Sentry TOC proves to be can’t-miss event
Of 45 players eligible, 42 are set to play at Kapalua next week
The field for the 2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions became final at noon on Friday, and the list of 42 entrants looks impressive.
The field includes three FedEx Cup champions, 28 of the top 30 from the 2019-20 FedEx Cup standings as well as eight of the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking and six first-timers.
“Best is, of course, a subjective term, right? But man it would be hard to find a better field in terms of strength from top to bottom,” Alex Urban, the TOC Executive Director, said Friday. “You look at last year’s FedEx Cup rankings, even some of the guys that are at the bottom half, you’ve got major winners like Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia. Some really big-named guys.
“What I’ll say is I think maybe this is the most exciting field we’ve ever had. From top to bottom, man, it’s a heck of a group. I think everyone’s kind of champing at the bit to get out and play. The course looks great, guys have had some time off, so it should be fun.”
Only three of the 45 players eligible to be here — Rory McIlroy, Jim Herman and Terrell Hatton — decided not to enter.
Intriguing storylines abound for the TOC, which begins Thursday:
• Garcia, 40, will be back for the first time since 2006 — he won here in 2002 as a 22-year-old.
• Stewart Cink returns for the first time since 2010.
• Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz will be the first two Mexicans in the field here since the event moved to Maui in 1999.
“I just like to start my years with good, solid golf,” Ancer told The Maui News earlier this week. “You want to get as many FedEx points as possible. That way you can really plan your schedule around your majors and WGCs. It gives you a little more freedom to just prepare and be really, really fresh and ready for the tournaments.
“You get a huge opportunity to get some good points and get a good start to 2021.”
• Six of the last eight events at the Plantation Course have been won by world No. 1 Dustin Johnson (2013, 2018), No. 11 Patrick Reed (2015), No. 3 Justin Thomas (2017, 2020) and No. 8 Xander Schauffele (2019).
Thomas defeated Reed and Schauffele in a three-way playoff here last year.
“It’s always fun. You look around the guys at Kapalua and, again, this year being different, but you look around and know that everybody else has won and they’ve earned the right to be there,” Thomas said. “So, it’s always a very, very strong field with a lot of players that are ready to have a good week, but also enjoy the week in Hawaii.”
The field was expanded from its usual winners-only format to include non-winners who qualified for the 2020 Tour Championship after 11 events were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, this year’s field is the largest ever for the TOC at Kapalua, surpassing the 2003 event that saw 37 players start the year here.
There were 28 winners of PGA Tour events last calendar year and 17 more players were added to the eligibility list as top-30 finishers on the FedEx Cup playoff list.
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com
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SENTRY TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS
2021 FIELD
Thursday-Jan. 10 • At Kapalua Plantation Course
Abraham Ancer
Daniel Berger
Patrick Cantlay
Cameron Champ
Stewart Cink
Bryson DeChambeau
Harris English
Tony Finau
Sergio Garcia
Brian Gay
Lanto Griffin
Billy Horschel
Viktor Hovland
Mackenzie Hughes
Sungjae Im
Dustin Johnson
Kevin Kisner
Jason Kokrak
Martin Laird
Andrew Landry
Marc Leishman
Hideki Matsuyama
Collin Morikawa
Sebastián Muñoz
Kevin Na
Joaquin Niemann
Carlos Ortiz
Ryan Palmer
Jon Rahm
Patrick Reed
Xander Schauffele
Scottie Scheffler
Adam Scott
Webb Simpson
Cameron Smith
Robert Streb
Hudson Swafford
Nick Taylor
Justin Thomas
Michael Thompson
Brendon Todd
Richy Werenski