Preview of the 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions

Just one day stands between you, your couch, a Mai Tai, and Hawaiian golf on your television. Keep the faith!

A quick note…

Before we move on with our Kapalua preview, we just wanted to say how thrilled we were with the registration turnout for our early wave of events. The only downside was that many people were unable to sign up for the King Tide, the Boomerang, or the Steam Shovel before they sold out. To add your name to the waitlist for these events, please request to be notified when they are back in stock. Meanwhile, you can still register for the Coup de Grâce lottery. Our next batch of events will open for registration on February 7!

We back

Do we wish the PGA Tour had a longer off-season? Sure. But ringing in the New Year with the Sentry Tournament of Champions is always a pleasure. The Plantation Course at Kapalua is expected to play soft because of recent rains, but we’ll never complain about having Maui on our TVs.

It’s been a while since we last saw the PGA Tour properly in action, so let’s level set on where we left off in 2021 and where we might be going in 2022:

Hot, hot, hot – While the Tour’s biggest names took much of the 2021 fall season off, Talor Gooch and Sam Burns stepped on the gas. Gooch and Burns currently top the FedEx Cup standings with two wins and six top 10s between them. Keep an eye on Burns in particular; he has been rock-solid for a full year. Now No. 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking, he’s looking at a potentially huge 2022.

First look – Among those who played a light fall schedule was Bryson DeChambeau. The thicc boi recorded just one finish after the Ryder Cup, a T-14 at the 18-man Hero World Challenge. Of course, he has been busy in other ways. He got boat-raced by Brooks Koepka in The Match, did surprisingly well in the World Long Drive Championship in Nevada, DID NOT take steroids, and released many cringey videos with his cohort of muscley acquaintances. No doubt Bryson’s drives will be sailing high in the Kona winds this week. Whether that will translate to low scores is another question.

The high ground – Collin Morikawa had the top spot in the OWGR within his grasp at the Hero World Challenge before he faltered in the final round. This week, he gets another crack at it. Current No. 1 Jon Rahm, also in the field at Kapalua, played sparingly in the fall, missing the cut in two of three starts after the Tour Championship. The Spaniard has four top 10s in four appearances at the Tournament of Champions, so Morikawa will likely need a top-two finish to unseat him. Regardless of what happens this week, Rahm and Morikawa seem poised to lift and separate in 2022. The gap between Morikawa and world No. 3 Dustin Johnson is already substantial, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see it widen over the next few months.

The Latest from The Fried Egg

Paulie’s Picks: Sentry Tournament of Champions – Just because Hawaii makes you think about vacations doesn’t mean Paulie is taking the week off. See who he likes for DraftKing leagues!

The Fried Egg Podcast: 2022 PGA Tour Season Preview – Joseph LaMagna joins the podcast to talk all things PGA Tour ahead of the 2022 season opener. Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify.

The Shotgun Start – Hemisphere talk, a discussion of the future obscurity of players in the Kapalua field, and more in this Wednesday episode. Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Quick Hooks

A new batch of PGA Tour players—including Tony Finau, Matthew Wolff, Cameron Smith, Patrick Reed, and Marc Leishman—have committed to next month’s Saudi International. Also, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia came on as the official sponsor… as if there were any doubt.

Golf manufacturers started rolling out their new products for 2022 on Tuesday, if you’re into that sort of thing.

A group is attempting to fund the purchase of a top-100 golf club through the sale of NFTs. They’ve already raised over $11 million. More from Josh Sens