The Sony Open in Hawaii is a professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

tournament on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

, and is part of the tour's FedEx Cup Series. It has been contested at the Waialae Country Club in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the isla ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, since the event's modern-day inception as the Hawaiian Open in November

1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term ...

. In addition to the usual PGA Tour eligibility criteria, the Sony Open may invite up to three professional golfers from emerging markets.

History

Originally a mid-autumn event for its first five editions, it was skipped in 1970 as it moved to its winter slot in early February

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses ( February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events J ...

. Currently, it is held in mid-January and is the first full-field event of the calendar year, following the Tournament of Champions on

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, whic ...

. The front and back nines of Waialae are switched for the PGA Tour event, finishing at the dogleg ninth hole. The first lead sponsor was

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

, succeeded by current sponsor

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

. There have been five multiple winners of the tournament, all two-time champions: Hubert Green,

Corey Pavin Corey Allen Pavin (born November 16, 1959) is an American professional golfer who has played on the PGA Tour and currently on the PGA Tour Champions. He spent over 150 weeks in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking between 1986 and 1997 a ...

, Lanny Wadkins, Ernie Els, and

Jimmy Walker James John Walker (June 19, 1881November 18, 1946), known colloquially as Beau James, was mayor of New York City from 1926 to 1932. A flamboyant politician, he was a liberal Democrat and part of the powerful Tammany Hall machine. He was forced t ...

. All have won major championships. The tournament is currently organized by Friends of Hawaii Charities. In 1983, forty-year-old Isao Aoki became

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

's first winner on the PGA Tour. He holed out a wedge shot for an eagle-3 on the 72nd hole to beat Jack Renner by a stroke. In 1998,

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

broke the then PGA Tour scoring record to par. He shot 28 under par, beating

Ben Hogan William Ben Hogan (August 13, 1912 – July 25, 1997) was an American professional golfer who is generally considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He is notable for his profound influence on golf swing theory an ...

's record originally set in 1945. The Sony Open gained attention for granting four consecutive sponsor invitations
PGA Tour Exemption #11
to Michelle Wie, the first in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight ...

when she was age 14. She missed the cut in all four appearances, and did not receive one of the four available sponsor exemptions in 2008. One of the invitations went to Alex Ching, a 17-year-old former high school classmate of Wie. In 2007, amateur

Tadd Fujikawa Tadd Fujikawa (born January 8, 1991) is an American professional golfer. Playing as an amateur at age 15, he qualified for the 2006 U.S. Open, the youngest golfer ever to do so. In 2007, at age 16 and 4 days, he made the cut in a PGA Tour even ...

become the second youngest player ever (16 years, 4 days) to make a 36-hole cut in an official

event. His achievement was highlighted by a eagle putt on his 36th hole, Waialae's 551-yard par-5 18th. Incidentally, the PGA Tour's 2006 media guide shows that the youngest player ever to make a 36-hole cut in an official Tour event was

Bob Panasik Robert R. Panasik (born October 20, 1941) is a Canadian professional golfer. Born in Windsor, Ontario, he was known as Bob Panasiuk until 1970 when he changed his name to Panasik so it would be "easier to pronounce". In 1957, at the age of 15, ...

(15 years, 8 months, and 20 days) in 1957 at the Canadian Open, 3½ months younger than Fujikawa. Preparations for the 2018 Sony Open were briefly disrupted by a false emergency alert stating that a

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within t ...

had been launched toward

. Staff members reportedly attempted to take shelter in the players' locker room, the media center was ordered to evacuate, and several players posted messages on social media about the erroneous alert, which was sent to all smartphones in the state. The alert was ultimately determined to have been sent in error. Before the final round, Golf Channel cameramen also staged a walkout.

Winners

''Note: Green highlight indicates scoring records.'' ;Previous incarnations recognized by PGA Tour

Multiple winners

Five men have won this tournament more than once through 2019. *2 wins ** Hubert Green: 1978, 1979 **

: 1986, 1987 ** Lanny Wadkins: 1988, 1991 ** Ernie Els: 2003, 2004 **

: 2014, 2015

Records

*Tournament record: 253 ( Justin Thomas, 2017) *54-hole record: 188 ( Justin Thomas, 2017) *36-hole record: 123 ( Justin Thomas, 2017) *18-hole record: 59 ( Justin Thomas, 2017)

References

Notes

External links

*
Coverage on the PGA Tour's official site
{{coord, 21.272, -157.775, display=t, type:event PGA Tour events Golf in Hawaii Sports in Honolulu Recurring sporting events established in 1965 1965 establishments in Hawaii Sony