Hear from Will Zalatoris, Eric Cole, Brendon Todd, J.T. Poston and Justin Rose on the differences between Kapalua and Waiʻalae Country Club, the latter of which will host this weekend’s Sony Open. #GolfChannel #GolfCentral #SonyOpen
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After Kapalua, Waiʻalae Country Club offers new look in Sony Open | Golf Central | Golf Channel
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Golf Central on YouTube is brought to you by the new Chrome tour golf ball from Callaway hello I’m Anna Jackson and this is your golf Central update well we’ve got a big change of venue between the two legs of the Hawaii swing this week here it is by the Numbers taking a look
The par drops from 73 to 70 and the length of the course drops two an almost 600 yard difference you then got the green sizes as well that shrink as well 38 players are playing both tournaments this month and despite the differences they believe they’ll have an
Advantage well I think it uh it requires accuracy off the tea and um Elite wedge play because when you do get the ball in the Fairway uh with a wedge in your hand you need to make birdie because the scores are pretty low over there so uh
You know it’s a flat walk as well um and so after this week you know it’s just it couldn’t be more of a different golf course I think wly like when it gets firm it’s it’s it’s you really have to plot your way around um which I like
Um and it can get really firm there it looks like we’re going to get some rain so I don’t know if it’ll quite play like that but you just have to kind of hit it in the right spots off the te’s and kind of takes driver out of your hands on
Several holes and you just kind it’s kind of more of a strategic uh week as opposed to here you’re hitting a lot of drivers and kind of busting it down there and having wedges in is it an advantage playing wildlight after you play Calo um maybe getting used to the wind
Uh um but they’re so they’re very different golf courses I mean you go you come out here and you’re looking at Fairways that some of these Fairways are feel like they’re 100 yards wide and then you get the Wy and they all look like they’re about 15 yards wide so um
That to me always feels like it’s a little tough going to Wy after seeing these wide Fairways but um playing in the wind and getting used to kind of the grass time change all that is obviously bonus yeah while I I’m a bit more familiar with in this tournament funly
Enough I’ve probably not played it many times but maybe four five five times in my career and uh really like it uh I think it’s a it’s a good old school traditional golf course some cross wins can play quite tricky at times um so yeah I think it’s a totally different
Test to capala it’s a golf course that suits the whole field you know some golf courses are bombers paradises for example and I think that uh Wy kind of gives everybody in the field an opportunity to do well and opportunity to win um but I think it obviously early
In the season you got to be mentally sharp uh you know Fairways are quite small Bermuda rough always presented challenge so um and if it does if it is Breezy it’s a tough golf course so I think uh if you can come in there mentally sharper than the rest of the
Guys I think you you know you have an opportunity to do well and you got will zorus back in Action this week after missing most of 20123 with a back injury he’s also testing out his new broomstick style Putter and Todd Lewis caught up with zot
Taurus in Hawaii before his start at the Sony Open it’s more now since it’s been almost eight full months you know I’m swinging different but it’s way more efficient you know I’ve hit 50 drivers in a row you know over a couple days ago my caddy Joel came in town and we were
Just trying to figure out maybe a setting on my driver and I felt fine the next day but the difference is is that I would even say that I probably wouldn’t even give myself the time to recover and then I’d go back out and do the same
Thing the next day so I think it’s more maturity than it is not doing what I or you know doing something I couldn’t do before I mean I was able to you know pop off 125 mph Club head speed but I’d be hitting it everywhere but um you know
Now it’s it’s just so much more efficient and it’s way more rotary or more horizontal in turn way less vertical which makes it easier on my back and so um like I said it’s just different and it’s just kind of a level maturity that you know I don’t you know
When you get out on tour you want to work hard you want to work as hard as you possibly can and um and I would keep doing it day in day out and wouldn’t get wouldn’t give myself the time to recover but I think now it’s instead of working
Harder it’s working smarter you’ve always been a passionate player um after the surgery and you were going through rehab and the long wait for Recovery did that elevate your hunger or passion at all yeah you know it was the first probably three four months it was just getting back to just living
Um you know being able to just do the dishes at home you know simple things like that you do dishes shockingly not not not well either if you ask my wife but um and definitely play the hide-and-seek game where I put stuff that doesn’t belong where it where it
Goes but um but no I mean it was just simple stuff you know like not being able to walk one of our dogs just in case you know maybe you know we got a puppy a couple couple years ago and you know if I pulled you know if she pulled
You know maybe I might pull something so it was just overly cautious and so it was mainly getting back to living and then finally got back to you know all right I’m ready to play golf again and you know watching these guys you know week in week out where normally I
Wouldn’t watch any gol golf um was kind of fun but at the same time I was also still around the game just given everything that’s been going on with the game over the last seven months um so you know I was still in it even though I
Wasn’t really around it but my mind was every day was always around golf this your first PJ tour starts and surgery but you did play the Hero World Challenge what did you digest from all of that yeah you know I think the biggest change between coming back at
The beginning of last year and then this comeback was I kind of got away from my DNA as a ball Striker I was trying to change things that I don’t think really would have helped me in terms of my back but I actually at the time I thought they did
And I just got back to who I was I made sure you know I was able to spend a very brief amount of time with tiger in September up at the Nexus cup and he gave me a few little tidbits about you know he you know had the same surgeon
That I did and you know the recovery that he went through was obviously way more extensive than mine but um you know the biggest advice that he gave me was you know you don’t need to go digesting and go find you know something that’s hidden you know if you have to put a
Camera that’s on your rear end where most of the time cameras are on either face on or down the line um just to make sure that you’re turning properly you’re not putting stress on your back you know that’s as that’s as valuable as any other 3D or anything like that um so
Really just owning what I’m doing and making it as efficient as possible and it it feels simple now whereas before it was very complicated it was trying to do something that I had a hard time quantifying um so now it’s just like I said the Simplicity of what I’m doing is
Something that’s is invaluable well it was Eric Cole who had a meteoric rise last season it took him more than a decade after turning pro to earn his PGA Tour card and he took full advantage of it last season he ended up winning the Arnold Palmer award as the
PGA Tour rookie of the year but is not the first first rookie of the year in his family he joined his mother Laura B who won the LPGA award back in 1973 now Cole is the second oldest rookie of the year on tour he was the
Only rookie last year to make the second stage of the FedEx Cup playoffs 37 starts for Cole last season as you take a look at this two runner UPS seven top 10 and 14 top 25s as Cole talked with Damon hack and aan Lynch on gol
Today what did you learn in your rookie year that you think is going to be most advantageous to you going forward uh yeah I’m not sure if I really learned it uh recently but I kind of figured uh and just from being around my parents and stuff and some older players
That a lot of times the game that gets you to the PGA Tour if you just try not to change too much uh you can have success with out here um so that’s been a big goal of mine is to change kind of I mean still try and get better and
Still trying to make improvements but to um change as little as possible and kind of stick with what got you there and who you are as a player on that subject of getting better you’ve had a year playing against the best players in the world
Week in week out so when you headed for the off season a very short offseason by the signs of it what were you working on thinking that this is where you had the most headro for improvement for 2024 uh yeah I kind of looked at my
Stats from last year and uh most of them were pretty good but I felt like I could drive the ball a little bit better um so put a little bit of focus on that and uh then just from there kind uh tried to refine the little bits uh that could uh
Have a little bit of improvement some short game stuff and just making sure that I was uh kind of sharp and ready to go for the start of this year
