KAPALUA, Maui >> Jordan Spieth is one of the marquee names to tee it up at the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club beginning Thursday.
But before he can get to the first tee, he’ll need to do some shopping for a new driver.
Spieth cracked his driver in Wednesday’s Pro-Am at the Plantation Course and had to use a spare for the entire tournament in which he finished in a tie for 13th place at 19 under.
Spieth managed the driver well over the first two rounds and was three back of the lead at the halfway point before closing with rounds of 71 and 69.
“A couple of (drives) were surprising to me when I look up on where they’re going,” Spieth said. “I would have liked a better weekend. I made a lot of really, really bad decisions on the weekend. I just played some of the wrong shots or the wrong clubs.”
So what exactly does driver shopping look like for a player of Spieth’s stature?
“I know that J.J., my guy from Titleist, will be there next week with a couple more heads and some of the newer ones to try out. He knows exactly what I need,” Spieth said. “So I don’t foresee it being a problem having a few days of runway. But I didn’t have any runway (this week) so that was tough.”
Spieth said he usually goes a year between drivers before they crack. He won with a cracked driver in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open in 2021 and said he had a driver crack the day or two before the Masters in both 2016 and ’19.
“Everybody does it. It’s not just me,” Spieth said. “It’s just unfortunate when it’s a Wednesday or Sunday. And yeah, so it’s nice it’s not in the spring. It’s nice that it’s in January. It would be better in November but January is fine.”
Hoge to go see his TCU before Waialae
Half of the 39-player field at the Sentry Tournament of Champions won’t have far to travel for the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club beginning Thursday.
Except for Tom Hoge.
The TCU alumnus was hoping to catch a flight late Sunday night from Maui to Los Angeles to watch the college football national championship game at Sofi Stadium between TCU and No. 1 Georgia.
He would then fly back to Oahu on Tuesday morning.
After closing with a 9-under 64 on Sunday to finish tied for third, Hoge put on his analyst hat and gave a breakdown of today’s game.
“I’m hopeful we can hang with ’em. The start (of the game) is going to be important, kind of like it was for the Michigan game, where we got ahead early and kind of hung on,” Hoge said. “It’s going to be a fun game to be at. I’m hopeful that we’ll be in the fourth quarter with a chance to win. (TCU quarterback) Max Duggan has kind of been our hero all year leading us back, so hopefully he can do it again.”
Hoge has finished in the top 15 in five of his seven starts this season.
Zalatoris finishes tied for 11th in PGA return
Making his season debut and playing for the first time since the 2022 BMW Championship, Will Zalatoris followed up three straight 69s with an 8-under-65 to finish in a tie for 11th place at 20 under.
Despite missing more than four months with a back injury, Zalatoris only fell to No. 11 in the Wolf Golf Ranking because of his recent success.
In 24 events in the 2021-22 season, Zalatoris won the FedEx St. Jude Championship before the injury forced him to withdraw from the BMW Championship a week later. He had nine top-10 finishes and finished runner-up at the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. He also tied for sixth at the Masters.
“Josh, my coach, even said, he’s like, ‘Just four rounds being healthy was kind of the goal this week and obviously you’re way ahead of the curve,” said Zalatoris, who is 26. “Overall, very pleased. Back feels great. Just kind of hit some stupid stuff early in the week to shake off some rust.”
