On the Course in General
Patrick Cantlay: It’s a good golf course to kind of shake some rust off. The fairways are big and there’s lots of space out here to hit shots and it’s also a golf course where you have to be very creative, and so you have to play all the different shots out here to be successful.
Jordan Spieth: It’s obviously a fun course to play. Every hole you either look forward or you turn around and you get some of the most amazing views we get all year. And then a lot of slope, Bermuda grass, a lot of wind, kind of got to shot-make a little bit. It’s a course that when I look back on the times I’ve played here, if you really take advantage of the off-season as building up and trying to be sharp for January 1st, you can take advantage here with maybe some guys who were taking more of a break. It’s also an opportunity to get off to a good start to the season and it’s done a lot for me in the past to when I’ve played well at this event to feel like you move up in the FedExCup. You start to get into a rhythm as you go and hit the West Coast.
Xander Schauffele: It’s just an awesome place to start. Typically, you know you’ve won a tournament the previous year, obviously, I snuck in this year. So, I don’t know what it is, it just kind of fits my eye. Usually, it’s a little windier, you got to sort of do all things in your game correctly and it’s just like, to me, it’s just a lot of fun to play because you’re on these massive hills and a ton of wind and kind of weird breaking putts, so it’s just kind of fun.
Justin Thomas: It’s just a place that I’m very comfortable being. It’s a fun golf course. It’s just kind of laid-back and feels like a relaxed type of vibe, but at the same time, there’s going to be a winner crowned at the end of the week. It’s a place that it’s all right in front of you, you don’t necessarily need to come here that sharp, it’s pretty big fairways, big greens, you have a lot of wedges, a lot of birdie opportunities. Obviously want to play well and be as sharp as you can, but at the same time, everybody’s doing the same thing over the holidays, spending time with their family, and friends and probably not doing as much golf.
Daniel Berger: You have to hit some great irons shots, especially when the wind’s blowing. You know, the greens are challenging. So there’s nothing easy about it, but if you play well you can make a lot of birdies, and that’s a nice thing to come out when you haven’t played in a while. You also have to play the par-5s well and you have to take advantage of a couple of the par-3s, but I think for me the biggest thing is when you have a day like this where the wind’s not really blowing 20-25 miles an hour you have to score well.
Patrick Reed: I think the thing is you have all these awkward lies, heavy winds, huge elevation changes, so you have to be creative. You can’t just step up there and make a driving range swing because you never really have a flat lie besides off-the-tee boxes. So that being said, it just kind of gets me more engaged and allows me to see certain shots and allows me to play a certain type of golf shot rather than just sit there and try to play swing. So for me, it brings the creativity out and we kind of go out and see shots, hit shots. Any time I can come out, set up with wide fairways, large greens, and be able to just kind of shape the golf ball and do whatever I want with it and be creative, it kind of fits into my wheelhouse. The golf course fits my eye really well. A lot of the holes seem like I can work it right-to-left.
Brooks Koepka: You’re not going to find a slopier golf course than this. There’s so many awkward little lies, ball above your feet, below your feet, and then downhill and then you’re hitting up the hill. Things like that you just don’t find anywhere besides maybe here and Augusta or at least that I’ve played.
Dustin Johnson: The first time you play it, maybe it’s a big golf course, the greens are really slopey and when you’re playing practice rounds, the pins are always in some funny spots. But the more you play this golf course, the more you get used to it, the more you kind of know how to get yourself around it. Because sometimes it’s one of those courses where you really got to be on the right side of the pin, whether you’re on the green or off the green, if you’re on the right side you know you can still make pars. But there’s a lot of opportunities for birdie. You got two holes that are somewhat drivable, four par-5s that you can reach. So it just all depends really. This is a good golf course to be a little rusty on.
Rickie Fowler: I feel like this golf course also allows you to use your imagination. Obviously with the amount of up and down and side slopes, and in the wind you’ve got to have some imagination on shot shape and hit your windows. So judging that properly is always fun for me.
On the Fairways and Off the Tee
Harris English: I know guys have different strategies, but I’m hitting driver a lot this week. I would say more so than a normal golf course. I mean, these fairways are wide, you can be as aggressive as you want to, but it’s still about putting the ball in the fairway. You drive the ball well out here, you’re going to have a lot of short irons, a lot of wedges, and you just got to get your putting dialed in.
Brooks Koepka: It’s very nice just to be able to get up there and just rip it off the tee, knowing you got a hundred yards of fairway.
On the Wind
Jon Rahm: You know, it’s always dependent on the wind. That golf course is 100% dependent on how windy it is and where the wind is coming from. I struggle with the greens here. Not only the greens, the wind. It’s just so windy. I don’t know if you can really appreciate how windy it can get on the golf course on the broadcast. When you have 20-30 mile-an-hour winds, gusting higher than that, the ball’s going to do some funny things. It’s tough. Some people do really good at adjusting, I’ve struggled with it. This golf course only has one defense and that’s the wind. If people are shooting between 20- and 26-under with 20-mile-an-hour winds, what do you expect us to do when there’s absolutely no wind. You have 50-yard fairways, soft greens, we’re going to shoot low. It’s just kind of how it goes.
Justin Thomas: The wind just makes it a lot harder to putt. And yesterday was pretty calm. It was about as easy as you could get this golf course. Then Thursday, it was, you know, a normal Kapalua wind, ten to 15. It’s a course where you can just get so hot. You can realistically, 11 can be a tough hole, and 17 is a tough hole. But other than that, you’ve got a wedge in your hand or you’re looking at a lot of birdie holes and potentially eagle holes.
Dustin Johnson: The wind is always blowing here and you really got to use the wind to help your ball get close to the hole or stop the ball or however you want to do it… I mean it’s all about controlling the ball and hitting it solid. When the wind’s blowing this hard, you hit solid shots you can control it.
On Putting and the Speed of the Bermuda Greens
Jordan Spieth: You got to hit putts aggressively and play a significant amount of break a lot of time and I kind of like when that’s the case. Whether it’s a short putt or long, you just really got to hit it. But for the most part, if you’re hitting anything from really five feet out into the grain uphill, it is just tough to hit hard enough. Especially in the last group because they get a little spiked up and they’re even slower.
Harris English: You start putting the ball in the rough, start missing greens, it’s tough to get up-and-down because these greens are pretty gnarly Bermuda grass around the greens and they’re pretty tough to lag putt out here.
Jon Rahm: Its (the greens) usually the department in this course that I’ve lacked on. But even though it’s been my weakest point, I’m still up there on the leaderboard on Sunday
Brooks Koepka: The best putters are going to win. They’re so grainy and it’s kind of like, it reminds me a little bit of Augusta on the greens. You can have six feet and it might break a foot, foot and a half. And it’s all about speed on these greens. That’s kind of what it reminds me of a little bit. Just a little bit slower.
Dustin Johnson: The greens are rolling pretty good, they’re a little slow, you can be a lot more aggressive. But I’m kind of with them though, I didn’t see that many under the first time I came here either. A big key with these greens with them being grainy and that is putting a good roll on it. I feel like I’m doing that. Just trusting the lines you got to hit them on. The greens are tricky to read. I had a few putts today that really–good birdie putts where I thought I had a good read on it and just the ball went opposite of what I thought, it’s just going to happen out here. So for me, I just got to stay patient and try not to get too frustrated.
Zach Johnson: I was intimidated, not necessarily just because of the yardage, though. Because of the greens. They’re just so hard to putt. I mean they’re big; they’re undulating. A flat putt is pretty slow. The ones down grain are super fast. The ones in the grain are obviously super slow. So the greens are still intimidating. What I’ve grown to know is you’re going to hit good putts and they’re just not going to go in, because there’s so much break.
Geoff Ogilvy: I do well with a wedge and it’s a real wedge-based course. The greens putt like Melbourne greens with big sweeping putts, 30-foot putts that break 12 feet.
On the Advantage of Having Previous Course Experience
Steve Stricker: You have to learn here. It takes a while to learn here. It’s a little bit different than what we are typically used to. There’s big undulating greens, a lot of slope in the fairways. But I think the biggest challenge is the greens and the wind once you get on the greens. The wind can blow and make putting very difficult, and even the roll out in the greens that we typically have, which we are not seeing as much here. So it’s a challenge to hit some of these shots, and you expect that ball to roll out or release a lot, and it’s not now. So that’s a little different, too, and something to get used to. But it’s a course where a lot of local knowledge helps you out a lot and the more times you play here, the better off you are.