PGA Tour

Winners meet in Hawaii for SBS Tournament of Champions (Jan 4, 2017)

Published Jan. 14, 2017 2:26 a.m. ET

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AP

Expectations rise as the calendar changes to 2017 in the PGA Tour's overlapping season and the intensity will be on display in the SBS Tournament of Champions beginning Thursday at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort in Maui, Hawaii.

The tournament field is limited to 32 players, each of whom were victorious at least once on the PGA Tour in the 2016 calendar year, including the seven official events played in the fall.

It's a clique inside a clique, a showcase for Alpha golfers separated from their peers by recent success - and the players obviously love being here.

"The tournament is so easy (to enjoy)," defending champion Jordan Spieth said. "It just makes it so easy to do so with quick practice rounds and then a chance to go to the beach and hang out the rest of the day. It's just kind of in a good place in Maui. I mean, how can you not be (having fun)?"

Jason Day, the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, is set to make his PGA Tour season debut this week in Kapalua after being sidelined in the fall while rehabilitating a back injury. The Australian qualified for the SBS Tournament of Champions with three victories last season (the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the WGC-Dell Match Play and The Players Championship).

It's been seven months since Day last won a tournament but he's far from worried about the fitness of his game.

"I haven't thought about it until I was asked," Day said lightheartedly about the time between wins. "It feels a little bit long. I've had longer droughts between winning tournaments than seven months. I'd like to win every event but I can't unless it's a one-guy event - then I'd win in a playoff every single time."

Japan's Hideki Matsuyama is perhaps the hottest golfer on the planet after winning four of his past five tournament in 2016 (he was second in the fifth) over the past three months. Matsuyama said he is able to handle the pressure of expectation of success because he can only try his best.

Matsuyama tied for third in this tournament last year and is currently atop the FedEx Cup standings and No. 6 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

"The expectations from the people around me are high," Matsuyama said through a translator. "I don't really worry too much about that and I try not to put pressure on myself. But I know that other people expect a lot from me.

"I am working hard, and hopefully, little by little, I'll get better and better. I know there's a lot of guys, great players ahead of me. It just gives me more incentive to work harder."

This week's event marks the resumption of the 2016-17 PGA Tour schedule after a six-week break from official events. The SBS Tournament of Champions is the eighth official event of the PGA Tour's 2016-17 season schedule. The overall season consists of 47 events including the four FedExCup Playoff events.

The SBS Tournament of Champions has been contested at Bill Coore-Ben Crenshaw-designed Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort since 1999. Its past champions include Tiger Woods (2000), Ernie Els of South Africa (2003), Vijay Singh of Fiji (2007), Dustin Johnson (2013), Zach Johnson (2014), Patrick Reed (2015) and Spieth (2016).

The 32 players in the field have accounted for 109 PGA Tour wins, led by Dustin Johnson's 12 career victories, including his three wins in the 2016 calendar year at the U.S. Open, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and BMW Championship. He is followed by Day (10), Bubba Watson (nine) and Spieth and Brandt Snedeker (with eight each).

There are three past champions of the SBS Tournament of Champions in the field this week - Spieth (2016), Reed (2015) and Dustin Johnson (2013) - and 11 first-time winners are playing in this tournament: Daniel Berger, Greg Chalmers, Tony Finau,

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