Sentry Tournament of Champions 2018: Results, scores, schedule, and TV/live stream info for Jan. 4-7

While much of the United States is frozen and something called a Bomb Cyclone envelopes the east coast, the PGA Tour returns in a setting that is very, very far from that. It’s an annual tradition to watch the PGA Tour opener in envy from the couch of your frozen locale, but the weather back east this week heightens that divergence for 2018.

The 2018 Sentry Tournament of Champions tees off Thursday afternoon from Kapalua’s Plantation Course on the island of Maui. There’s a new title sponsor this year but the same format remains. Every winner of an official PGA Tour event with FedExCup points from the preceding year gets an invite. It’s the one winners-only stop on the PGA Tour and the format has become a perfect way to start the year.

In the past, this stop at Kapalua lost some of its prestige as the top names in the game like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson would regularly skip the trip out to Hawaii, instead opting to start their year when the Tour returned to the mainland for the West Coast swing. But the format change to winners-only and a new era of stars have put this tournament on an ascendant trajectory again and it’s a strong event to begin the year. While the PGA Tour now utilizes a “wraparound schedule” with fall events counting towards the following year’s FedExCup points race, this will always remain the unofficial start to the PGA Tour season. It just makes sense and feels right. Here are the basics for this week’s opener.

Results

The new year began with a major statement from the world No. 1 and a sign that we may be in for more of the same at the top of the world rankings. After spending most of 2017 at No. 1, Dustin Johnson opened his 2018 with a dominant win at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. DJ was one shot shy of matching the tournament record for winning margin set by David Duval.

The 8-shot win made all of Sunday’s final round drama-free, beginning with a three-birdie-in-four-hole stretch in the first six holes of his final round. DJ used his driver, as he often does, to separate himself from rest of this limited-field event. Even with just 34 players in the field, it was still loaded, with seven of the top eight in the world rankings.

Because it’s 2018 and there’s plenty of air time to fill and content to produce, a narrative popped up Saturday night about whether DJ could close his 54-hole lead. A couple months ago in China, he blew a six shot lead in the WGC HSBC Champions on that Sunday. But that was never going to matter here — it was a silly topic to even discuss. He entered the day with a two-shot lead and turned it into a laugher. There were plenty of highlights in a round that was the low-round of the entire week, an 8-under 65. This near albatross will probably be the highlight they show most.

There’s no reason to not think this is just the start of another massive year for DJ, one spent at the top of the OWGR and hopefully not interrupted by a slip on the stairs at Augusta.

Here are your final results from Kapalua:

Why Watch

1. It gives your frozen ass hope of a warmer day ahead. Granted, that warmer day may be in your cookie-cutter subdivision and not the side of a Maui mountain, but still ... it’s a change of pace from the dreary weather reports, repetitive clips of snow falling, and Jim Cantore blowing in the wind. The PGA Tour goes to some amazing corners of the country and some of the most picturesque courses in the world. But there may be none better for TV than Kapalua.

That can bother some of the hardcore golf fans who just want to watch golf shots and how the course is playing instead of the humpback whales and ocean views. It’s the first week of the season, however, so we’re not worn down by the usual TV production filler and again, you’re frozen back home, so it’s nice to look at. Enjoy it and flip over to the primetime coverage.

2. The best of the best are showing up every year now. There are 34 players in the field this week, going off in a nice compact set of 17 twosomes. Everyone is on the course at the same time and you’ll likely get to see every single player during the TV coverage. The headliners who will take up most of the coverage, however, are the ones you want every week if you’re hosting a PGA Tour event.

Jordan Spieth, reigning Player of the Year Justin Thomas, world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Jon Rahm, Hideki Matsuyama, Brooks Koepka ... they’re all here. It’s a loaded field that’s rejuvenated this event. A free week or week-plus on Maui and a massive guaranteed payout (there’s no cut) help, too. Spieth has said it’s one of his favorite traditions and weeks of the year and if he stops coming, something has gone wrong or crazy. The new stature has re-made the event — it’s an honor few pass up and the field this year is the youngest in its history.

The only eligible players skipping the event are Sergio Garica, Henrik Stenson, and Justin Rose. They’re all heavyweights but also play on both the PGA Tour and European Tour and usually start their season on the other sides of the world, getting in some much-needed Euro Tour starts on the lucrative Middle East swing.

3. For the simple reason that golf is back, and it’s back in primetime. You don’t need to dive headlong into the PGA Tour again. You can slowly work your way back into it as the Masters gets closer. But it’s been a couple months since we had a PGA Tour event and this is a welcome return worth watching. There will be 400-yard drives and all sorts of styles of play in the wind on this Coore-Crenshaw designed Plantation Course. And it will happen in primetime, one of the two or three weeks all year that occurs on the PGA Tour.

Photo by Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

How to Watch

Golf Channel will have the coverage throughout the four-day tournament and the time-change obviously allows for some nice late windows back in the eastern U.S. In the past, the PGA Tour experimented with the schedule here, making it a Friday-to-Monday event so as to avoid the final round going head to head with the NFL playoffs on Sunday. The Monday finish would run right into kickoff of the BCS national title game, avoiding the conflict with football there, too.

But after some weather delays and a couple years of that experiment, it went back to the normal Thursday-to-Sunday format. NBC will also not join the coverage this week — last year, Golf Channel split the weekend with its Comcast network sister. But we’re back to it all happening on GC and a later Sunday night finish. Here’s your TV schedule for the weekend:

Sunday’s final round coverage

Television:

6 to 10 p.m. — Golf Channel

11 p.m. to 3 a.m. (Replay) — Golf Channel

Online streams:

3 to 7 p.m. — NBC Sports/Golf Channel simulcast stream

Radio:

5 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 92/208 and streamed here)

Photo by Ollie Neglerio/TaylorMade Golf via Getty Images

Tee Times

There’s obviously a ton of flexibility with only 34 players in the field and they’ll start them just after 10 a.m. local time in Maui for the first two rounds. In the past, the wind has caused significant delays on this sloping mountainside course. Whether it actually forces a delay or not, the wind is supposed to be a factor this week but with such a small group to get through 72 holes, we should finish on time Sunday night.

After things were pushed up dramatically for the third round on Saturday, Sunday’s schedule is back to the same window of the first two rounds. The final pairing will go off just before 6 p.m. ET and should finish up on the 18th before 10 p.m. ET on Golf Channel. We’ll be well clear of the Sunday NFL slate by that point.

Here’s your tee sheet for Sunday’s final round (All times ET!):

• 3 p.m.: D.A. Points, Brooks Koepka
• 3:10 p.m.: Adam Hadwin, Jonas Blixt
• 3:20 p.m.: Wesley Bryan, Justin Thomas
• 3:30 p.m.: Brendan Steele, Hudson Swafford
• 3:40 p.m.: Austin Cook, Kyle Stanley
• 3:50 p.m.: Grayson Murray, Bryson DeChambeau
• 4 p.m.: Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley
• 4:10 p.m.: Ryan Armour, Kevin Chappell
• 4:20 p.m.: Cameron Smith, Patton Kizzire
• 4:30 p.m.: Hideki Matsuyama, Marc Leishman
• 4:40 p.m.: Kevin Kisner, Patrick Cantlay
• 4:50 p.m.: Jordan Spieth, Si Woo Kim
• 5 p.m.: Daniel Berger, Billy Horschel
• 5:10 p.m.: Pat Perez, Chris Stroud
• 5:20 p.m.: Jason Dufner, Jhonattan Vegas
• 5:30 p.m.: Jon Rahm, Rickie Fowler
• 5:40 p.m.: Dustin Johnson, Brian Harman

Scores

Round 1

Big Marc Leishman is your leader after 18 holes at Kapalua. Leish was one of the best players in the world last year, even if he’s not a household name or star like some of the others in this field. It’s unsurprising to see him back on top of the leaderboard to start the new year and, currently at 55/1, he’s one of the better value bets to win the Masters in 95 days.

Just behind Leish are Jhonny Vegas and Brian Harman, with bigger names like Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler two back. There are super low rounds available at this course if the wind lays down and you usually need to get to at least 20-under to win, and sometimes closer to 30-under. So a big jump can be made over the final 54 holes, it just needs to happen starting Friday if you want to keep pace with a winning number.

I went through the three biggest stories from day 1 at Kapalua here. It’s just one round into the year, so, as you might imagine, we cover the very important topics of Rickie’ shirt, greens maintenance, and the small sample size of a Spieth 18-hole struggle. But day 1 on the PGA Tour did its job and it was great to just have it back.

Round 2

The wind stayed up at Kapalua on Friday afternoon, but there were still some low numbers to be had. Jordan Spieth made the biggest early move, and that should come as little surprise given his track record. The struggles of Thursday seemed like such an anomaly. You figured he’d move up the leaderboard, but a 7-under 66 was just about as big a jump as he could have made given the conditions. He’s now in the middle of the pack and not all hope is lost for a potential weekend charge.

Leishman and Harman sit tied atop the board at 10-under, but a big DJ charge over the back nine (and 7 birdies in his final 13 holes) has the world No. 1 just a shot off the pace.

Round 3

The inevitable happened on Saturday at Kapalua. We knew DJ would make a run at the top of the leaderboard, and the third round was the moment it happened. He’s too good, too long, and too well-suited for this Plantation Course not to be at or near the top of the board in a 34-man field.

DJ shot a 7-under 66 and will sleep on a two-shot 54-hole lead over Brian Harman. DJ’s driver was, per usual, erotic to watch. This is a venue that yields plenty of 400-yard drives, even to players who aren’t some of the biggest bombers on Tour. No one is better than DJ, however, and he cited his driver yet again as a reason for why he’s made his move to the lead. The wedges aren’t bad either, and this eagle hole-out is the kind of turn that can deflate an entire field’s hope of chasing him down.

Jon Rahm made a big move ahead of DJ, posting his own round of 66 that you’d think would have him in prime position to start the year with a win. But DJ came through an hour or so later with his own 66 that put his margin over the Spaniard at four shots.

It’s a strong first page of the leaderboard, as you’d expect at a 34-man event full of many of the best in the world. But this could be a one-horse race by the time they make the turn on Sunday.