Friday’s golf: Japan’s Hirata birdies first four holes to lead Sony Open
Honolulu — Kensai Hirata of Japan opened with four straight birdies, and he got up-and-down for one last birdie on the 18th at Waialae for a 7-under 63 and a one-shot lead among the early starters Friday in the Sony Open.
Among those right behind were figures from the last Ryder Cup outside Rome – Sepp Straka of Austria, and U.S. captain Zach Johnson.
Johnson, who turns 49 next month, holed out with a 9-iron from the third fairway for eagle and shot 31 on the front nine. He wound up with a 66 and was one shot behind in a group that included Straka (66) and Lee Hodges (64).
Hirata, 24, won four times last year on the Japan Golf Tour and received an exemption to the Sony Open. He was at 9-under 131.
“My first time making the cut (on the PGA Tour) so just looking forward to the weekend and having fun.” Hirata said.
Hideki Matsuyama, who finished at 35-under par to win at Kapalua last week, had a 69 and was at 4 under. He remains in the mix to try to become the third player to sweep the Hawaii tournaments in the same year. It was most recently done by Justin Thomas in 2017.
Johnson first joined the PGA Tour in 2004 at the Sony Open. Now he no longer has any status, needing an exemption from the Sony Open to get into the tournament he once won. He is writing more letters, making phone calls, asking for a spot in the field.
He also has tried to simplify his game and his approach to it, and that seemed to work fine on another pleasant day at Waialae Country Club.
“I’m not going to play like a massive schedule this year. I don’t feel like I want to or need to, obviously for priority reasons,” said Johnson, who played only twice in the Fall because his son is playing high school football and he didn’t want to miss a game.
“I’m excited for what’s ahead, the work I’m doing, excited what’s in my bag and how I’m navigating things,” he said. “I’m excited mentally, too. Been a fresh start. Very, very simple in my approach.”
The group at 6-under 134 included Gary Woodland, who a year ago returned from brain surgery to remove a lesion that was leading to seizures and unfounded fears of dying. Woodland’s swing has been coming together. He says he’s now seeing the golf course more clearly and building some patience into his game.
“I feel well, but I’m on the golf course and I’m in my zone and not searching for it,” Woodland said. “I think for a long time – most of last year – I didn’t know what to expect each shot, how I was going to feel. It’s just like I haven’t felt this way in a long time. I’m trending in the right direction. There are still some things to get better at, but it’s exciting and the signs are there.”
Spieth to return at Pebble Beach
Jordan Spieth has been playing golf for a month without pain and plans to return from wrist surgery at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, ending his longest stretch without competition and looking at his time off as a chance to reset.
“I had some really bad habits for a long time,” Spieth said in a telephone interview Friday. “Whether it was something that would have happened anyway or whether anything in my wrist was causing me to not be able to get into certain positions, I don’t have that issue now.
“Having to take three months off swinging forces you to come back and be wet concrete.”
He first injured his wrist in May 2023 when the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon (ECU) would pop out of the sheath. It reached a point where he decided to have surgery Aug. 21 in Colorado to rebuild the sheath.
Spieth said he went nearly 12 weeks before he could hit balls, and then another month before he played his first round.
“I’m not calling this swing changes,” he said. “These are just a reset into some of the stuff I did that was my DNA, that was super advantageous that I had gotten away from for one reason or another.”
Spieth spoke on his way to practice at Trinity Forest in Dallas – “First time I’ve hit to a range covered in snow,” he said – before going to the Cotton Bowl for the Texas-Ohio State college football semifinal game.
Still to come is shots from gnarly spots in the rough or an awkward lie in a bunker. But he said he was relieved when he no longer felt pain from having the club in certain positions or when the club made impact with the turf.
“One day I hit a shot that should have hurt and it didn’t,” he said.
He contemplated playing next week in the California desert. Instead, his return – a little more than five months since his last competition – will be at Pebble Beach. It coincides with AT&T’s 40th year as title sponsor, currently the longest-running sponsorship among tournaments. Spieth has had a corporate relationship with AT&T since 2014.
Now it’s a question of getting back among the elite in golf.
Spieth chased the calendar Grand Slam in 2015, when he reached No. 1 in the world, and had three majors before turning 24. He first noticed something going on his wrist in 2018, and he has missed the Tour Championship four times in the last seven years.
“I think I’m trying to look big picture,” he said. “I don’t want to put too much pressure on a hot start. I just want to get back into a rhythm. This is by far the longest I’ve gone between tournament rounds.”
His plan is to go three straight weeks – that equates to about 18 rounds – and take stock of how his wrist feels before resuming a normal schedule leading up to the Masters.
He is No. 70 in the world, having dropped from No. 43 when he had surgery, and failed to advance out of the first round of the PGA Tour postseason. That means he will need sponsor exemptions for the signature events, which is not likely to be an issue given his star power.
Spieth first rose to fame in 2013 at age 20 when he went from not having a PGA Tour card to playing in the Presidents Cup in a six-month span. Even last year, when he was in the mix only once, he still managed to finish at No. 5 in the Player Impact Program.
Now he starts his 13th season – “I like it better to say I’m 31,” Spieth said – and has seen enough to realize the depth on the PGA Tour is stronger than ever and it’s rarer now to see great success after golfers turn 40.
Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson are the only players 40 or older to have won a major over the last 10 years.
His immediate goals are the PGA Championship to complete the career Grand Slam and The Players Championship. “I feel like you’ve conquered golf if you’ve won all five,” he said.
But his return – this reset that he mentions – is about getting back to a high level of play.
“I think the biggest goals for me, I want to feel like I step on the tee and I know I’m one of the best golfers in the world – I have no doubts about that when I step on the tee,” he said. “I want things to be in place where I feel consistent enough to believe that day in and day out. It has to do with being on runs where you’re finishing in the top 10, top 15 every week.
“I know that feeling,” he said. “That’s the feeling I want to get back to.”
Britain & Ireland lead in Ryder Cup warmup
Britain & Ireland took a 3½-1½ lead over Continental Europe after the opening day’s fourballs at the Team Cup, an event giving European players a taste of match-play golf they might experience at the Ryder Cup in New York later this year.
One of the points earned for Britain & Ireland came from Tyrrell Hatton and Tom McKibbin, a pairing comprising a current LIV Golf player and someone who might soon be joining the breakaway Saudi circuit.
Hatton and McKibbin beat Antoine Rozner and Julien Guerrier 3&2 while the pairing of Tommy Fleetwood and Aaron Rai was another big winner for Britain & Ireland, defeating Italians Francesco Molinari and Matteo Manassero 4&2.
Molinari is the captain of Continental Europe, which won the event in 2023 – when it was called the Hero Cup – by a score of 14½-10½.
Only two of the five matches on Friday reached the 18th hole at Abu Dhabi Golf Resort. Jordan Smith and Laurie Canter halved the last hole to secure a 1-up win for Britain & Ireland over Rasmus Hojgaard and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, while Continental Europe pairing Thorbjorn Olesen and Niklas Norgaard had a tie with Matthew Jordan and Paul Waring.
The only win for Continental Europe was supplied by Frenchmen Matthieu Pavon and Romain Langasque, who beat Justin Rose – Britain & Ireland’s captain – and Matt Wallace 3&1.
The event was formerly called The Seve Trophy and was played eight times from 2000-13, with Britain & Ireland winning six of those times and Continental Europe twice.
Six of the 20 players and captains from the 2023 edition wound up playing the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone outside Rome, when Europe won to reclaim the cup.
The next Ryder Cup is at Bethpage Black in September.
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