Jordan Spieth, Zach Johnson and Jason Day roll out in Hawaii for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions to start season
America’s Jordan Spieth will be trying to better his 2015 this year – a tall order given his amazing haul
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Your support makes all the difference.Surf’s up. After an absence of almost seven weeks, excluding a couple of December exhibitions, the PGA Tour returns for the first tournament of the year on the Hawaiian island of Maui on Thursday.
The Hyundai Tournament of Champions features the majority of PGA Tour winners of 2015, including major-winners Jordan Spieth, Zach Johnson and Jason Day.
Also in attendance are the Players Champion Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson – arguably the most talented player on tour yet to win a major – and Bubba Watson.
The only rock star absentee in the 32-man field is Rory McIlroy, who starts his season in a fortnight in Abu Dhabi. Though the 2016 season is technically approaching three months old, for the principal characters the season starts here – and by that we mean the build-up to the Masters in the second week of April.
The Pacific West takes in the big winter staples of Torrey Pines, Scottsdale, Pebble Beach and Riviera before shifting across the continent for the Florida Swing and the Honda Classic, the WGC-Cadillac at Doral and Arnold Palmer’s big party at Bay Hill.
The prize money on offer makes a dollar millionaire of the winner in any one week and victory carries a degree of prestige, but it is hard to escape the lure of Augusta, which casts its spell at this time of year as the Masters committee prepares to send out the first tranche of invites.
The appearance of Spieth, who at 21 became the second youngest player to win the Masters after Tiger Woods last year, guarantees interest, not to mention the emergence of Day, at 28, as the major-winner he always promised to be. The dynamic at the top of the world rankings between that pair and McIlroy is shaping the post-Woods era.
Spieth is last out with his Ryder Cup playing partner Patrick Reed, immediately preceded by Day and Fowler, who in turn follow Watson and Open champion Johnson on to the tee. Spieth’s arrival in the northern Pacific has already proved valuable for the Hawaii tourist office, with pictures circulating of the Texan’s entire clan at the beach.
Having won the first two majors of 2015, coming within a shot of the play-off for the Open and finishing second to Day at the PGA Championship before cleaning up at the Fed-Ex Cup, Spieth has quite the challenge following up that little lot in 2016. Then again, few thought he would win the Masters and the US Open consecutively before his 22nd birthday. Anything Spieth can do he can do again, is surely the message.
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