This week's Sony Open In Hawaii is one of those tournaments that just ooze pageantry, history, and celebration. As the first full-field event of the year, it's a great way to start each season.

Last year I wrote an article about the Sony Open and the only story that I, or anyone for that matter, could write about was the wonderful and refreshing performance of Taddd Fujikawa and how fun he was to watch. He was a sixteen year old who didn't have a care in the world and was having so much fun just being out there. Eveyrone remembers Taddd, but do you remember who won? Exactly. (It was David Toms). Well, what a difference a year makes.

Tadd has turned pro at the early age of seventeen and his results were dramatically different this time around. What is the difference? As I see it, it's the pressure. It's not about just having fun anymomre, it's now about the money and trying to go up against the best players in the world. That's a lot of expectations, especially for a young kid, and it's not a surprise he failed to make the cut.

This also happens when your regular foursome plays on Saturday morning and the bet goes from a Pepsi to a complete lunch. Its not the amount of the bet but the pressure to perform, that gets a lot of us. Even the best players feel that pressure as we all saw this week in the Sony Open.

The Tour players, of course, deal with some other elements that make the pressure that much stronger. This week, it was two things that jumped out at me; the narrow fairways and the strong winds that came in for the weekend. On Thursday and Friday the conditions weren't so bad and the scoring reflected that. But by Saturday, the gusts came in and the scores were higher as was the frustration level of many of the players. The Tour pros are so good that they can feel pretty comfortable with narrow fairways, but when you add a strong unpredictable wind, it's going to lead to a lot of misjudged and errant shots.

Playing into the wind is an inexact science and in large part, a sheer guessing game. Once you get a correct yardage to your target, it's now time to guess how many clubs you need to add to get your ball there. Professionals call this a one-club wind, two-club wind, etc. Once you have made your best guess of what club to hit, you now need to control your ball flight. This means you want to keep it down so it is less affected by the wind that is blowing in your face. To do this keep your hands below shoulder height on the back swing and on the follow thru. Play the ball back in the stance a little and make sure at impact you get at least 80% of your weight on your forward foot at impact.

For the PGA Tour players this week at the Sony Open, the guessing proved to be more art than science as many shots sailed over greens or came up well short. And of course, this then leads to other problems. For example, I noticed many of the players seemed to struggle with the thick bermuda rough at Wailae Golf Course, especially around the greens.

When you get near the greens, here is a formula for the short game: putt it first, chip it second and pitch it up in the air as a last resort. I think some of the players at the Sony would have been better suited to have followed that considering the strong wind blowing.

And speaking of the grass, it seemed to me that some of the players were having a hard time figuring out the speed of the greens there. This is not surprising. The greens for the Sony Open are bermuda grass greens. Many of the PGA Tour players are from areas of the country where they have bent grass greens and of course the ball rolls much faster on bent grass. You'll usually see a fair number of players arrive early or spend extra time practicing their putting when they play somewhere with bermuda greens. That's another lesson for all of us. When going somewhere new to play, show up early and spend some time getting used to the conditions for that facility. It will almost always serve you well.