Tours kick off 2005 seasons around state
| • | Wilson, Kelly to lead family clinic Sunday |
| • | Holes in one |
By Bill Kwon
When it comes to the New Year — especially at the start of every golf season since 1999 — there's absolutely no place like Hawai'i.
Matt York • Associated Press
"The PGA Tour Starts at Kapalua" isn't simply a marketing promo for the Maui resort, which hosts the Mercedes Championships starting today at the Plantation Course. It's a statement of fact.
Tiger Woods teed off at the 12th hole during the Mercedes Championships Pro-Am yesterday at the Plantation Course at Kapalua at Maui. The winners-only event opens the 2005 PGA Tour season.
In fact, the golf world starts its season in the 50th state.
After the winners-only Mercedes Championships, the Sony Open in Hawai'i, the PGA Tour's first full-field event, is next on the 2005 golf calendar.
Then the Champions Tour begins its season with back-to-back events of its own — the winners-only MasterCard Championship at the Hualalai Resort on the Big Island, followed by the full-field Turtle Bay Championship on O'ahu's North Shore.
The LPGA Tour?
It also launches its 2005 season with a new tournament, the SBS Open, also at the Turtle Bay Resort, Feb. 24 to 26. It marks the return of the women's tour to Hawai'i after a three-year absence.
There also is the Wendy's Champions Skins Game on Feb. 5 at the Wailea Gold Course, with Tom Watson defending his title against Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Craig Stadler.
Speaking of Stadler, if there's anyone who could be the poster boy for Hawai'i's role in starting off the golf season, it's "The Walrus."
In 2004, Stadler spent a three-week paid vacation in Hawai'i by playing in the Mercedes Championships, the Sony Open at the Waialae Country Club and the MasterCard Championship.
He's at it again in 2005.
No Mercedes this time, but Stadler has committed to play in the Sony Open next week, joining his son, Kevin, a Q-School graduate, in the 144-player field. He'll then play in the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai and will return for the Champions Skins Game.
Maybe it's because he doesn't want to overdose on Hawai'i, but Stadler isn't planning on sticking around for the Turtle Bay Championship although tournament officials hope he will change his mind.
He and Tom Kite will be the only two top-10 money leaders on the Champions Tour missing in the Turtle Bay Championship field. Kite, who also will play in the Sony Open, plans on entering a couple of other tournaments on the PGA Tour's West Coast Swing.
Palmer, though, will be playing at Turtle Bay, making it the first time he will enter the Champions Tour event at the golf course he designed.
And don't forget Hale Irwin, who has "owned" the golf course that Palmer designed.
Irwin, who represented Kapalua on the PGA Tour for 22 years, has won more PGA tournaments in Hawai'i than any other golfer.
His Hawai'i titles include the Turtle Bay Championships for three straight years (2001 to 2003) and the same event when it was held under a different sponsorship at Ka'anapali in 2000.
He's back for an attempt to become the first to win a single event five years in a row. It was put on hold last year when the Turtle Bay Championship wasn't held because of its change in schedule from October to January.
Irwin, who also won the 1981 Hawaiian Open and the 1997 MasterCard Championship, already holds the Champions Tour record of winning the same event five times (including twice at Ka'anapali).
How Irwin will fare in the upcoming Turtle Bay Championship will be one of the more anticipated moments in the local golf scene in 2005.
The most anticipated?
No question there.
All eyes will be on Michelle Wie, the teenage phenom who has captured the nation's attention as well.
How will she fare in next week's Sony Open and in her first LPGA appearances of the year at the SBS Open at Turtle Bay?
That's just the beginning of a yearlong Wie Watch as she takes her show on the road. Her only other local sighting might be the Hawai'i Pearl Open next month.
Her LPGA date card is set, according to her father, BJ Wie. He wouldn't say which of the other five LPGA exemptions she has accepted, but Michelle told The Advertiser yesterday that she'll play in the Safeway International and Kraft Nabisco Championship. The Evian Masters in France and the Samsung World Championship also may extend invitations.
That leaves one exemption to work around the USGA events Wie will enter — the U.S. Women's Open in which she qualified with her 13th-place finish last year, the U.S. Women's Amateur and the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links, which she won in 2003 and lost in 2004, 1 up, in the 36-hole final to Taiwan's Ya-Ni Tseng.
If 2004 was the year of outstanding young women golfers locally with Wie, Mari Chun, Stephanie Kono, Amanda Wilson, Kimberly Kim and Britney Choy, expect more of the same this year.
Count on it being an even better 2005 for them.
Bill Kwon can be reached at bkwon@aloha.net.
