dustin Johnson and Brandt Snedeker, who are injured and not playing, get $59,000 each as part of a three-way tie for 29th.

On Monday, Singh, who won at Waialae Country Club in 2005, entered this year’s Sony Open. That starts Jan. 12. The first full-field event of the year would have had the champions from its past nine events — Ryan Palmer (2010), Singh, Choi, Toms, Zach Johnson (2009), Paul Goydos (2007), Jerry Kelly (2002) and Ernie Els (2003 and ’04) — but Els withdrew Tuesday without stating a reason.

The Sony unofficially starts Sunday with a prequalifier at Turtle Bay’s Palmer Course. The top 50 and ties advance to the Monday qualifier, also at Palmer, with the top four playing at Waialae. There are 22 tour players already eligible for the Monday qualifier, which tees off at 7:30 a.m. The prequalifier field includes Hawaii’s Lorens Chan, Alex Chiarella, Tadd Fujikawa, Aaron Kunitomo, Nick Mason, Sean Maekawa and Cory Oride.

Sony week also has the Dream Cup Pro-Am on Monday, King Auto Group Pro-Junior Skills Challenge on Tuesday and the official pro-am on Wednesday.

The Champions Tour kicks off its season on Hawaii island, with the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai the week after the Sony, Jan. 20-22.

There will be no Senior Skins Game this year because one of the major sponsors pulled out. Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson won last year at Kaanapali. The exhibition had been played there since 2008.