TOUR Insider: Handling the wind key to Sony  PGATOUR.com Senior Correspondent Waialae Country Club in Honolulu hosts the PGA TOUR for the 43rd consecutive year with this week's Sony Open in Hawaii, and for the 43rd year in a row the winner may not be the hottest player in the field but the coolest at handling the wind. "It all depends on the wind. If the wind is up, so are the scores," says Dave Nakama, the course superintendent the last seven years at Waialae CC. "The golf tournament usually is decided by who is hitting the ball the most solidly in windy conditions." Waialae CC, designed by Seth Raynor, is one of just two venues to host a single event more than 30 years; the other is Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, home of the Memorial Tournament. Along those lines, the Sony Open is the third-oldest tournament held solely on one golf course, now that Doral Resort Blue Monster is hosting a World Golf Championship event. Only the Masters and the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial are older. Last year, with winds decreasing throughout the week, the driving accuracy percentage for the field at Waialae CC, which plays 7,060 yards, par-70 for the pros (par 72 for members), was still a paltry 45 percent. That's one of the most dismal collective efforts of the season. Wind or not, the field won't mind missing the short grass as much this year because the rough, as mandated by the TOUR field staff, has been topped off at about 2 ½ inches -- an inch shorter than in 2006. (This might also help a certain 17-year-old sponsor exemption seeking to make her first PGA TOUR cut.) The thinking is to give players a few more options rather than always having to chop it out. 
Nakama said that if rain forecasted for early in the week hits the southeastern side of Oahu, it isn't likely to soften Waialae's large, flat greens appreciably after a long stretch of predominantly dry weather. Even if it does, however, there's still the wind to contend with, and wind is always the key. Worth knowing: • Every player at the Mercedes-Benz Championship at Kapalua Resort was on the early commitment list for the Sony Open in Hawaii, but since then Adam Scott and Kirk Triplett have decided to forego Honolulu. In all there are 32 Kapalua competitors heading to Waialae Country Club. The field features seven of the top 10 money winners and 23 of the top 30, plus four players in the top-10 in the Official World Golf Ranking -- Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Luke Donald and Geoff Ogilvy. • Singh, who used a long putter before switching to a conventional model that turned out to be a key to his phenomenal 2004 season, is back to a longer model, wielding a Never Compromise in winning the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Singh has three straight top-10s on Oahu, including a win in '05 and sixth last year. • Joe LaCava, the regular caddie for Fred Couples, was drafted for duty by Davis Love III for the first two weeks and helped Love to a tie for fourth at Kapalua. • Speaking of Couples, he'll start his season at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, which he won in 1998, and, depending on his health, plans to play in the next five events. That's a long stretch for a 47-year-old with a temperamental back. • David Duval, exempt this year thanks to a one-time exemption for top 25 in career earnings, returns to the Sony Open for the second year in a row and third time overall, and with good reason. He shot a third-round 64 on the way to a tie for 14th in 1995 and last year he fired a closing, season-best 63 to finish joint 31st. • Sony Open defending champion David Toms came to Maui with 13 new clubs after switching from Cleveland Golf to Taylor Made. He'd barely worked with the irons and hadn't hit the driver at all before teeing it up on the Plantation Course. Toms, who shot a course-record 61 last year at Waialae CC, should be more effective this week with four rounds under his belt and his game rounding into form; he shot a tournament-low 66 Sunday at Kapalua. • Jerry Kelly, who won the 2002 Sony title, was the only other player besides Toms to post four rounds in the 60s last year at Waialae CC. He tied for 13th to go with four top-10s since 2000 (including his victory). • Twenty out of 28 rookies are in the field at Waialae CC, including the oldest, Jim Rutledge, 47, and the youngest, Anthony Kim, 21. The breakdown is 11 from Q-School and nine from the Nationwide Tour. |
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