Reaction to The Sentry, Matsuyama's performance and more

Imagine shooting 32 under par for four rounds in a PGA Tour event. Before I give you any context, would you take it? I know I would! With your PGA Tour victory, start planning a trip to Augusta in April and plan out the next two years with the newfound exemption.  Not this week though, thanks to Hideki Matsuyama, you made a good chunk of prize money and FedEx Cup points, but no hardware, no Masters and no exemption.

Super low scores are a bit of a turnoff, at least to me. When I set up a golf course for a tournament, I try to match the set up to the skill of the players, pre-existing challenge of the course, the forecasted weather conditions and the conditions the weather leave the course in. 

Sometimes there is nothing that can be done: unusually soft or firm greens or crazy strong winds increase scores in the black or red more than expected. Other times, the setup is just a miss.  Ever notice how the score of the first-round leader in the US Open tends to be within a shot or two of the final winning score?  The first round shows how tough the setup is, and then uses that as a baseline for later rounds.

Soft conditions and light winds led to a festival of red numbers at The Sentry. 

The conditions were so soft that tee shots on 18 left noticeable pitch marks in the fairways before the balls run down the fairway.  The softer landing areas kept balls that were slightly off from bouncing into too much trouble and the softer greens kept balls nearer the holes on approaches. 

What was the PGA Tour supposed to do? Hide the pins? That can only go so far – they need to find four days of, at least somewhat, different hole locations. They could have asked the maintenance crew to let the rough grow up, but the fairways are already very wide and, they would have needed some advance notice to do that – not a day before request. 

There’s a report of turning the short par 5 fifth hole into a par 4 for 2026. That would turn Matsuyama’s performance into 31 under par, but he still shot 257 for four rounds. At least it would change the awkward par 73 to a more normal par 72.

A bigger question though is does the Tour want the Plantation Course to play a bit tougher?  In the last ten years, the winner was less than 20 under par only one time (Justin Thomas in 2020). Sentry, the PGA Tour, and The Golf Channel might not care too much as it is the curtain-raiser for the year and is shown in primetime, with no other golf on. With no college games, many meaningless NFL games on (and many which are critical for determining playoff spots), perhaps the Tour feels they have a captive audience … and amazing views.