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Why the 2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions field looks a lot different this year
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For some casual fans, Torrey Pines or Pebble Beach might signify the start of the PGA Tour season. That's not the case for hardcore golf fans—we look forward to the beautiful sights of Kapalua’s Plantation course in Maui as a reintroduction to golf in the new calendar year.
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 been added to the field—anyone who made the 2020 Tour Championship and had not won a tour event in the previous season was extended an invite, bringing the field to 45 players. Rory McIlroy was one of those players, but he chose not to make the trip to Hawaii. Tyrrell Hatton, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2020, is also opting not to tee it up. Jim Herman—the longshot winner of the 2020 Wyndham Championship—had to withdraw from the field due to COVID-19.
Here are the players added to the field with the new provisions for the 2021 Sentry:
Xander Schauffele
Scottie Scheffler
Sebastian Muñoz
Harris English
Mackenzie Hughes
Hideki Matsuyama
Tony Finau
Lanto Griffin
Abraham Ancer
Brendon Todd
Kevin Kisner
Cameron Champ
Ryan Palmer
Kevin Na
Joaquin Niemann
Billy Horschel
And these are the tournament winners teeing it up:
Daniel Berger
Patrick Cantlay
Stewart Cink
Bryson DeChambeau
Sergio Garcia
Brian Gay
Viktor Hovland
Sungjae Im
Dustin Johnson
Jason Kokrak
Martin Laird
Andrew Landry
Marc Leishman
Collin Morikawa
Carlos Ortiz
Jon Rahm
Patrick Reed
Adam Scott
Webb Simpson
Cameron Smith
Robert Streb
Hudson Swafford
Nick Taylor
Justin Thomas
Michael Thompson
Richy Werenski
This will be the first event DJ competes in after his Masters victory, and 14 of the top 20 in the current World Rankings will tee it up at Kapalua—including defending champion Justin Thomas.