The 2025 PGA Tour season begins this week in Hawaii with the traditional January opener, The Sentry, taking place at the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui.
Until last year, the field was restricted to tournament winners from the previous year in what was called the Tournament of Champions, but now the top 50 in last year’s FedEx Cup are invited along to the party.
As one of the tour’s eight signature events, there is $20 million up for grabs.
Consequently, a strong field has assembled even in the absence of Rory McIlroy - who generally sits out the year’s opener -and World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who is due to undergo surgery to remove glass fragments for a hand injury he suffered while preparing his Christmas dinner.
In all, 60 players will do battle hoping to emulate Chris Kirk, who won last year by a one-shot margin ahead of Sahith Theegala, and they face a wide-open course which is the only par 73 they will play on all season.
The huge fairways and undulating terrain will enable players to let loose as they clear the cobwebs for the new campaign and aim to get 2025 off to the perfect start.
With Scheffler and McIlroy absent from the field, much of the attention will fall upon World No. 2 Xander Schauffele and there looks a strong chance he will justify his status as the favorite in the opening tournament of the new year.
Schauffele will look back on an inspired 2024 when he won both the PGA Championship and the Open Championship to end his wait for a Major title, and his course form suggests we can anticipate a bold Kapalua bid.
He was 10th last year and it would be a huge surprise if he did not improve on that now he has those two huge victories on his resume. They will have boosted his confidence hugely and this is a course where he won in 2019, was second in 2020 and fifth in 2021, so there is very little not to like about his chances.
A superb tee-to-green operator and the best player off the tee last season, there is little doubt that the former Olympic champion has to be the man to beat in Maui this week.
South Korean Sungjae Im was fifth in this tournament 12 months ago when he carded a 10-under-par 63 in the final round and he could produce another strong performance.
Last year was the 26-year-old’s fourth appearance at Kapalua and he has not finished worse than 13th in any of those appearances, so he clearly enjoys the Plantation Course’s wide-open spaces.
Im failed to get into the winners’ circle on the PGA Tour in 2024, but he was a consistent operator in the second half of the year.
He claimed fourth spot at the Wells Fargo Championship in May and went on to post seven further top-10 finishes, including seventh at the Tour Championship.
Consequently, the key elements of course success and strong recent form are in place and it would not be a huge shock if he started 2025 with a win here.
Anyone who thought former Masters champion Adam Scott would simply fade into the background as he approaches his mid-40s was mistaken in 2024, and he has a strong chance of making his presence felt in this year’s opener.
It is 12 months since Scott started the year with a seventh-place finish at the Dubai Desert Classic and he built on that by finishing eighth at the Phoenix Open.
He emerged as a strong challenger after he was second at the Scottish Open and 10th at the Open Championship in July, and he became a big factor in the FedEx playoffs, finishing second behind Keegan Bradley in the BMW Championship and then fourth at the Tour Championship the following week.
Scott was third at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai in November and while he was 29th on his last Kapalua appearance two years ago, he has four top-10 finishes at the venue, including a second spot behind Vijay Singh in 2007, so he knows what it takes to perform at the Maui track.
Xander Schauffele | +550 |
Collin Morikawa | +1100 |
Justin Thomas | +1200 |
Patrick Cantlay | +1700 |
Ludvig Aberg | +1700 |
Sungjae Im | +1900 |
Hideki Matsuyama | +2200 |
Corey Conners | +2700 |
Viktor Hovland | +2700 |
Adam Scott | +3500 |
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This article was written by a partner sports writer via Spotlight Sports Group. All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to change and withdrawal at any time.