5 players to watch at the 2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions

Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott are two big-name qualifiers who will skip this week’s first PGA Tour event of the new year, but 2014 winners Bubba Watson, Billy Horschel, and Patrick Reed are among the 34 contestants who will compete at Kapalua starting Friday.

Players who earned official tour titles during the ’14 calendar year qualified for the winners-only Hyundai Tournament of Champions at The Plantation Course from January 9-January 12. The tourney is the first of the 2014-2015 wraparound season with a planned Monday finish (the Deutsche Bank Championship, over Labor Day, is the other).

Here are snapshots of five marquee golfers teeing it up this week:

Bubba Watson

Watson earned his fourth start at the ToC three times over last year by sandwiching his second Masters win between Ws at February’s Northern Trust Open and the WGC-HSBC Champions in China in November. He defeated Tim Clark in Shanghai with a hole-out for eagle from the sand on the par-5 final hole of regulation to force a playoff and a 20-foot birdie putt on the first extra frame.

Bubba and his wife Angie rounded out their foursome when they (and son Caleb) welcomed daughter Dakota to the family.

Billy Horschel

If only U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson had used one of his wild-card picks on the 2014 FedEx Cup winner, maybe things would have turned out differently at Gleneagles.

Or not. In any case, the winner of last year’s BMW Championship and Tour Championship hopes he finds the form that propelled him to those back-to-back victories rather than the play that followed and led him to a missed cut in October (Shriners Hospital for Children Open), and T37 (CIMB Classic) and T73 finishes (HSBC Champions) in November.

Friday will mark the second start in the Tournament of Champions for Horschel, whose wife Brittany gave birth to the couple’s first child two days after dad pocketed that $10 million FedEx Cup bonus.

Patrick Reed

Another multiple titleholder last year, Patrick Reed had quite a ride in 2014, on and off the course. An early winner at January’s Humana Challenge, he won some fans and alienated others seven weeks later when, after a wire-to-wire triumph at the WGC-Cadillac Championship, he proclaimed himself one of the world’s “top five” golfers.

Though closing out the year well outside the top five (No. 23), Reed shushed many of his critics by going 3-0-1 in his debut for a losing U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Outside the ropes, the brash Texan saved the life of his wife Justine, who nearly drowned after suffering a seizure in the hotel ahead of December’s Franklin Templeton Shootout. Justine Reed, who frequently caddies for her husband, gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter, in May. Reed is emerging as one of the top players in the next generation of golfers, and unlike so many with that designation, he has some quality Tour wins to back up the hype.

Tim Clark

Will Tim Clark or won’t he -- continue to ram his putter into his chest as he kicks off the final year in which anchored flat sticks will be legal?

After draining eight one-putts in a row on his way to his second tour win, at last year’s RBC Canadian Open, the 39-year-old South African who at one point was prepared to sue to keep anchoring, will likely drape his frame over that Odyssey 2-Ball long putter until the Jan. 1, 2016, ban takes effect.

Sang-Moon Bae

Bae will make his second appearance at Kapalua under a cloud of uncertainty concerning his civilian status in his native South Korea. With conscription into the military a possibility for the 28-year-old two-time tour winner, it remains to be seen if Bae will achieve his aim of playing on the International team in October’s Presidents Cup at the Jack Nicklaus GC in Incheon City, South Korea.

“Yeah, thinking about the Presidents Cup,” Bae said after winning the Frys.com Open in October. “I really want to play next year in Korea, my country, and also I really want to play Olympics two years later. It’s my goal.”