Six players hold a share of the lead after the first round of the Sony Open at Waialae Country Country Club in Honolulu.
For the second straight week, Tom Hoge finds himself in the lead after day one of a PGA Tour event. He sat atop the leaderboard by himself last Thursday night at The Sentry but then watched Hideki Matsuyama race him by and set the PGA Tour scoring record in the process.
This week is a different story — on a starkly different golf course. Hoge fired a 6-under 64 at Waialae Country Club, but so did five others: Harry Hall, Adam Schenk, Eric Cole, Denny McCarthy, and journeyman Paul Peterson.
“Just tried to keep it going from last week, I guess,” Hoge said of his day.
“A little bit different challenge here this week trying to get the ball in some tighter areas off the tee. That’s the key for me: getting the ball in the fairway and trying to go from there.”
Hoge hit only 8-of-14 fairways, but he managed to make two eagles — one coming via a hole-out from 189 yards out on the 14th hole.
Tom Hoge holes it for eagle!
It’s his second eagle of the round and moves to T1 @SonyOpenHawaii. pic.twitter.com/VYvDnbw3FW
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 10, 2025
As for the other co-leaders, Cole, McCarthy, and Schenk all posted bogey-free rounds, each making six birdies in the process.
Cole and McCarthy played last week, too, but neither came close to contending. Cole finished solo 52nd while McCarthy tied for 46th. That means Schenk’s 2025 campaign got off to a terrific start.
It’s also worth noting that these three players have yet to win on the PGA Tour, but each of them has come close before. McCarthy lost to Viktor Hovland in a playoff at the 2023 Memorial just weeks after Schenk came up short to Emiliano Grillo at Colonial in extra holes. A few months before then, in February 2023, Cole lost to Chris Kirk in a playoff at the Honda Classic.
“I’d like to think if I just keep doing what I’m doing and don’t try and change too much, then hopefully, I’ll be in a position to win a little bit more often,” Cole said.
“If I do that, I think by the more times you put yourself there, I think eventually you’re going to be able to get over that hurdle.”
Hall, meanwhile, had an entertaining scorecard. The Englishman, who dons a scally cap during every round, made four birdies over his first six holes but had a bogey on the par-3 4th hole sandwiched in between. He then had a complete meltdown in the greenside bunker on the 8th, which led to a double-bogey. But after that snafu, Hall rattled off four birdies in a row and ultimately finished birdie-bogey-birdie to tally his 64.
And then there’s the 36-year-old Peterson, who finished 17th in last year’s Korn Ferry Tour standings to finally earn his PGA Tour card.
“It was nice to birdie the first hole in my first official Tour start, so it was good,” Peterson said of his round.
“So I had momentum early. I hit a really nice 7-wood into 9, made an eagle there, and I think I made six threes in a row, so it was pretty fun. Yeah, I just hit it nice, putted it nicely. I put some extra time in on the greens yesterday evening, and it seemed to pay off. So it was good.”
Before playing on the Korn Ferry Tour, Peterson played all over the world, competing on the DP World Tour and the Japan Tour, hoping to earn Official World Golf Ranking points that way.
“I was really trying to get to the PGA Tour via World Ranking or having a really good event in some of the bigger events and getting some starts, whether it was getting inside the top 100 in the world and getting in the PGA Championship and having an opportunity to come over,” Peterson explained.
“I thought Japan was going to be really good for me because it was high World Ranking points at the time and a spot where I hit a lot of fairways and putted it well and really thought that was going to be good, and COVID screwed that up for us a little bit over there. I felt like the purses with the Rolex Series and some of those things that Europe was offering, it was a good way for me to make a living and gain experience. As a young guy, I got to see the world and experience a lot.
“Do I wish I was [on the PGA Tour] a little bit earlier? Yeah. But do I regret any of the experiences I’ve had along the way? No.”
All that globe-trotting has paid off for Peterson, who now has a share of the lead after his first 18 holes on the PGA Tour.
Remarkably, six more players sit one stroke back at 5-under, highlighted by Canadian Adam Hadwin. Thirteen more posted 4-under 66s on Thursday, which includes Brian Harman, Zach Johnson, and Webb Simpson, who lurk two strokes back. It’s a jam-packed leaderboard with so many different types of players, which should make the PGA Tour’s first full field of the year quite riveting.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
