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A year ago, Australia was burning.
Defending Sony Open in Hawaii champion Cameron Smith was telling us all about it. Giving personal accounts of his own family’s devastation and perhaps muting his hard-fought victory at Waialae Country Club for fear of trivializing the tragedy unfolding Down Under.
Unknown to him and just about everybody else was a novel coronavirus was tending to its own flame. Noticed by some, even on the weekend Smith put it all together, this virus, aka COVID-19, spread like that same fire in Australia and rages on worldwide at this very moment in time.
It pulled the plug on the PGA Tour 60 days after Smith’s victory that was procured in a playoff with Brendan Steele. Right in the middle of the Players Championship, the virus sent the sports world packing in mid-March. The PGA Tour came out to play 90 days later in a modified setting at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Colonial.
No fans were in attendance, much like at this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii, leaving an abandoned feeling in place for those few allowed to tour the grounds. The players have adjusted to the 18-hole quiet. It’s not as if this is the Dog Pound in Cleveland. The fans’ interaction with the players have rules, after all, and it doesn’t include, YOU THE MAN, in the middle of a backswing.
Still, it has been a strange return to the 50th state where only a limited number of fans were allowed to sit outside of the famed 18th green at last week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course on Maui. This week on Oahu, Waialae will be nearly empty.
The majority will be missing an interesting field that includes a dozen past champions starting with Smith in 2020 and going all the way back to 1996 when Jim Furyk won this tournament that was called the United Airlines Hawaiian Open in those old days. Past PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa and one of the young stars teeing it up this week, wasn’t even born yet when Furyk fired 277 on the par-72-hole course to pocket the first-place check of $216,000.
In between Furyk and Smith are past major champions Vijay Singh (2005 Sony winner), Zach Johnson (2009) and Jimmy Walker (2014 and 2015). In addition to Morikawa is South Korean world traveler Sungjae Im, who is one of the favorites to win this week. So is past U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson, who like Charles Howell III, likes the course, but hasn’t hoisted a trophy — yet.
Howell has finished in the top five here six times, including a pair of runner-ups. Simpson doesn’t have as many appearances as Howell, but since coming here in 2009, he has finished 13th or better five times, including a tie for fourth in 2019. And then there’s Davis Love III. Like Furyk, he remembers when planes were the sponsor. He has five top 10s here, including two seconds and a seventh-place finish as recently as 2019.
Throw in Hideki Matsuyama, who is not exactly in love with the place, new-found star Harris English and even local favorite Parker McLachlin still trying to capture some glory from his past. The 144-man field has a little bit of the past, present and future. You can watch it on the Golf Channel or from someone’s backyard starting Thursday at 7 a.m. Please bring your own mask.
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