News

KAPALUA, Hawaii—A year ago, Xander Schauffele reached the Plantation Course’s par-5 18th in two and had two putts on Sunday to win the Sentry Tournament of Champions. He three-putted, then was eliminated from a playoff after another three-putt on the same hole. Friday, he took just one roll on the 18th, and it was a

9:00 AM ET ESPN Betting Insiders The weather might not be an indication, but golf season is here. At least for the PGA Tour. A loaded 42-player field will get things going at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Kapalua, Hawai’i. Justin Thomas will defend his title at the Plantation Course against a field of

KAPALUA, Hawaii—Scottie Scheffler is playing in this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions for the first time. But he arrived on Maui with a heavy heart. Or at least without a close companion by his side. “Yeah, my trusty 3-wood cracked on Saturday on the range at Royal Oaks [in Dallas],” Scheffler said, adding that it

1:21 AM ET Associated Press KAPALUA, Hawai’i — A new year, and Harris English keeps right on rolling. English finished with a 10-foot birdie to cap off an ideal Friday of low scores and whale watching at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. His 6-under 67 gave him a two-shot lead over a quartet of players

Through 36 holes at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, golf fans could not have asked for a better leader board to kick off 2021. The top three players in the world—Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas—are all in striking distance, as are the likes of Patrick Reed, Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa. Need

When his contract with the LPGA expired in 2019, commissioner Mike Whan didn’t commit to staying on for a fixed amount of time. Instead, it was noted that he had agreed to a “long-term extension.” Those who know Whan and what he’s done for the LPGA Tour and women’s golf hoped that would be several

3:47 PM ET Associated Press WASHINGTON — Hall of Fame golfers Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player, along with the late Olympian Babe Didrikson Zaharias, have been presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the White House announced Thursday. The award is one of the nation’s highest civilian honors. President Donald Trump has generally held public

KAPALUA, Hawaii — The 18th hole on the Plantation Course measures 675 yards, although it’s all runway and tumble down the volcanic island paradise toward the Pacific. Still, Bryson DeChambeau needed just 7-iron to reach the green in two during Thursday’s opening round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. “So I implemented some of his

10:38 PM ET Associated Press KAPALUA, Hawai’i — Justin Thomas kept bogeys off his card, thanks in part to Dustin Johnson‘s caddie, and birdied three of his last five holes Thursday for an 8-under 65 to share the lead with Harris English in the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Thomas couldn’t have asked for a better

KAPALUA, Hawaii — The last time Sergio Garcia played in the Sentry Tournament of Champions was 15 years ago. A lot’s changed since—marriage, two kids, a major on his résumé—but not everything. “The course is definitely playing a lot slower than it used to last time I played here,” Garcia said of the Plantation Course,

11:09 AM ET Mike Whan, who took over the LPGA Tour during a tumultuous time in its his history more than 10 years ago, announced Wednesday that he will step down as commissioner sometime in 2021. Whan, 55, notified the LPGA board of directors that he will transition out of the role this year, with

KAPALUA, Hawaii — Tropical vistas, swaying palms, soaring drives. This week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions on Maui serves as a welcome paradisiacal backdrop as the PGA Tour resumes its 2020-21 season after a month-long intermission. It’s a new year, yes, but a dozen events have already been played on the wraparound schedule. Lucky No. 13

Adam Svensson played a full season on the PGA Tour in 2018-2019, but the 27-year-old Canadian kicked off 2021 by making more in a mini-tour event than in any of his starts on golf’s highest level. On Wednesday, Svensson captured the inaugural Big Money Golf Classic, and as the name indicates, this isn’t your typical

1:12 PM ET British golfers Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell have backed calls for the resumption of recreational golf in England after courses were temporarily closed. Under the new lockdown restrictions announced by Boris Johnson earlier this week, recreational golf courses have been forced to close. Westwood and McDowell have both promoted an online petition

KAPALUA, Hawaii—The green jacket is hanging in a closet at home. No need for a coat in Maui. “I’ve worn it a couple of times, not a whole lot,” Dustin Johnson said Wednesday at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. “I’ll put it on every once in a while at the house.” This week marks Johnson’s

7:29 AM ET Let’s get one thing straight, now that we have said goodbye to 2020, this is not a challenge to 2021. Like saying, “Welp, it can’t be any worse, right?” (forced uncomfortable laughter) ESPN + Subscribe to ESPN+ to get access to all premium articles, Fantasy tools, plus thousands of your favorite sporting

Picking winners in golf is tough—perhaps the toughest sport to cash outright wagers. Usually tournaments have 156 players, and there are so many variables each week. That’s why it’s imperative to trust the right information—and in addition to our anonymous tour caddie making picks from the range each week, we have three of the best

A trio of Hall of Fame golfers—Annika Sorenstam, Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Gary Player—will receive the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on Thursday from President Donald Trump. W.L. Pate Jr., president of the Babe Zaharias Foundation, is expected to accept the medal in honor of Zaharias, who died in 1956.

KAPALUA, Hawaii—Xander Schauffele, like everyone else at this week’s sun-splashed Sentry Tournament of Champions, is happy to be teeing it up in paradise. But not for the reasons one might think. First, he’s one of 16 players in the field who failed to win an official event last season (though he did have the lowest

7:44 AM ET The year has changed, but golf on the PGA Tour will be largely as we saw it when 2020 came to a close: virtually no spectators, weekly COVID-19 testing and possible withdrawals, Dustin Johnson as a solid No. 1 in the world, Bryson DeChambeau bombing tee shots, and never-ending speculation about where

Thankfully at Golf Digest, we listen well. Three of the sharpest data scientists in golf, Brandon Gdula of numberFire/FanDuel; Rick Gehman of RickRunGood.com; and Pat Mayo of Mayo Media Network, DraftKings and Fade the Noise, contribute their picks every week to our Golf Digest weekly experts’ picks column. Routinely, they will point us to players

With the increase in popularity in golf gambling and betting, we know that there will be more interest in golf “One and Done” pools this season than ever before. For the uninitiated, “One and Done” is a season-long (or year-long) contest in which you pick one golfer per week, and you earn points based on

It’s a good time to be a fan of the PGA Tour—or someone who bets on it. The 2020-’21 season resumes this week with the 2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions, the first of 29 consecutive weeks of PGA Tour events through the Olympics in July. This stretch follows 24 straight weeks of golf—from the tour’s

You can forgive Sarah Ingram if she feels like she’s experiencing some déjà vu in the coming weeks. In December 2019, the U.S. Curtis Cup captain hosted a group of top female American amateurs for a practice session in preparation for the scheduled June 2020 matches versus Great Britain & Ireland in Wales. But, like

The race for the 2021 FedEx Cup title is under way as the 2020-’21 tour season resumes with the Hawaii swing. The season-long FedEx Cup points standings will help determine who keeps their PGA Tour cards and who’ll be eligible for the FedEx Cup Playoffs come August. For all regular-season PGA Tour events, 500 FedEx

In any other year on the island of Maui, PGA Tour players would find their loyalties divided. Should they hit a few more balls on the range or join the kids in building sandcastles on the beach? Playing in the Sentry Tournament of Champions in the first week of January is the reward for extraordinary

There are New Year’s proclamations touted on social media we all know are coming each January that are accompanied with a bit of a collective eye roll. Promising you’re going to get into better shape. Vowing to read more books. Pledging to lower your handicap by three strokes. But there is one traditional post that

The Sentry Tournament of Champions starts Thursday after just a few weeks off in the tour schedule, and though the event traditionally consists of only players who won a PGA Tour event in the previous year, the limited field has been expanded with COVID-19 canceling a sizable amount of tournaments in 2020. Seventeen players have

A new year brings the chance for tour pros to set new goals. Many will likely have subjective ones (stay in the process, improve mental outlook, etc.) that essentially are a means to an end (more cuts made, more top 10s, more wins, etc.). When pros like Justin Thomas list out their objective goals, you’ll find

If you read any issue of Golf Digest or spend any time on GolfDigest.com, it’s obvious that our articles are meticulously written, thoroughly edited, always fact checked and consistently held to a standard we are proud to put our name on. What you may not know is that every photo that accompanies these articles goes