At first, the Tournament of Champions marked the start of the PGA Tour season, just as it did the beginning of the year. Nice and simple. Then, it was determined (wisely, but whatever) that a 'wraparound season' would make more sense. The thing it wraps around is Christmas, I suppose, although it could just as easily be this event, which morphed into a powerful vehicle of reintroduction following a few weeks off. Slightly more complicated, but nothing we can't handle.
This year, because everything must be different, it's a little bit different. Following the lead of the WGC-HSBC Champions, which has for a long time extended invites beyond actual champions, this champions-only event has also decided to invite various non-champions. They include the poster boy of non-championness (sic), Tony Finau; except, of course, he is an actual PGA Tour champion. Abraham Ancer and Scottie Scheffler could achieve the hitherto paradoxical feat of winning for the first time in the event which is meant for winners only.
Finau of course is the one people will look to, and you can be sure several tweets have been drafted just in case he actually does win on Sunday night - more on which follows later. My preferred absurdism though is Ryan Palmer, who last won a solo title on the PGA Tour in 2010. Thanks first to Jon Rahm and secondly to, well, the coronavirus, Palmer will have managed to play in both 2020 and 2021 editions of the, all together now, Tournament of Champions.
Key to the appeal here is that DeChambeau could absolutely gobble up the par-fives and handful of short par-fours and produce a performance similar to Johnson's in 2017, when the Masters champion gained almost nine strokes off the tee and led the field a merry dance because of that.
When DeChambeau last played here, two years ago, he drove it well but not spectacularly, instead leaning on the putter to finish seventh. Now, his methodology transformed, it may be that the Plantation Course is one of those layouts upon which he can be just about the best driver and just about the best putter, and get away with being modest-to-good in the other departments.
Tenth after doing what he did to his ankle in 2018 before playing with Tiger Woods and Francesco Molinari in the final group in 2019, Finau has been a regular feature in the Masters and he's also shown how comfortable he is in the wind with a string of solid Open Championship performances.
It's not surprising then to be able to reflect on an excellent debut here, as he finished ninth back in 2017 when ranked outside the world's top 75, and that was in spite of a dreadful performance on the greens - he ranked fourth off the tee and tee-to-green, but lost strokes with the putter.
Garcia was one of those rare debut winners here in 2002, thanks to a final-round 64 which helped him recover from sitting 25th of 32 players after his first look around.
It's 15 years since his last visit, in 2006, and that may just be a statement of intent from the Spaniard in a Ryder Cup year - as well as the fact there's no big payday in Singapore to tempt him there. Garcia will play both weeks in Hawaii before flying over to the Middle East and that speaks to a determination not just to play what would likely be his final away Ryder Cup, but also to qualify for the Olympics alongside Rahm.
Having won the Sanderson Farms Championship late last year, he's managed to cling onto his place inside the world's top 50 and I felt he played nicely enough after that, contending in Vegas, finishing 21st in a good CJ Cup and then missing the cut on a new and difficult course in the Houston Open.
It was during that event in his adopted home state of Texas that Garcia started to feel unwell, which later led to the positive coronavirus test that forced him to miss the Masters, and that blow may also add to his determination to make a strong start to the year.
That's something he's been good at - form figures of 13-30-12-2-19-46-7-11-1-8-7 on his post-Christmas return dating back to 2010 perhaps reflect his natural gift - and while up-and-down during the 2020 season, he still ended it ranked fourth in strokes-gained tee-to-green, one place ahead of Morikawa.
Every single one of the players just in front of or just behind him in those charts is considerably shorter in the betting for this, and while there's a lack of top-grade wins on his CV since the Masters in 2017, the way he closed it out in Mississippi showed he still has magic in those hands and the stomach for it. I think he remains underestimated here and if the greens are as firm as they were in 2020, and the winds as strong, all the better.
Posted at 1900 GMT on 04/01/21
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