Kapalua Rekap

Kudos to Zach Johnson for his two shot victory at the Kapalua moneygrab Hyundai Tournament of Champions on Monday.  As is often the case on tour, Zach probably won the event by limiting the damage in his one off-day, Sunday's third round.  His one over 74 could have been much worse, and therein likely lies the margin of victory.  Jordan Spieth seems to have picked up where he left off at the President's Cup, with a strong second place finish.

The PGA Tour's highlight package can be seen here:

It should be noted that Zach has quietly amassed an enviable career record, with eleven career wins including his 2007 Green Jacket.  That approaches Fred Couples' 15 wins with one major, which was sufficient for induction to the World Golf Hall of Fame.  It's somewhat surprising to consider that Zach could be HoF caliber, but he's got a few years yet to buttress that record.  Nonetheless, Kapalua struck me as a yawn, which I attribute to a couple of main factors. 

First, as Dan Hicks (not that Dan Hicks, this is the one with the Hot Licks) told us, "how can I miss you if you won't go away?"  The wraparound PGA Tour schedule negates the Tournament of Champions principal raison d'etre as a logical kick-off for a new season.  With wall-to-wall golf, we simply don't miss the simple pleasures of televised golf.  It also probably didn't help that it was a particularly rich December of golf outside the U.S.  For instance, back-to-back weeks of golf from Royal Melbourne occur with about the same frequency as Thanksgivukkah.

Secondly, the golf course doesn't seem to play as firm and fast as it used to, and there's the issue of a change in the trade winds.  As to the former, it may just be that we've been unlucky in terms of weather, but we're not seeing balls roll out 50-60 yards as we've seen in the past.  As to the latter, well theories abound, most notably in this Shackelford post.  If the locals tell me that the trade winds are diminished, I'll take that at face value.  But in the very week we've seen icebreakers, i.e., ships designed to break through ice, trapped in the Antarctic ice mass, let's simply agree that we don't know what causes the weather.

And on to Oahu and the Seth Raynor-designed Waialae Country Club Sony Open.