KAPALUA, Maui » Just before 1 p.m. today, Zach Johnson and Matt Kuchar, and Adam Scott and Dustin Johnson will tee off toward the Pacific Ocean in the first round of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
All are among the top 20 of the World Golf Ranking. Following the final twosomes across Kapalua Plantation’s vast and extremely uncrowded layout might be on any golf fan’s bucket list.
At 10:20 a.m., Derek Ernst and Woody Austin hit the first PGA Tour drives of 2014. Ernst is one of 13 first-time winners making his debut at the TOC. Austin is the oldest guy here, a four-time winner who is eligible for the senior tour in 24 days.
He is old enough to have played the TOC before it moved to Maui in 1999, with his four wins coming 20 years apart. He missed two full seasons when he re-aggravated a knee originally injured in Little League. He has worked at a drugstore and as a teller at a credit union. Austin made just two cuts last year, spending most of his time on the Web.com Tour.
Ernst is one of five here who hasn’t hit 25 yet, and he looks 16. He got into last year’s Wells Fargo Championship as an alternate for his ninth tour start and ended up winning the event — and $1.2 million — less than a year after graduating from UNLV. Ernst is also the only guy, ever, to make a hole-in-one on a par-4 at the U.S. Public Links.
The 30-man field in this no-cut tournament could tweet trivia until the tournament ends — ideally an hour before Monday’s college football championship begins.
For every international player here — Scott, Martin Laird, Sang-Moon Bae and Jonas Blixt — there are 6 Americans.
For every major champion like Scott and Jason Dufner, there is a Ken Duke or Jimmy Walker.
Duke had a 16-inch rod inserted in his back after getting diagnosed with scoliosis as a child. The 44-year-old turned pro at 25, played mini tours for a decade and was No. 1 on the Nationwide and Canadian tour money lists. He got his first PGA Tour win last year in his 187th try.
Walker turns 35 in two weeks. He won last year in his 188th tour start and crashed the top 50 in the world ranking — one of four first-time winners here who can make that claim, along with Billy Horschel, Kevin Streelman and Jordan Spieth.
You might have heard of Spieth. After winning three Texas state high school championships, he captured three collegiate titles as a freshman and turned pro early in his sophomore season.
In 2013, he became the youngest PGA Tour champion in 82 years, winning the John Deere Classic a few days before his 20th birthday. Spieth, Kuchar and Brandt Snedeker were the only golfers with nine top 10s last year.
This week Spieth, the 2013 Rookie of the Year, went through "new member orientation."
"There definitely was still some things that I had questions about regarding FedExCup, regarding whatever — all kind of stuff," Spieth said. "There’s still quite a bit of that I don’t understand that I’m not worried about right now, like the pension program and all that."
NOTES
Scott, ranked second in the world, plans to play the Sony Open in Hawaii next week then take six weeks off. He is paired with Johnson today after winning a fan vote that paired up the defending champion. Johnson said he slept "weird" on his neck, then "tweaked" it and did not practice Wednesday or play in Thursday’s Pro-Am. He was confident he could play today. Johnson arrived at Kapalua on Friday and played practice rounds the next four days. … This is Johnson’s sixth straight TOC appearance. Matt Kuchar is making his fifth in a row. … Dufner graduated from Auburn and Blixt from Florida State, giving them extra incentive to play fast in Monday’s final round.
