Adam Scott Australia’s flag carrier at Sentry Tournament of Champions
Adam Scott plays his 8th Tournament of Champions – photo PGA of Australia
The PGA Tour begins its 2023 calendar schedule this week with the now traditional staging of the Sentry Tournament of Champions for winners and those otherwise eligible from performances in the previous calendar year, but twelve months on from Cameron Smith’s first of five titles in 2022 things have changed for the once Holy Grail of professional golf.
Players such as Smith and Joaquin Niemann who would have qualified to play at Kapalua have left to join LIV Golf and the world number one, Rory McIlroy, has made the decision to give the event a miss despite it being one of the now 13 ‘elevated’ events the PGA Tour promotes to attract the best players into events where prizemoney begins at US$15 million and in some cases reaches US$20 million per event.
Clearly, this has been a reaction to the money on offer for players who have switched to LIV but in order to play the events, players, as members of the PGA Tour, must commit to all but one and in the case of McIlroy he has decided to extend his Xmas / New Year break and begin later in the season as he has done regularly.
39 winners or those otherwise eligible from the 2022 year are in the field including last year’s runner-up Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay (4th last year) and world number 2 Scottie Scheffler who did not play in 2022 as it was not until Phoenix in February that his amazing run began.
Adam Scott is the only Australasian in the field, the 42 year old earning the right to play not because of winning in 2022, but having made the Tour Championship he benefits from a newly introduced category.
Scott has only seven previous starts in the event for two top tens, often preferring to start his season later in the year but he does come off a runner-up finish at the Australian Open and as Australia’s flag carrier this week his progress will be watched with interest.
