Golfing News

The PGA TOUR stays in sunny Hawaii for the Sony Open, the first full-field event of the 2009 season. After last week’s Mercedes-Benz Championship, made up of only 33 winners from the 2008 season, a full field of 156 players will tackle Waialae Country Club and take their first crack at scoring some FedEx Cup points.

The points race format has changed from 2008. Regular TOUR event champions will get 500 points (instead of 4,500), on down to 1 point for 70th place. Majors and World Golf Championship events will have slight premiums. After the Wachovia Championship, the top 120 players (from 144) will make the first Playoff event. Playoff events will be worth five times the points of regular events, and the field will slim down to 100, then 70, and then the final 30 players will qualify for the TOUR Championship. There the points will be adjusted, giving all players a chance to win the FedEx Cup at the TOUR Championship, preventing a scenario like last year in which Vijay Singh won two of the first three Playoff events and had the Cup locked up before ever teeing off.

Expect many birdies on the par-70, 7,060-yard Waialae track this week. The PGA TOUR scoring record of 257 was set at Waialae before its was changed from a par-72 to par-70 layout. Geoff Ogilvy, last week’s wire-to-wire winner, is in the field, along with some of his closest pursuers from Kapalua Plantation including Davis Love III, Ernie Els, Zach Johnson, Sean O’Hair, D.J. Trahan and Kenny Perry.

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