Sony Open in Hawaii Round 1: A 36-Year-Old Rookie Leads a Six-Way Logjam

The first full-field event of the PGA TOUR season needed exactly one day to turn into a traffic jam, and the most interesting car in it belonged to a 36-year-old rookie who has collected passport stamps from roughly 44 countries.

Six players shared the lead at 6-under 64 after Thursday's opening round of the Sony Open in Hawaii at Waialae Country Club: Paul Peterson, Tom Hoge, Harry Hall, Denny McCarthy, Eric Cole and Adam Schenk. That six-way tie matches a tournament record that dates back to 1980. Another six sat one shot back at 65, and Hideki Matsuyama, fresh off his record-setting win at The Sentry, opened with a 67. Seven players were still on the course when darkness halted play, none of them near the top.

A Debut Years in the Making

Peterson's first round as a PGA TOUR member came several continents into a pro career. The left-hander from Oregon State has held cards on six tours, won the Czech Masters on the DP World Tour, added a title in Myanmar, played in Japan and on the Asian Tour, and finally punched his ticket by finishing inside the top 30 on the Korn Ferry Tour with a win in Tennessee along the way.

None of that looked like nerves on Thursday. Peterson made three birdies in the first eight holes, then rode a 7-wood into a soft breeze on the par-5 ninth and left it about 5 feet away for eagle. He became the first player in the field to reach 7 under. A couple of loose bogeys followed, but another 7-wood on the par-5 18th set up a two-putt birdie and a share of the lead.

"Whether I feel like a rookie, no," Peterson said, per the AP. "I've traveled a lot."

The best story of the day belongs to a golfer who once got paired with Tom Watson on a Sunday at the KLM Open and still remembers Watson signing a golf ball afterward. Waialae has a way of rewarding that kind of patience.

Hoge Goes Shopping for Eagles

Hoge was the only one of the six co-leaders to post 64 in the afternoon wave, and the card was a strange, wonderful thing: two eagles, two birdies, no bogeys. The first eagle came on the par-5 ninth. The second was the shot of the day, an 8-iron from 189 yards out of the rough on the par-4 14th that hit the flagstick and dropped.

"I was just hoping it would get down before it got over the back of the green," Hoge said.

Per Reuters, it was the fifth time Hoge has made two eagles in a single TOUR round. Hoge nearly made it a 63, too, with a chance on the par-5 18th that did not fall. Hoge tied for eighth at Kapalua last week, and the form clearly made the short flight over.

Ten Birdies and a Bunker Problem

Hall's 64 was the wildest card of the group. The Englishman, who won the ISCO Championship last summer and recently started working with Butch Harmon, made 10 birdies, the most in a single TOUR round in his career, including four straight from the ninth through the 12th. The blemish was a double bogey on the eighth, where it took two swings to escape a bunker.

Hall credited the driver. On a course as tight as Waialae, finding fairways is half the battle, and Hall said hitting it straight off the tee gains real strokes on the field here.

The Quiet 64s

Cole, McCarthy and Schenk got there the boring way, and boring is underrated at Waialae. All three went bogey-free. Cole and McCarthy were both early starters the previous week at Kapalua too, so the morning wave suited their rhythm.

McCarthy's round came with a backstory. He changed putters before the event after a frustrating week on Maui, and the swap paid off immediately, gaining him a little over three strokes on the greens, per CBS Sports.

"I really struggled last week on the greens," McCarthy said.

Matsuyama Throws a Driver, Then Finds a Gap

Matsuyama's 67 was not a coronation lap. A week after shattering the TOUR's scoring record relative to par at Kapalua, the 2022 Sony Open champion started slowly at Waialae, a course that plays far tougher than the wide-open Plantation Course. On the par-5 ninth, his driver flew out of his hands on the follow-through. The recovery was pure Matsuyama: a second shot threaded through palm trees that set up birdie. He did not make another one until closing birdies on 16 and 18, which salvaged a tie for 26th.

Russell Henley, playing alongside Matsuyama, posted 66. Henley has three top-15 finishes in his last four starts at this event, which makes him one of the more dangerous names lurking a few shots back.

A Crowded Board Heading Into Friday

Behind the six leaders sat Ben Griffin, Patrick Fishburn, Sam Ryder, Ben Kohles, Henrik Norlander and Adam Hadwin at 5 under. A big group at 4 under included Henley, Brian Harman, Webb Simpson, J.J. Spaun, Nick Taylor, Nico Echavarria, Sepp Straka and former U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson. Lucas Glover also shot 67.

With 25 players at 4 under or better, nobody has anything close to breathing room. Friday brings the cut, and Waialae rarely lets anyone run away. Peterson got the debut of a lifetime. Now the harder part starts: doing it again with the whole field breathing down that crowded top line.

Full scoring is on the official PGA TOUR leaderboard (opens in a new tab), and the TOUR's Round 1 story (opens in a new tab) has more on Peterson's long road.

Sources: PGA TOUR (Round 1 story and leaderboard), AP, Field Level Media, Reuters, CBS Sports. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: PGA TOUR.