Tom Hoge and England’s Harry Hall are off to hot starts again in the Aloha State, as they are among six players tied for the first-round lead at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Hoge and Hall tied for eighth last week at The Sentry, the PGA Tour’s season-opening event in Kapalua, Hawaii. They sit level with Adam Schenk, Eric Cole, Denny McCarthy and Paul Peterson after each shot a 6-under-par 64 on Thursday at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu.
Seven players, none of them among the leaders, had yet to complete the round when play was halted due to darkness. Those players will finish the round early Friday before the second round begins at the previously scheduled time.
Ben Griffin, Patrick Fishburn, Sam Ryder, Ben Kohles, Sweden’s Henrik Norlander and Canada’s Adam Hadwin are tied for seventh place at 65.
Hall logged 10 birdies on Friday, the best single-round total of his PGA Tour career. He birdied four consecutive holes from No. 9 to No. 12. However, he also had a double bogey and two bogeys.
“(I) played really nice, really aggressive, putted really good and drove it exactly where I was looking today,” said Hall, whose lone PGA Tour victory came last year at the Isco Championship. “If I can clean up a few things that happened, a couple bogeys and the double, if I can clean that up the next few days, it’ll hopefully be a really good week.”
Hall added of his strategy at Waialae, “If you have confidence in the driver, then it really makes a big difference. It’s quite a tight golf course, so if you can hit a driver straight, then you’re obviously gaining a few strokes on the field, and that’s exactly what I did.”
Hoge’s round included a pair of eagles — at the par-5 ninth hole and the par-4 14th hole — plus two birdies and no bogeys. It was the fifth time that Hoge registered two eagles in a PGA Tour round. At No. 14, he knocked in a 189-yard shot.
“It’s funny, my caddie James started with me in Maui last year, and he’s been giving me a hard time because I hadn’t holed a shot from the fairway with him at all,” Hoge said. “I feel like I’m a pretty good wedge player, short iron player, so I’ve certainly had plenty of opportunities and haven’t made one. He’s been on me for that, and for that one to be the one that goes in was pretty funny.”
Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, who broke the PGA Tour’s scoring record in relation to par last week while winning The Sentry, is tied for 26th place at 67. Matsuyama won the Sony Open in 2022.
–Field Level Media
