The first full-field event of the year takes place this week at the 2023 Sony Open. After kicking off its calendar season with a thrilling limited field event in the Tournament of Champions, the PGA Tour stays in Hawaii with some players making the short trip from Maui to Honolulu.

In fact, 19 of the 39 players that participated last week at the Plantation Course at Kapalua will tee it up in the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club. Since the inception of the Tournament of Champions, 17 of 24 winners at the Sony Open had competed the week prior. This will be music to the ears of many big names, including world No. 14 Jordan Spieth, young South Korean stars Sungjae Im and Tom Kim, and defending champion Hideki Matsuyama.

Much like last week’s Tournament of Champions, last year’s Sony Open witnessed a dramatic come-from-behind victory. Entering the final nine holes five strokes off the pace of Russell Henley, Matsuyama pulled off the impossible, catching Henley and ultimately prevailing in a playoff.

Henley will look to exact revenge fresh off a win at the World Wide Technology Championship during the fall swing. He is joined by fellow Georgia Bulldogs Brian Harman, Keith Mitchell, Harris English, Chris Kirk, Brendon Todd, Davis Thompson and Greyson Sigg in the field — and all of whom have their fair share to celebrate following their alma mater’s victory in the College Football National Championship.

All times Eastern; streaming start times approximated

Round 1 – Thursday

Round starts: 12 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 12 – 10:30 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Live TV coverage: 7 – 10:30 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 7 – 10:30 p.m. on Peacock

Radio: 5 – 10:30 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio

Round 2 – Friday

Round starts: 12 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 12 – 10:30 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Live TV coverage: 7 – 10:30 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 7 – 10:30 p.m. on Peacock

Radio: 5 – 10:30 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio

Round 3 – Saturday

Round starts: 12:45 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 12:45 – 8 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Early TV coverage: 4-6 p.m. on NBC
Early streaming: 4-6 p.m. on Peacock

Live TV coverage: 6-8 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 6-8 p.m. on Peacock

Round 4 – Sunday

Round starts: 12:45 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 12:45 – 8 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Early TV coverage: 4-6 p.m. on NBC
Early streaming: 4-6 p.m. on Peacock

Live TV coverage: 6-8 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 6-8 p.m. on Peacock

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Eight of the top 10 (and 17 of the top 20) players in the world begin the new year this week at the 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions. Welcoming the winners from a season ago and those who qualified for the Tour Championship, the Plantation Course at Kapalua will play the role of host for the 25th time.

Featuring vast elevation changes, fairways wider than some canyons and the largest greens on the PGA Tour, the pineapple plantation-turned-golf course will once again take center stage. Tucked away high up in the mountains of Maui, Hawaii, players will be forced to keep their foot on the gas as a birdie fest is all but likely to take place.

Last season’s event saw record scoring as the windy conditions that typically protect the par 73 were nowhere to be found. With the winning score falling on 34 under, Cameron Smith was able to edge out then-world No. 1 Jon Rahm by a single stroke. Neither Smith nor the current world No. 1 Rory McIlroy will be in action this week, leaving the door open for another elite player to kick off their year in fashion.

Scottie Scheffler can return to world No. 1 with a solo third place finish or better. Rahm looks to exact revenge from last season. Tony Finau aims to nab his fourth victory in his last eight starts. All these storylines and more have the potential to play out in the first PGA Tour event of 2023.

All times Eastern; streaming start times approximated

Round 1 – Thursday

Round starts: 2:30 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 2:15 – 10 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Live TV coverage: 6-10 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 6-10 p.m. on Peacock

Radio: 4-10 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio

Round 2 – Friday

Round starts: 2:30 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 2:30 – 10 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Live TV coverage: 6-10 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 6-10 p.m. on Peacock

Radio: 4-10 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio

Round 3 – Saturday

Round starts: 12:45 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 12:45 – 8 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Early TV coverage: 4-6 p.m. on NBC
Early streaming: 4-6 p.m. on Peacock

Live TV coverage: 6-8 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 6-8 p.m. on Peacock

Radio: 3-8 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio

Round 4 – Sunday

Round starts: 12:45 p.m.

PGA Tour Live: 12:45 – 8 p.m. — PGA Tour Live

Early TV coverage: 4-6 p.m. on NBC
Early streaming: 4-6 p.m. on Peacock

Live TV coverage: 6-8 p.m. on Golf Channel
Live streaming: 6-8 p.m. on Peacock

Radio: 3-8 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio

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On 2nd December 2022, Golf Ireland released its 2023 schedule with a few noteworthy changes. All this builds the expectation that 2023 will be an exciting year for golf players and fans of the sport. After an impressive 2022 Golf calendar, the year ended with the Irish Golf Writers’ Association Awards, where top players like Rory McIlroy, Hugh Foley, Beth Coulter and Jimmy Kinsella received awards for their outstanding performance.

What most people didn’t expect is that there was a rise in golf betting in 2022. As golf tournaments became more popular, many people became interested and even placed bets on their highly-ranked players. Top Irish betting sites offer common markets like the tournament winner and head-to-head matchups and exciting prop bets like hole-in-one, albatross and over/under on the winning score.

Since the year is just beginning and the first championship starts in March, there’s plenty of time to learn about the different bets you can place in golf. But before anything else, why should you look forward to the 2023 golf schedule?

Mark Wehrly, Golf Ireland’s Championships Director, said, “The aim of the restructuring of our championships programme is to create a broader appeal for our events and to make them attractive, living up to the commitments in our strategic plan to deliver a streamlined, inclusive and equitable calendar.”

“The restructuring will also see us deliver our competitions in a smarter way and add value and opportunities for our players, who are at the centre of everything we do.”

Following a strategic plan and a high-performance review by Golf Ireland, there will be many changes this year. The AIG Irish Men’s Amateur Close Championship will now have 72 holes of stroke play for two years on a trial basis. On the other hand, the AIG Irish Women’s Close Championship will have a streamlined format with two turns of stroke play. The 16 top players will qualify for the match play rounds in the championship.

The Men’s Championship will happen from 18-20 August at the Malone Golf Club, while Connemara will host the Women’s event from 22-25 June.

An innovative and major highlight of the 2023 calendar is the introduction of a new tournament for women and girls. This will be the Golf Ireland Women’s Championship Series which borrows a lot from the success of the Rose Ladies Series in the UK. The Series will have four regional championships, which will be played one day each and make a complete 54-hole play season.

The championship will only consider players who are over 18 years and aims to attract top female golfers in their 20s, 30s and 40s. As for young girls, Golf Ireland will set up four Regional Girl’s Championships, two of which will be played in conjunction with the Boy’s Regional Championship during the summer season.

In 2022, the first-ever Irish Open for Players with Disabilities was held and was a great success. This time around, the championship will be a flagship event for the European Disabled Golf Association held at Roganstown on the 27th and 28th of June and will give players a chance to get even more points in the World Rankings. The entries for the event are already open, so you can easily check and register on the European Disabled Golf Association website.

The popular Golf Ireland’s Senior men’s championship has been improved with a new Seniors and Veterans’ Stroke Play Championship, which will be hosted at Powerscourt from the 16th to 18th of August. In regard to this, Golf Ireland will also bring back the Veteran Men’s Category with two 18-hole tournaments starting at the regional level in Leinster and Munster.

Amateur championships started by Golf Ireland will again take place in May, with the Flogas Irish Men’s Amateur Open happening on 11-14 May at the Island Golf Club. The next week, the Flogas Irish Women’s and Girls’ Amateur Open Championship will be hosted at Woodbrook from the 19th to the 21st of May.

In line with Director Mark Wehrly’s remarks on “creating a broader appeal for the events”, Golf Ireland will launch a programme for inter-club events, which will run all through the season. In the end, there will be an All-Ireland Final Series held at different venues, including Castleroy on 29-30 August for the Underage Series, Dun Laoghaire from 7th to 10th September, Knightsbrook on 14-17 September and lastly, Westport from 21st to 24th September.

Even though the first championships start around March and April, entries for all tournaments will be open by late January for all willing to participate to register.

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Tiger Woods taught us nothing during a busy December of golf. What was presumed to be a bit of foreshadowing for how 2023 could unfold for him turned into nothing more than a continuation of what he looked like in 2022.

Woods first withdrew from the Hero World Challenge with plantar fasciitis before partnering with Rory McIlroy a week later in a loss to Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth in The Match VII. It was a performance (by both sides) that Spieth may still be jawing about when they all congregate at the Masters next April. Following that short match at Pelican Golf Club, Woods teamed with his son, Charlie, in the PNC Championship where they finished T8, six strokes behind Vijay and Qass Singh.

Tiger’s performance throughout was almost perfectly emblematic of his 2022. Some great swings, amazing speed for someone of his age and injury history, a lot of rust, and plenty of disappointment from a body that is unable to perform at his desired level.

This is who Tiger is now. The idea that this was perhaps going to be an end-of-year push toward a thriving, healthier 2023 was curtailed immediately with his withdrawal in the Bahamas and then again when he looked mediocre (albeit enjoyably mediocre!) at Pelican with Rory.

Still, there is seemingly a refusal to admit that Woods is in no position to compete at PGA Tour events, much less win major championships. Three-time major winner Padraig Harrington said during the PNC Championship that he thinks Tiger will win another major! While players are extremely disincentivized to say that Woods will not win again, it still came off sounding ridiculous.

Woods himself has admitted that his problem is not hitting the shots but rather walking the golf courses. At The Match and the PNC Championship, he was able to use a golf cart, which will not be permitted if and when he tees it up in 2023. Harrington focused on the speed Woods has been generating, which Thomas noted as well.

“He said that at Hero: He can hit any shot he wants and obviously some days are different than others,” said Thomas. “He said it himself: He has plenty of speed. He 100% hits it farther than I do with the driver right now, and when he’s feeling well and moving well like he was [at the PNC], he can do anything he wants. So, it’s nice that he has a cart and is able to enjoy this week.”

But what about 2023? What about the Genesis Invitational and the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship and the Masters when that metaphorical crutch is removed and Woods has to get around for up to 72 holes on a leg that will never be 100% again? Will he even be able to compete without the coveted reps he so often mentions?

Even Tiger doesn’t know.

“No, not yet,” said Woods when he was asked if he could predict what 2023 could look like. “Because if I didn’t have the plantar feeling like this, then yes, I could tell you that and I’d have a better idea. But I’m supposed to be resting this thing and stretching and letting it heal. But I’m not doing that at the moment.”

There are several problems; perhaps the biggest is that Woods turns 47 this week. Yes, he’s fit. Yes, he can still swing it. Yes, he’s Tiger Woods. But 47 is 47, and his age is certainly not helping his leg heal.

Woods is in a better place right now than he was this time a year ago. He recently said that his only goal for 2022 was to play in the Open Championship and that he was surprised that he was able enough to play in the PGA Championship and Masters as well. He will likely attempt to surpass that total this year by playing in all four majors and perhaps one or two other events. Will he finish all those tournaments? Who knows, but he will almost certainly attempt to start them.

What doesn’t really make sense is the pervasive notion that Woods can be competitive at the majors and perhaps even contend to win one. He didn’t come anywhere close to that in 2022 (47th, withdrawal, missed cut), and any incremental improvement in the health of his leg is likely to be offset by his aging body. (Remember, his back isn’t exactly in peak condition, either.)

There is just not a clear path to Woods being healthy enough to put in the necessary work that would make him sharp enough to win a 16th major championship.

Does that mean Tiger is going to be a ceremonial golfer in 2023 and beyond? Probably not. He will have his moments. He will shoot a 66 at some point. He will pop onto a major leaderboard on a Friday or even a weekend. He will provide a thrill or two along the way. However, he lacks the physical consistency necessary to truly contend given the 72 holes of grind required to even have a chance of winning another major.

The tension between his skill (still extraordinarily high) and his physical capability (all over the map) will be the story when it comes to Woods in 2023. It will likely follow him for the rest of his career. The fact that his primary contemporary, Phil Mickelson, won a major at age 50 will only contribute to the hoopla. Winning golf tournaments — especially the ones Woods plays — at age 47 is extremely challenging, bordering on impossible. Doing so with a body as busted as Woods’ exacerbates that difficulty.

So while we will see more of Tiger in 2023, and his presence will be a good thing given the PGA Tour’s ongoing rivalry with LIV Golf, December was not an indicator that we will see more of Woods doing what he’s done throughout his career: contending to win high-level golf tournaments. Those days are almost certainly over, and while we might get a glimpse or two contrary to that over the next 12 months (or beyond), these last few weeks were a reminder of where Woods is at and what lies ahead.

Projecting Tiger Woods’ 2023 schedule

• Feb. 16-19: The Genesis Invitational
• March 9-12: The Players Championship
• April 6-9: The Masters
• May 18-21: PGA Championship
• June 15-18: U.S. Open
• July 20-23: The Open Championship

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A fun, family-filled weekend kicks off at the 2022 PNC Championship with Tiger Woods and his son, Charlie, capturing most of the headlines. While younger Woods’ swing has taken social media by storm, it is the status and health of the elder one — the one who has taken social media by storm since its inception — that remains on the minds of most.

“I can practice. I just can’t walk,” Woods said, echoing his comments from the Hero World Challenge. “So when you’re dealing with the plantar [fasciitis] like this, it’s one of these things where I need rest, and I haven’t exactly been doing that.”

Developing plantar fasciitis in his right foot, Woods was forced to withdraw from the Hero World Challenge — the event he hosts annually — at the beginning of December. Despite this foot injury accompanying a recovering leg and five prior back surgeries, the 82-time winner competed in The Match 7 with Rory McIlroy against Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, and will hit the course again at this week’s PNC Championship. 

“It’s been a lot harder than people probably imagine,” Woods said of his road to recovery. “There’s some of the players who are very close to me know what I’ve kind of gone through, and they’re the ones that keep encouraging me to back off a little bit. But that’s not really in my nature. My nature is trying to get better. And I have. And through work ethic, I was able to, as I said, play and compete in three major championships this year. 

“And this offseason hasn’t really been an off season. I’ve kind of ramped things up. But after this, come Monday, we shut it all down and take care of this foot so that I can ramp up properly. As you’ve seen, I can hit golf balls. I can do all that. I can practice at home. I can hit shots around the green. I can do all that. I just can’t get from point A to point B.”

With plans to get off his feet following the conclusion of the PNC Championship, one can’t help but wonder what Woods’ future playing schedule may look like. Playing only nine competitive rounds during the 2021-22 PGA Tour season — four at The Masters, three at the PGA Championship and two at The Open — the 15-time major champion was rarely seen, an oddity golf fans will have to get used to.

Conventional wisdom suggests Woods potentially teeing it up in February at the Genesis Invitational, and maybe even The Players Championship in early March if the body is up for it. If not, all sights remain on Augusta National for The Masters in April in what would be the first of four major championship appearances in 2023. 

Perhaps that’ll be it for Woods and five tournaments will be the max. Perhaps not. There are other events, including The Memorial, squarely between the PGA Championship and U.S. Open, which make sense but only time will tell as more information about his health, stamina and endurance come to light.

What is for certain is the recently developed plantar fasciitis is doing Woods no favors. Stripping him of an opportunity to play alongside 19 of the best players in the world in The Bahamas, it has also brought a sense of precariousness to his recovery timeline.

“No, not yet,” Woods said of knowing his future schedule. “Because if I didn’t have the plantar feeling like this, then, yes, I could tell you that and I’d have a better idea. But I’m supposed to be resting this thing and stretching and letting it heal. But I’m not doing that at the moment.”

Instead, Woods is playing alongside his son as the two attempt to improve on their runner-up performance from a year ago. With the potential for new injuries or aggravation of old ones lingering, the soon-to-be 47-year-old Woods sees the bigger picture, and if some additional soreness is the price he has to pay for a couple rounds with his son, then so be it.

“I don’t really care about that [a potential setback],” said Woods. “I think being there with and alongside my son is far more important, and get to have a chance to have this experience with him is far better than my foot being a little creaky.”

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The European Challenge Tour has announced its schedule for 2023, with Europe’a second tier tour set to feature a record overall prize fund and a minimum of 29 tournaments staged across three continents in 18 different countries.

Players will compete for total prize money of €8.2m, which will begin with the Bain’s Whisky Cape Town Open in February, the first of four co-sanctioned events with the Sunshine Tour in South Africa.

India returns as a host country for the first time since 2013 with two events in March, the Duncan Taylor Black Bull Challenge followed by The Challenge presented by KGA.

The Challenge Tour also returns to the UAE in April for the first time since 2018 with back-to-back events, including the Abu Dhabi Challenge, as part of the European Tour group’s long-term partnership with the Emirates Golf Federation.

It will then head to Spain in May for the Challenge de España, which will kick-start a run of 20 tournaments in 22 weeks and see the Road to Mallorca travel through 15 countries in Europe, including Italy for the Italian Challenge at Golf Nazionale, the venue which will then host the first two days of the 2023 Junior Ryder Cup in September.

The 2023 season will conclude with the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A, at Club de Golf Alcanada from November 2-5, as the top 45 players on the Rankings battle it out for one of the life changing 20 DP World Tour cards.

Those 20 players who benefit from this formal pathway to the DP World Tour will then be eligible for the DP World Tour’s Earnings Assurance Programme, guaranteeing them minimum earnings of $150,000 for the 2024 season if they play in 15 or more events. The top five graduates will also benefit from the John Jacobs Bursary, similarly designed to provide security and a strong platform for their first season on the European Tour group’s top tier.

The full Challenge Tour schedule for 2023 can be viewed by clicking here.

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Tiger Woods said on Tuesday he’s hitting “whatever shot you want” right now, which is good news. The bad news, however, is that he’s unable to play the Hero World Challenge this week because he can’t walk to hit the next one.

On Monday, Woods withdrew from the event which he hosts alongside his foundation, and on Tuesday, he gave an update on the plantar fasciitis that will keep him sidelined for the four-day tournament in the Bahamas.

“Well, it was a tough decision just because I want to play. I like playing, I like competing, but unfortunately, I can hit the golf ball and hit whatever shot you want, I just can’t walk,” said Woods. “And so I’ve had a few setbacks during the year that I still was able to somehow play through, but this one I just can’t. … only time can heal this one and stay off my feet and get a lot of treatment done.

“As I was ramping up and had to walk more, the worse it got. So when you get plantar fasciitis … the worst thing you can do is walk, and I was walking more and more and more, trying to get my legs ready for this event, and I just kept making it worse.”

That has been a theme throughout the year. When he’s played, Woods has actually hit the ball fairly well given how little he’s competed over the last two years. The issues have more surrounded endurance and physical stamina than the golf swing.

Though he demurred on any long-term issues, he did concede that the foot injury — which is on the same right leg that was mangled in a car crash nearly two years ago — was related to all of his other leg injuries. However, he still plans to play The Match on Dec. 10 and the PNC Championship on Dec. 17-18. He’ll be able to ride in a cart at both events. 

“I can hit golf balls. It’s the walking that just hurts. So … when you’ve got plantar fasciitis, the only thing you can do is rest and try and stretch that out as best as possible, but it’s rest. How do you rest when you’re hosting a tournament? You know, it’s hard. So this will be a tough week. The [PNC Championship] will be a very easy week, Charlie will just hit all the shots and I’ll just get the putts out of the hole, so pretty easy there. But other than that, in the match we’re playing in, we’re flying in carts.”

When asked, Woods adamantly noted that he would never consider applying to ride in a cart for a sanctioned PGA Tour event. So what does this setback mean for 2023? Probably nothing. Woods was only planning on playing 4-6 events anyway (the four majors and “one or two more”), which he still believes he’ll be able to do, cart or not.

“It’s going to take probably, you know, a month or two of rest,” said Woods of his foot injury. “But also it was the ramping up process that did it. It’s a balancing act, right? How hard do you push it to make progress while not pushing it too hard to go off the edge and you set yourself back two, three days, and that’s been the balancing act the whole year. And trying to do that, get ready for this event, I did a lot of beach walks trying to simulate the sand out here and my foot just did not like that very much.”

“The goal is to play just the major championships and maybe one or two more,” he added. “Physically, that’s all I can do. … I don’t have much left in this leg, so gear up for the biggest ones and hopefully, you know, lightning catches in a bottle and I’m up there in contention with a chance to win and hopefully I remember how to do that. But again, giving myself a chance to get out there again.”

Woods insisted that he was shooting up to 7 under at home “like it was nothing”, so it wasn’t an issue of skill but rather of pain tolerance and stamina. Given his historical threshold for pain, this platar fasciitis problem is undoubtedly devilish.

As has been true all year with Woods, there will be stops and starts. Some days, weeks and months, he will likely feel great. Other days, weeks and months, he almost certainly will not. Is it likely that he plays in and finishes six events next year? Based on how this year went (and is ending), probably not. Although it was good to hear that this particular injury only needs rest and is not a long-term problem.

There will be other issues, though. Curiously, Woods also disclosed that he had two surgeries earlier in the year but did not elaborate about when they took place or what part of his body was operated on. That is emblematic of where he’s at in his career. And while his leg and foot could improve, other parts of his body will certainly deterioriate.

The silver lining in all of this is that Tiger played more in 2022 than he expected. He said he was ahead of schedule given that this time a year ago he thought he would only play in the Open. He also noted that he had seen progress in his leg since the Open Championship, in which he played the eighth and ninth rounds of his 2022 year (all nine of which came at major championships). It was only recently that he experienced this right foot setback.

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