Tag: 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions

World No. 1, Masters champion Dustin Johnson won’t relax: ‘I like being the best’

Dustin Johnson said there are plenty of areas in his game where he can improve. Wait, what?

Dustin Johnson said there are plenty of areas in his game where he can improve.

Wait, what?

He’s the No. 1 player in the world, the reigning Masters champion, the reigning FedEx Cup champion. He won PGA Tour titles 21, 22, 23 and 24 in 2020 and had four runner-up finishes. In his last seven starts of last year, he won twice, finished second three times, tied for third and tied for sixth.

Induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame is in his future, the 2016 U.S. Open trophy on his mantel.

And he thinks he can get better? That’s scary.

“Motivation for me, it’s not that hard. I like being the best,” the easygoing Johnson, 36, said Wednesday after his pro-am round at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. “I feel like the more I play, the more I grow as a person and as a golfer, the better I’m getting. So I still feel great. I feel young. I feel like I’m in my 20s, even though I’m not.

Sentry Tournament of Champions
Dustin Johnson plays his shot from the 14th tee during a practice round prior to the Sentry Tournament of Champions on the Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club on January 05, 2021 in Kapalua, Hawaii. Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images

“There’s plenty of areas in my game where I can improve; short game, putting, wedges, I still feel like I can get a lot better with the wedges. I can drive it better, I can definitely hit the long irons a little bit better, so I feel like there’s plenty of areas I can improve and so that’s what I’ll look forward to doing this year.”

Johnson’s 2020 is a tough act to follow but he’s in an ideal spot to start matching or surpassing the campaign – the Plantation Course in Kapalua, Hawaii. He won the Tournament of Champions here in 2013 and 2018, has eight top-10s in 10 starts here, and has 35 rounds under par, the most of anyone since 1999.

Sentry Tournament of Champions: Tee times, TV info | Fantasy rankings | Odds

“This is a place that I love coming every year,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed playing here. I like the golf course. I felt like the game, even the little that I’ve played, practicing a little bit the last couple days, everything feels pretty similar.

“Obviously not quite as sharp as I was probably back at Augusta, but I’m seeing a lot of the same shapes and I feel like I’m doing everything pretty well, even though I haven’t practiced a whole lot here lately.

“It’s OK to be a little bit rusty. The fairways are nice and wide and there’s still some shots, you got to hit some really quality golf shots, but I feel like I’ve had the last week or so to play a little bit. I’m rusty, but not too rusty.”

Johnson hasn’t played since winning the Masters at Augusta National in November, where he broke the 72-hole scoring record by firing 20-under 268.

The green jacket is in a closet at his home. He hasn’t watched a replay of the tournament but has a link to the video on his phone and plans on watching it sometime down the road. He thought about what he’ll serve at the Champions Dinner but hasn’t finalized the menu.

“It’s been really good being the Masters champ,” Johnson said. “Obviously, it’s something that I’ve always had on the list of things I wanted to accomplish. Winning it when I did was kind of nice because I did get to take some time off and enjoy. And obviously, with the holidays, spent a lot of time with the family and so it’s been great. Did a little bit of celebrating, too.

“Haven’t played a whole lot of golf, but that was on purpose.”

But now it’s time to get back to work. Johnson will have his hands full this week as eight of the top 10 in the world are in the field, including defending champion and world No. 3 Justin Thomas and No. 2 Jon Rahm.

But Johnson expects to be in the mix for a third title in Maui – and his first in 2021.

“I don’t have a lot of optimism. I expect to play well always,” he said. “So I’m not hoping to play well, I expect to play well.”

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How much money each golfer won at the Sentry Tournament of Champions

Check out how much each player took home after the PGA Tour’s first event of 2020, the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

It pays to win on the PGA Tour.

This week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua’s newly-renovated Plantation Course featured a winners-only field of those victorious in the 2019 calendar year, and it took some extra holes to crown the champion.

Justin Thomas took home the trophy in a playoff against Xander Schauffele and Patrick Reed, as well as the $1.34M top prize and 500 FedEx Cup points. Schauffele was eliminated with a par on the first playoff hole, while Reed ultimately lost on the third playoff hole with par.

Take a look at how much each player earned this week in Hawaii.

SENTRY TOC: Photos | Scores | Schedule, results

Position Player To par Earnings
1 Justin Thomas -14 $1,340,000
T-2 Patrick Reed -14 $636,000
T-2 Xander Schauffele -14 $636,000
4 Patrick Cantlay -11 $378,000
T-5 Rickie Fowler -10 $285,000
T-5 Joaquin Niemann -10 $285,000
T-7 Dustin Johnson -9 $206,000
T-7 Collin Morikawa -9 $206,000
T-7 Gary Woodland -9 $206,000
10 Jon Rahm -8 $179,000
T-11 Matthew Wolff -7 $162,500
T-11 J.T. Poston -7 $162,500
13 Lanto Griffin -6 $147,000
T-14 Cameron Champ -4 $127,333
T-14 Matt Kuchar -4 $127,333
T-14 Kevin Kisner -4 $127,333
T-17 Sebastian Munoz -3 $106,000
T-17 Ryan Palmer -3 $106,000
T-19 Corey Conners -2 $90,500
T-19 Paul Casey -2 $90,500
T-19 Tyler Duncan -2 $90,500
T-19 Nate Lashley -2 $90,500
T-23 Adam Long -1 $80,500
T-23 Graeme McDowell -1 $80,500
T-25 Sung Kang Even $75,000
T-25 Max Homa Even $75,000
T-27 Chez Reavie +1 $71,000
T-27 Jim Herman +1 $71,000
29 Brendon Todd +2 $69,000
30 J.B. Holmes +4 $68,000
31 Dylan Frittelli +5 $67,000
T-32 Kevin Na +10 $65,500
T-32 Keith Mitchell +10 $65,500
34 Martin Trainer +14 $64,000

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Winner’s Bag: Justin Thomas, 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions

See a complete list of the Titleist golf equipment that Justin Thomas used to win at the Plantation Course in Hawaii.

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Justin Thomas outlasted Patrick Reed and Xander Schauffele to win the first PGA Tour event of 2020, the Sentry Tournament of Champions, on Sunday evening. Here are the clubs the 26-year-old used for his 12th PGA Tour title:

DRIVER: Titleist TS3 (9.5 degrees), with Mitsubishi Diamana BF 60 TX shaft

FAIRWAY WOODS: Titleist TS3 (15 degrees), with Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro Blue 80TX shaft; 915Fd (18 degrees), with Fujikura Motore Speeder VC 9.2 Tour Spec X shaft

IRONS: Titleist T100 (4), 620 MB (5-9), with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts

WEDGES: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 (46 degrees), with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shaft; SM7 (52, 56 degrees), SM6 (60 degrees), with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shafts

PUTTER: Scotty Cameron Futura X5

BALL: Titleist Pro V1x

GRIPS: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord (full swing)/SuperStroke Traxion Pistol GT Tour (putter)

Xander Schauffele battles wind, rain to hold lead at Sentry Tournament of Champions

Xander Schauffele shot 5-under 68 Friday at the Sentry Tournament of Champions to hold a one-shot lead entering the third round.

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Xander Schauffele takes a one-shot lead into the third round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

On Friday he carded five birdies en route to a 5-under 68 to grab the lead over Patrick Reed and Joaquin Niemann.

Schauffele is 9 under entering Saturday’s third round. He kept a clean scorecard Friday at the Kapalua Plantation Course, recording birdies on two of his final three holes to steal the lead from the 21-year-old Niemann.

Sentry TOC: Tee times | Scores | Podcast | Photos | Updates

Niemann shot a 66 on Thursday to take the first-round lead, but shot 1-under 72 in the second round after bogeying holes 5 and 13. Schauffele shot an opening-round 66.

The defending champion and only player bogey-free player in the 34-man field, Schauffele battled through difficult conditions in Lahaina, Hawaii Friday which included strong winds and sporadic rain.

After his round, Schauffele was asked if he could have predicted the leader would lead a 9 under through 36 holes before the event began.

“I couldn’t tell you. You know, I didn’t know this was going to roll in today,” Schauffele said. “I thought the T0ur was nice with the pin positions, over under 18-ish. I’ve heard 15, I’ve heard 20. But I think this weather kind of keeps up and the wind keeps up, it’s not going to be a shootout.”

Schauffele, who won the event last year by one shot at 23 under, also noted the changes to the course over the past year.

“Besides looking the same and looking over at Molokai, very different. Hitting longer clubs, different lines, different reads on the greens,” Schauffele said. “We’re on the same property, but for the most part there’s no memory I can fall back on when it comes to making a putt or hitting a bump-and-run shot on a certain hole since the green layouts are very different. They happen to be in the same spot, but the surfaces aren’t the same.”

The 26-year-old from La Jolla, California, is looking for his first win since last year’s win in Kapalua. Since the win — his fourth on Tour — Schauffele finished second at the 2019 Masters Tournament, T-3 at the U.S. Open and second at the Tour Championship. This season, Schauffele finished second at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in November, the same event he won in 2019.

Schauffele tees off alongside Patrick Reed in Saturday’s third round at 3:40 p.m. ET.

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Patrick Cantlay involved in classic open-mic fail at Sentry Tournament of Champions

A Golf Channel microphone on the 17th tee caught Patrick Cantlay dropping an F-bomb and saying, “Two more holes and we can get a Mai Tai.”

Patrick Cantlay can expect to receive a stern letter from PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, and it won’t have anything to do with his dreadful pace of play. This one will be for “conduct unbecoming a professional.”

Cantlay, 27, was guilty of what will go down as one of the great open microphone fails. It happened coming out of a commercial break and while it’s unclear exactly what Cantlay was referring to, he is telling a story to fellow competitor Jon Rahm and caddie Adam Hayes on the 17th tee at Kapalua’s Plantation Course.

It had something to do with the wildly erratic weather conditions at Kapalua that made the Plantation Course a handful: “I’ve been waiting for this weather for 40 years. These pampered f$#%s need to play,” Cantlay can be heard saying clear as day.

Sentry TOC: Scores | Podcast | Photos | Updates | Tee Times 

Cantlay was prepping to tee off and speaking aloud when he dropped his ‘F-bomb,’ and then in what will be a new one-liner repeated on golf courses for years to come, he said to his caddie, “Two more holes and we can get a Mai Tai.”

“I’ll get my Mai Tai; you can get your water,” his caddie replied.

“Don’t spoil it for me,” Cantlay said.

“Gosh,” Golf Channel commentator Paul Azinger said, “He’s not really staying in the moment. He’s already in the 19th hole in his head.”

“Talk about unfiltered,” host Dan Hicks added. “They do have to realize that there are live mics around, especially when you’re turning into a star player like Cantlay is.”

Cantlay shot 2-under 71 and is tied for fifth, three strokes behind leader Xander Schauffele.

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Patrick Reed rides hot putter to second-round 66 at Sentry Tournament of Champions

Neither rain, wind nor the need for a rule’s official could faze Patrick Reed during the second round in Kapalua.

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Neither rain, nor wind, nor the need for a rule’s official could faze Patrick Reed during the second round of the Sentry Tournament Championship.

Reed used a stellar short game and deadly putter to card eight birdies and one bogey en route to a 7-under 66 at Kapalua’s Plantation Course. He trails defending champion Xander Schauffele, who made birdie at the last for 68 and a 36-hole total of 9-under 137, by one stroke.

Conditions shifted from placid sunshine in Round One to intermittent rain and pesky winds gusting up to 35 mph. It didn’t bother everyone. Rickie Fowler said he loves playing in the wind, noting “I feel like this golf course allows you to use your imagination.”

It sure fit the eye of Reed, who learned to cope with gusty winds growing up in Texas.

“The biggest thing was I had control of the golf ball,” he told Golf Channel after the round.

Sentry TOC: Scores | Podcast | Photos | Updates

Reed rallied after a rocky start that included a triple bogey on seven on Thursday, but Reed realized it was just one bad iron swing and a “fluke bunker shot” that he sculled across the green.

“I thought it was stuff I could easily fix and manage and not do again,” he said. “I’ve come a long way on learning what to do in the middle of the rounds.”

Reed played his next 21 holes in 9 under to grab a share of the lead. To do so, he abandoned his patented draw in favor of a fade mid-round and his putter took care of the rest.

“In the past I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have continued to try to hit the draw and it would’ve kept going right and I’d have kept on struggling, but I was able to flip it around there and let the putter do the work,” said Reed, who posted 72 on Thursday.

Patrick Reed lines up a putt on the 18th green during the second round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. (Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

His putter masked some of his ball-striking woes. Reed has holed 278 feet, 4 inches of putts, his second-best total through 36 holes. That tally includes a 41-foot birdie at four to get the party started on Friday. Reed nearly chipped in at the fifth for eagle, then stuck his tee shot at the 184-yard par-3 eighth to 7 feet and rolled in the putt to go out in 32.

As the weather did a rinse-and-repeat cycle from drizzle to sunshine to a full-on downpour, Reed kept charging, canning a 14-foot birdie putt at 10 and lifting a short iron from 146 yards over the lip of a fairway bunker to 12 feet and running in that putt too. At 14, Reed lobbed his second shot from 45 yards over a bunker to the back fringe and used the backstop to draw his ball within 4 feet from the hole. Reed’s birdie gave him sole possession of the lead.

But one hole later, Reed ran into trouble and it required a call to a PGA Tour rule’s official. Reed flew his second shot at the par 5 into the penalty area and it took a search party to find it in the tall grass. A volunteer found the ball just before the allotted 3 minutes elapsed, but Reed noticed that in doing so his tball had moved.

“He went to separate the grass to look at the golf ball and then the golf ball moved and sank to the very bottom,” Reed explained to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis.

Reed was the subject of a rules infraction at the Hero World Challenge last month when video replay revealed that his ball moved in a waste area and he was penalized two strokes.

In this particular circumstance, Reed was allowed to move the ball back to its original position without being penalized because an outside agency – the volunteer – had caused it to move.

“It’s pretty important for Patrick Reed to get it right at this point in his career and he’s going to have to get it right for a long time to come,” Golf Channel commentator Paul Azinger said, adding, “We’re going to watch him like a hawk with the cameras.”

So far, Reed is getting it right with his putter. He’s made 14 birdies through two rounds and one-putted 22 of 36 holes. He capped his birdie binge on Friday with a bounce-back birdie at 17, rattling in a 28-foot birdie at 17 to regain the lead.

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The kid is all right: 21-year-old Joaquin Niemann leads Sentry Tournament of Champions

21-year-old Joaquin Niemann of Chile shoots a bogey-free 66 to lead Justin Thomas by one after the opening round in Maui.

To borrow a phrase from Roger Daltry and The Who, the kids are going to be all right.

Joaquin Niemann, 21, and Matt Wolff, 20, a pair of whippersnappers, may be the two youngest players in the field at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, but you wouldn’t know it by their impressive starts in their debuts at Kapalua’s Plantation Course.

Niemann signed for a 7-under-par 66 to claim a one-stroke lead over Justin Thomas after the first round in Maui and Wolff, the youngest player in the field is nipping at his heels after shooting 69. It continued a run of good form by Niemann, who despite an 0-3-1 record at the Presidents Cup in December, said it gave him a jolt of confidence.

“I think the Presidents Cup was huge for me, for my career, for my future. During that week, I learned a lot. I was with the best players in the world and played against Tiger, I was teamed with Adam Scott and talked a lot with them. It was an unbelievable week,” Niemann told Golf Channel after the round. “Ernie told me it was really important for me and it was going to give me a lot of experience and confidence for my future.”

Sentry TOC: Scores | Tee times, TV | Podcast | Photos | Updates

Niemann missed only one green in regulation — at 16 — and recorded his 14th career bogey-free round on the PGA Tour. The new year started with a bang, a 31-foot birdie putt at the third hole for his first birdie as Niemann picked apart the newly-renovated Plantation Course on a day when the tradewinds laid down. He made birdie on all four par 5s to continue what has been an impressive season for Niemann, who won the opening event of the 2019-20 Tour season by winning A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier, and booking his ticket to Maui.

Niemann’s early success on Tour had a profound effect on another youngster in the field, Collin Morikawa, who turned pro in June and booked his ticket to Maui with a victory in Reno at the Barracuda Championship.

“For me, the person before us that got his card was probably Joaquin. You seem him do it in the start — you see young guys win on the PGA  Tour — it gives you some sense of belief,” Morikawa said. “I’m sure what Matt, Viktor and I did this summer are going to change a lot of guys in college and how they view how they’re going to go through college, how they’re going to come out, what starts they’re going to get, can they make something out of it.”

Wolff, who defeated Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau in a playoff at the 3M Open, got off to a sluggish start, missing a short birdie putt at the fifth and taking three putts from 53 feet at six before his putter warmed up. He birdied his final two holes to join a logjam at 4 under and tied for fifth.

“As I kept on going I got more comfortable with my swing and the course and knew which way the wind was blowing and I felt like I hit some really good shots,” Wolff said.

Thomas, a past champion of this event in 2017, torched the back nine with five birdies en route to a 6-under 67.