2018 Sentry Tournament of Champions: Rickie Fowler and his snazzy Hawaiian shirt move up the leaderboard

The PGA Tour is back, and 2018 started with the opening round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

The top five players in the world are in this loaded winners-only field that’s just 34 players deep. The season-opening event does not mean much for who or what might matter come April and the season’s first major, but the beautiful Maui setting is easy to take in while most of the U.S. is frozen and we’ve had no PGA Tour for a couple of months.

Rickie Fowler made a bold fashion choice, there was some course conditioning trouble, which can always be fun if you’re not involved, and the favorite turned in one of the worst rounds of the day. Here are three quick things from the first round of the year on the PGA Tour.

It’s the first round of the first event of the year so we don’t exactly need to dive into the most serious business. We’ll start with the frivolity of Rickie wardrobe which, if we’re being honest, was probably the most-discussed and far-reaching topic (make of that what you will) on Thursday at the ToC.

I first caught the getup during Golf Channel’s pregame show, which went to a commercial break with Fowler getting some reps on the putting green. And there it was, the untucked Hawaiian shirt with plenty of chest showing. My initial thought was this was some sort of warm-up shirt, and he wasn’t actually wearing this for the round. Were untucked shirts even allowed? But there was Fowler on the first tee, ready to roll untucked and unbuttoned for the first round of the new year:

There were certainly going to be takes about this look. An older, stodgier crowd might object to the untucked shirt (a slight divergence on untucked shirts — this ad I saw last month is by far the most absurd, insane, flabbergasting commercial I’ve ever seen.)

This is an event where the Ricktator has debuted some different fashion choices in the past. He showed up in Puma high tops and joggers here, and there was a similar freakout and overanalysis of the dramatic departure from the traditional golf uniform.

My very important verdict is...I am in favor of this. It’s fine. There were some good jokes about it too. But it’s fine. It’s Hawaii and it works. It would not work on the first tee at Augusta, although I’d like to see it attempted. Let’s mix it up with different uniforms and Rickie is always willing to try that, with the Hawaii tour stop providing the outlet for it. After my initial surprise wore off, I was in on it.

As is always the case with Rickie’s outfits, we must guard against the overweight 45-year-old now thinking he can pull this off at his local course on a random July afternoon.

Oh, and getting to what really matters: Rickie also posted a strong 4-under 69 and is just two shots off the lead. He’s in position to potentially go back-to-back after that win at Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge last month.

Like Rickie’s shirt, Jordan Spieth’s rough first round does not really matter for the larger picture of what’s to come this year, and maybe even the rest of this week. But Spieth has said he plays some of his best golf at this course because, like Augusta, it yields a bunch of uneven lies that make those robotic swings from the range less important and really make you rely on your feel game, the “artistry” some might say.

Spieth, however, was not sharp and posted his worst round ever at this event, a 2-over 75 that has him in 30th place in a field with 34 players. Spieth’s putting is always praised as the fulcrum of his success, but his game is obviously much more well-rounded than just an all-world putter. He got shelled on the greens on Thursday, however, with a -2.18 strokes gained putting mark.

Some putts were truly poor, while others were the result of trying to read the greens through some difficult trade winds hitting this Maui mountainside course. He backed off one putt multiple times exasperated with the wind changing his read. Then at the easier par-five 18th, Spieth missed perhaps the widest fairway on the PGA Tour and hit it in the hazard. The result was his worst round at this course by three full shots.

There are no big picture implications from this, although Spieth did tell Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis after the round that he’s working with coach Cameron McCormick on some significant putting changes related to the setup, trying to get back to what he had in 2015 and 2016. So while the score doesn’t matter much, that’s something we’ll keep an eye on going forward in this first quarter of the year.

Kapalua is the most picturesque stop on the PGA Tour, a schedule that’s got several contenders of beautiful courses. But TV viewers quickly noticed how unsightly the putting surfaces were at the Plantation Course this year. The collars and fringes looked noticeably worn down, and the greens just looked discolored throughout. It was not something you’re used to seeing for a PGA Tour event — your local muni, maybe — and not on TV with the pros playing.

It looked real bad on TV from thousands of miles away, and reporters on site quickly clarified that, yes, Kapalua encountered some significant issues with diseased Bermuda grass. Rex Hoggard tweeted this notice posted in the locker room:

The players said they were mostly rolling true but that there may not be as many pinnable locations as previous years. And they’re definitely slower and grainier. The grounds crew will apparently not roll them all week. Expect more shots of the ugly TV presentation all week though:

I love nothing more than a course setup or course conditioning controversy. And I’d love to have some drama in week one, but so far, this is mostly just an aesthetic problem and the players will have to adjust to the slower speeds.

Marc Leishman is your leader after 18 holes. The big Aussie knows how to play in the wind and was one of the best players in the world last year. Big Leish is 6-under and if the winds continue, as expected, that’s likely an advantage for him to maintain and perhaps even extend his lead. Scores after the first 18 holes of the new year: