Watch PGA Tour-Hyundai Tournament of Champions 2013 Day 1 Friday 4-1-2013
The 2013 PGA Tour season kicks off January 4th at
the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii. The
30-man field comprises of PGA Tour winners from 2012. Designed by Ben
Crenshaw and Bill Coore, The Plantation Course is Top 100 in America’s
Greatest Golf Courses, #17 in America’s Greatest Public Courses and #1
Golf Course in Hawaii by Golf Digest. The
7411-yard Plantation Course at Kapalua is a par 73 and features ocean
and neighbor island views on all holes. If you are into seeing long
drives, be sure to watch The Golf Channel and NBC’s coverage of the
event. The Par-5 18th hole known as “Home” produces many of the longest
drives on tour all season. The 663-yard hole plays downhill and
downwind. The hole also features an extremely firm and fast fairway with
a “speed slot”allowing drives to run out 100+ yards. Drives are
routinely hit over 400-yards on this hole and there is a good chance we
could see someone hit a drive over 500-yards this week.
The 2013 PGA tour starts in Hawaii with the Hyundai Tournament of Champions which
is an event open to all of the winners on this tour in 2012 and 30 of
them have accepted the challenge. It begins on friday 4th January and
finishes on Monday 7th January. There is a 10 hour time difference
between Hawaii and the UK and the weather forecast is for a lot of sunny
dry weather with winds averaging at about 12 mph.
The Plantation Course at Kapalua in Hawaii is slightly unusual as it is a
par 73 with four par 5's but it has only three par 3's. It is just over
7400 yards long and is usually easy to play with winning scores being
-18 in 2008, -24 in 2009, -22 in 2010 and -24 in 2011. Defending
Champion is Steve Stricker who is defending his title this week and won
in 2012 with -23.
I am backing two of the market leaders -
Matt Kuchar ( 12/1 ) won the
Players Championship in 2012 which was his sole victory but he also
managed another eight top 10 finishes so he is a consistent player. He
is a good putter ( ranked 8th in the total putting stats for 2012 ) and
has decent course form as he came 3rd here in 2010 and jt 6th in 2011.
Keegan Bradley ( 16/1 ) won the
World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational in 2012 and produced
some other good performances including a jt 2nd at the Northern Trust
Open and a jt 3rd at the final Major of the year which was the PGA
Championship so he is capable of playing very good golf. His all-around
ranking on the PGA tour in 2012 was 1st and he is a player who I
consider to be always motivated to win golf tournaments. He was 16th on
his debut here in 2012 and could do better this year.
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