Sentry field finalized

The 34-player field for the 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions was finalized Friday with 15 first-timers, the second-highest number in event history.

The field includes two-time champion Dustin Johnson and 13 of the top-30 finishers on the 2018-19 FedExCup season points list. Seven of the top 10 FedEx Cup leaders from the 2019-20 season will be at the Kapalua Plantation Course for the event that begins on Thursday, including leader Brendon Todd.

The record for first-timers in this winners-only event is 19, from 2003.

"Obviously our field is made up of winners, so at a base level our field is always good," tournament executive director Alex Urban said Friday. "That's one of the really cool things about this event, you know you're going to have good guys. There's only one way to get into this tournament, there's no exemptions. It's guys that win on the PGA and you know how difficult it is to win on the PGA Tour."

Past winners here -- the event has been played at Kapalua since 1999 -- in this field include Johnson (2018, 2013), Patrick Reed (2015), Justin Thomas (2017), and last year's winner Xander Schauffele.

"We've got the veterans in the field like Matt Kuchar and Dustin Johnson, who has won here twice, Patrick Reed," Urban said. "It's crazy to say that Justin Thomas is a veteran now, but he's one of the guys who has been out here a bunch of times. Jon Rahm, who is not necessarily a veteran; he's still a young player on tour, but he's been around the block once or twice."

First-time winner C.T. Pan withdrew due to illness. Players who qualified who decided not to play include Brooks Koepka, Shane Lowry, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Francesco Molinari, Justin Rose and Tiger Woods.

"It's extremely difficult to win, especially in this age when there's all this great mixture of veterans and younger players that aren't afraid to win," Urban said. "So, I think our field this year is a really good snapshot of exactly that."

Schauffele tied the Plantation Course record with an 11-under 62 in the final round last year to chase down third-round leader Gary Woodland, who finished second.

"So, you have these guys who are kind of our staple guys that are winning a lot on tour year after year. Gary Woodland is a great example, obviously U.S. Open winner," Urban said. "This established group, they are the guys that play on the Cup teams, most of those guys played in the Presidents Cup a couple weeks ago, but then you couple that with the fresh faces on tour that like I said, they are young, they're not afraid to win."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com

_______________

SENTRY TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

THE 2020 FIELD

Patrick Cantlay

Paul Casey

Cameron Champ

Corey Conners*

Tyler Duncan*

Rickie Fowler

Dylan Frittelli*

Lanto Griffin*

Jim Herman

J.B. Holmes

Max Homa*

Dustin Johnson

Sung Kang*

Kevin Kisner

Matt Kuchar

Nate Lashley*

Adam Long*

Graeme McDowell

Keith Mitchell*

Collin Morikawa*

Sebastián Muñoz*

Kevin Na

Joaquin Niemann*

Ryan Palmer

J.T. Poston*

Jon Rahm

Chez Reavie

Patrick Reed

Xander Schauffele

Justin Thomas

Brendon Todd

Martin Trainer*

Matthew Wolff*

Gary Woodland

* First time players