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Arguably the most significant year in the history of men’s professional golf begins with a star-studded line-up in Hawaii this week.
A mark of how the landscape has altered is reflected by the fact that this traditional new year opener on the PGA Tour has attracted eight of the world’s top 10 players. The 39-man elite field is playing for $15m (£11.8m).
The inflated purse, for a line-up comprising last year’s tournament winners and the top 30 in the FedEx Cup, shows in the first week of 2023 that golf continues to be shaped by the arrival of LIV, the lucrative Saudi Arabia-funded breakaway tour.
It has attracted unprecedented riches and retaliatory investment by the established tours because LIV has destabilised this most traditional of sports like never before.
Golf is an unpredictable game at the best of times, never mind in a period of unprecedented turmoil, but here is a guide to what we might expect in the coming 12 months.
If the first week of the year is an indicator, the PGA Tour has grabbed the attention and, potentially, loyalty of its most important stars with gargantuan prize funds at marquee competitions.
The Tournament of Champions, which starts in Kapalua on Thursday, is worth almost double its purse of 12 months ago.
It is one of a dozen elevated tournaments (the others carry prize funds of at least $20m) aimed at bringing the best golfers together more regularly.
Leading players are allowed to miss one such event during the year but top dog Rory McIlroy is the only one to decide against competing on the Plantation Course.
The only other top-10 player missing this week is Open champion Cameron Smith, suspended from the PGA Tour for joining LIV Golf at the end of last summer.
Smith would have been defending champion after winning last year with a record score of 34 under par. The Australian will also miss a title defence at the PGA Tour’s flagship Players Championship in March, a tournament now worth $25m.
But look at the names in Hawaii this week. They include Olympic champion Xander Schauffele, his likely US Ryder Cup partner Patrick Cantlay and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama as well as reigning major champions Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and England’s Matt Fitzpatrick.
