{"id":539,"date":"2015-01-15T22:39:22","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T22:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.golfballs.com\/?p=539"},"modified":"2024-02-19T15:14:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:14:05","slug":"first-tournament-of-2015-familiar-names-low-scores-at-the-hyundai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/first-tournament-of-2015-familiar-names-low-scores-at-the-hyundai\/","title":{"rendered":"First Tournament of 2015: Familiar Names, Low Scores at the Hyundai"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Patrick<\/a>

Patrick Reed at the 2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions, image: pgatour.com<\/p><\/div>\n

The PGA Tour\u2019s 2015 season started off with a bang during last weekend\u2019s inaugural event. The Hyundai Tournament of Champions, held at the Kapulua Plantation Golf Course on Hawaii\u2019s second-largest island of Maui, was home to some of the best golfers from around the world for four days of high-tension competition.<\/p>\n

The beautiful Hawaiian course was also the setting for a myriad of low scores across the board, with players like Bubba Watson<\/a> posting a personal best for Kapulua, shooting a 5-under to close out Sunday\u2019s third round with a 68.<\/p>\n

The two leaders moving into Day Four for Monday\u2019s final round were Hideki Matsuyama and Jimmy Walker, both tied at 17-under prior to Monday\u2019s final event. But it would be a young Tour pro by the name of Patrick Reed, the 24-year-old King of Confidence that silenced the hostile crowds during the 2014 Ryder Cup with a simple stroke of his putter<\/a> and a “shush” directed toward the stands, that would take home the win after an astounding final round of play.<\/p>\n

Hyundai Tournament of Champions<\/strong><\/p>\n

An event called the Tournament of Champions had better pay, and last weekend\u2019s matches certainly lived up to the title: four rounds of golf, held through four days at the beginning of the 2015 PGA Tour season boasting a whopping $5.7 million purse, with over $1.1 million going to the winner.<\/p>\n

Some of golf\u2019s brightest up-and-comers from the US made it to the central Pacific\u2019s most-watched tournament of the New Year, with names like Billy Horschel, Chris Kirk and Russell Henley representing the twenty-something pros from the homeland. Australians Jason Day and Steven Bowditch \u2013 among several other seasoned Aussies \u2013 made the roughly half-day flight from Down Under to attend the PGA Tour season opener.\u00a0 Russell Henley, Jason Day and Hideki Matsuyama ended up sharing a three-way tie for third place in the event.<\/p>\n

But the biggest news coming from Kapulua last weekend was Patrick Reed\u2019s incredible performance during Monday\u2019s final round, swiping the win right out of Jimmy Walker\u2019s hands in a sudden-death playoff.<\/p>\n

Reed\u2019s Run Toward the Finish<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jimmy Walker had every reason to feel good about moving into Monday\u2019s final round at 17-under, but as we’ve learned time and again, the tides of golf supremacy can change with a single stroke.<\/p>\n

For Patrick Reed, that tide started changing in his favor on the 16th<\/sup> hole. Prior to his performance, Reed was already in contention with Walker for the win, having birdied four of the last twelve holes to place him at 19-under for the tournament. Then came Reed’s incredible wedge shot from the fairway of the 16th<\/sup>, sinking the golf ball<\/a> 83 yards from the pin and posting an eagle for the hole.<\/p>\n

That amazing shot put Reed on the fast track for the win, while placing much-needed pressure on Walker.\u00a0 While Reed closed out the 18th<\/sup> hole with a two-putt birdie, Walker sent one of his shots sailing into the stands, shocking both fans and commentators alike.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s struggles on the final hole \u2013 along with Reed\u2019s success \u2013 sent both parties into a playoff round, which gave Walker another crack at the par-5 18th<\/sup>.\u00a0 History repeated itself as Walker posted par for the hole a second time while Reed sank a crowd-pleasing 18-foot birdie putt for the win.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the secret to Reed\u2019s game? “I go out there and just kind of focus on my golf game, and I don’t really care what anyone else is doing or however anyone else hits the shot. I just know how I can do it.”<\/p>\n

With an exciting win marking the first tournament of the PGA Tour season, Patrick Reed\u2019s approach to the game has certainly served him well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The PGA Tour\u2019s 2015 season started off with a bang during last weekend\u2019s inaugural event. The Hyundai Tournament of Champions, held at the Kapulua Plantation Golf Course on Hawaii\u2019s second-largest island of Maui, was...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,4],"tags":[149,61],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-news","tag-2015-hyundai-tournament-of-champions","tag-patrick-reed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}