ORLANDO, Fla. – Scott Parel beat fellow PGA Tour Champions player Scott Dunlap on the first hole of a playoff Sunday to complete a wire-to-wire victory in the Diamond Resorts Invitational.

The 52-year-old Parel won the 32-player professional division with a par on the extra hole, the 203-yard 18th at Tranquilo Golf Club. Dunlap hit a fat shot short into water and made a double bogey.

In regulation, Dunlap made an 8-foot birdie putt for three points, and Parel failed to get up-and-down and made a bogey to fall into the playoff. Unable to play a practice round before the event because of the flu, Parelearned $125,000.

“Beware the injured animal,” Parel said. “I think low expectations (helped). My expectations were just to try to finish and do the best I can.”

Parel and Dunlap finished with 93 points in the 54-hole Modified Stableford event, Parel earned 32 points in the final round. He spent 10 years as a computer programmer before turning pro at age 31.

Dunlap had 34 points in the scoring system that awards six points for eagle, three for birdie, one for par, zero for bogey and minus-two for double bogey or worse. John Daly was third with 88 points after a 34-point day.

Five-time LPGA Tour winner Brooke Henderson, playing from the same tees as the men, was seventh with 80 points. The 20-year-old Canadian had 25 points Sunday.

Finishes 7th ✔️
Beats most of the @ChampionsTour guys ✔️
Pretty solid week at #DRIGolf for @BrookeHenderson! ? pic.twitter.com/ouQGMJj7IW

— LPGA (@LPGA) January 14, 2018

Former tennis player Mardy Fish won the 52-man celebrity division for the second time in three years, finishing with 75 points. Former hockey star Jeremy Roenick was second at 61.

HONOLULU – Tom Hoge was too caught up watching college basketball in his hotel room to be bothered with a push alert – a false alarm, as it turned out – that a ballistic missile was headed toward Hawaii.

He showed a steady hand on the golf course, too, even as the leaderboard at the Sony Open became increasingly crowded.

Hoge finished off a 6-under 64 by holing a 40-foot birdie putt at the par-3 17th, and then hitting a 40-yard bunker shot to within 3 feet for a birdie on the par-5 closing hole at Waialae Country Club for a one-shot lead.

Hoge was at 16-under 194, one shot ahead of Brian Harman (68) and Patton Kizzire, who recovered from a double bogey on his opening hole and shot 64. Another shot behind was Kyle Stanley (65).

Corey Conners was the lone Canadian left in the field. The Listowel, Ont., native shot 3 under for a 7 under total.

Seven players were separated by four shots, a big difference from a year ago when Justin Thomas led by seven going into the final round of his wire-to-wire victory.

Hoge has never led going to the final round on the PGA Tour in his 75 previous starts. He has never won.

“A new position,” Hoge said. “It’s a good one, obviously. I’ve been close to the lead a few times in the fall, so a little bit to draw on there. Haven’t quite pulled it off yet. Just getting a little more belief in myself and hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day for me.”

It should be a day where everyone can breathe a little easier compared with how Saturday began.

Hawaii was buzzing – literally – when the push alert came through on mobile phones across the island shortly after 8 a.m. alerting of a missile. It said to seek shelter and that it was not a drill.

There was panic across the island. J.J. Spaun tweeted that he was in the basement of his hotel. John Peterson tweeted that he was in a bathtub with his family covered by mattresses.

Hoge?

“I was watching the TCU basketball game at the time, so I was a little frustrated with that,” he said of his alma mater ultimately losing to Oklahoma. “The missile was kind of off my radar on that one. I don’t even know what you do for a missile. So I wasn’t really freaking out or anything. Some other people were around us. If it’s going to be your last day, it’s going to be your last day, right?

“To be here in Hawaii and see the beach and everything, I guess it would be a good spot to go.”

Hoge once shared the 36-hole lead with Tiger Woods at the Wyndham Championship, the last tournament Woods played before two back surgeries in the fall of 2015. This time he starts out the final round as the leader.

With so many players right in the mix, no one is sure what to expect in the final round.

“There’s a lot of birdies out there,” Kizzire said. “You just have to make the most.”

Thomas had a wild start – bogey on No. 1, holing out from 175 yards for eagle on No. 2, another bogey on No. 3. He settled down for a 66 and was six shots back, with other eight players ahead of him.

“You can go shoot 8 or 9 under in a heartbeat out here,” Thomas said. “It’s hard if you’re five back and you’re in 15th or 20th as opposed to five back and you’re in sixth or seventh. We’ll just wait and see.”

Hoge figured out how to handle Waialae on another warm, sunny and missile-free day. He was bogey-free, picking up birdies with good tee shots on some of the shorter holes, knocking in the long putt on the 17th and finishing with a birdie.

Five players had at least a share of the lead at some point, and Harman was never too far from the mix. It was a steady performance, just not as low as the players chasing him, and he failed to hit his bunker shot close on the 18th, two-putting from 25 feet for par.

Even so, he’ll be in the last group in Hawaii for the second straight week, and Kapalua winner Dustin Johnson already is on his way to Abu Dhabi.

Jordan Spieth never got much going again and headed to the putting green after his round for more work. He only made four birdies in his bogey-free round of 66, but that left him nine shots behind.

For most players, the talk of the day was the push alert that turned out to be a mistake.

“It was pretty scary at the hotel when they came over the loud speaker and said, ‘Everyone take shelter, this isn’t a drill,”’ Spieth said.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Canada will be among 25 countries competing in the 13th edition of the South American Amateur at Martindale Country Club from Jan. 13-16.

Four elite amateurs will make up the Canadian contingent: Chris Crisologo (Richmond, B.C.), Matt Williams (Calgary), Céleste Dao (Notre-Dame-de-lÎle-Perrot, Que.), Ellie Szeryk (London, Ont.).

Dao and Szeryk are current members of Team Canada’s Women’s Development Squad; Crisologo is a member of the Men’s Amateur Squad and Williams is a program graduate.

Williams will lead the Canadian quartet in Saturday’s opening round, teeing off No. 1 at 8:20 a.m. The University of Houston junior will be paired alongside a familiar face in Colombia’s Camilo Aguado, who held the 54-hole lead at the 2017 Canadian Men’s Amateur at Toronto Golf Club and Islington Golf Club. Aguado finished the championship tied for 4th, while Williams closed with a share of 8th.

Defending women’s champion, Isabella Fierro, will tee off No. 1 at 1:10 p.m. local time—the Mexican finished T16 at the 2015 World Junior Girls Championship in Ottawa, Ont.

LPGA superstar Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., captured the event in 2013 with a wire-to-wire victory in Bogotá, Colombia, to become the first (and only) Canadian to win the event.

Click here for tee times.
Click here for full scoring.

HONOLULU – Different islands, vastly different golf courses, same good play from Brian Harman.

One week after Harman shared the 36-hole lead at Kapalua, he ran off three straight birdies and closed with a 15-foot eagle putt for a 7-under 63 and a three-shot lead going into the weekend at the Sony Open.

Harman was at 13-under 127, and no one could catch him on Friday afternoon.

Chris Kirk, who shared the 18-hole lead with Harman, opened by pitching in from 25 yards for eagle on No. 10. He ended his day by driving into the canal on the easy par-5 ninth and making bogey for a 67.

Kirk was three behind along with Zach Johnson (67), John Peterson (64), Tom Hoge (65) and PGA Tour rookie Talor Gooch.

Except for the tropical warmth, the two golf courses on the Hawaii swing are nothing alike. The Plantation Course at Kapalua was built on the side of the mountain on the west tip of Maui and features fairways that can stretch nearly 90 yards wide and big slopes in the greens.

Waialae is at sea level – waist-high hedges along the 16th and 17th holes and behind the 11th green are all that separate grass from the beach – with smaller, flatter greens and fairways framed by trees.

“The biggest elevation change here is from the walk down from the hotel,” Harman said. “I’ve always kind of felt like as long as there’s fairways and greens and holes to putt it, then I’m going to be fine.”

The Georgia native is playing just as well on Oahu as he did on Maui.

He surged ahead in the morning with two quick birdies on the back nine, made the turn in 32 and ran off three straight birdies early on the front nine. After making his only bogey from a bunker on the par-3 seventh, Harman hit 7-iron from 172 yards to 15 feet on No. 9 for a closing eagle.

It’s all just golf to him.

“I’m making putts, but I’m also putting myself in position to make those putts,” he said. “I’m getting a bunch of looks. I’m not making everything I’m looking at, but I’m hitting a lot of good putts and made a few. I’m just going to show up tomorrow and try to hit the first tee shot best you can and go from there.”

On another glorious day of sunshine and good scoring conditions, Johnson had a nine-hole stretch of eight pars and a bogey until a strong finish. He birdied the par-3 seventh and closed with an eagle to salvage a 67.

Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., is the only Canadian to make the cut. He shot a 66 to follow up a first-round 70 and sits 4 under. Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont., and Mac Hughes of Dundas, Ont. both finished even through 36 holes to miss.

Defending champion Justin Thomas was closer to the cut line than the lead until he made a trio of 8-foot putts – two for birdies, one for eagle – to close out a 67. He was seven shots behind.

Jordan Spieth made the longest putt of his PGA Tour career – just over 90 feet on No. 5 – but didn’t give himself many good looks. Spieth birdied the last hole for a 68 and was 10 shots behind.

“I didn’t think I had enough club,” Spieth said of his long putt. “I considered hitting a lob wedge because I had something like 30 yards to the hole into the breeze.”

The putt looked good all the way, though it had some pace. There was some debate among his two playing partners, Xander Schauffele and Daniel Berger, along with caddie Michael Greller on what would have happened had the ball not slammed into the back of the cup.

“Xander said it was 4 or 5 feet by. Michael said 6,” Spieth said. “Berger said off the green.”

Schauffele birdied his last four holes and was among those at 8-under 132, five shots behind.

The cut was at 2-under 138.

Harman still looks back to a key tournament last year. He played the Zurich Classic, a two-man team event, with Johnson Wagner and used Wagner’s Titleist golf ball during the alternate-shot portion. Harman put one in his bag the following week at the Wells Fargo Championship and won.

The change wasn’t so much about distance as the way he was able to control the trajectory of the ball, especially in the wind.

“The wind doesn’t seem to take it as much,” he said. “That’s just a personal thing for me. I feel like I did when I was a kid again. I felt like I was a better ball-striker when I was a kid. … I’m starting to get some of those feelings back.”

Harman played in the final group last week and tied for third, though no one was about to catch Dustin Johnson.

Peterson is playing on a medical extension because of hand surgery, and he has eight tournaments to make $375,165 (or earn 274 FedEx Cup points) to keep a full card the rest of the year. He doesn’t sound overly worried, which is not to suggest he’s overconfident.

He has a 3-month-old son, one reason he decided to take the entire fall off before resuming his bid to keep his card.

“If my attitude is good, I’m going to play good,” he said. “I’ve never been in a better spot lifestyle-wise than I am right now, so that probably has a lot to do with it. I’ve got eight events to make $350,000. If I do, great. If I don’t, who cares? I’m just out here free-wheeling.”

JOHANNESBURG – Chris Paisley and Adrien Saddier opened up a big lead after two rounds of the South African Open on Friday as they moved to 13 under par and four shots clear of their nearest challengers.

England’s Paisley hit a 7-under 65 to move up from second overnight. France’s Saddier had the round of the day at Glendower Golf Club in Johannesburg, a blistering, course record-equaling 63 with an eagle, seven birdies and no bogeys.

Both Paisley and Saddier are seeking a maiden European Tour title.

Home player Jacques Kruyswijk is alone in second on 9 under, with a group of four players another shot behind him on 8 under and in a tie for fourth.

That group contains overnight leaders Branden Grace and Chase Koepka, Zimbabwe’s Scott Vincent, and Retief Goosen, the two-time U.S. Open champion who hasn’t won a professional tournament since 2009.

The 48-year-old Goosen began this week with a promising 69 and then carded six birdies and an eagle for his 5-under 67 in the second round. It could have been even better if not for a bogey on No. 13 and a double bogey on the last.

Ernie Els, a five-time winner of the South African Open, made the cut after a 70 moved him to 3 under. Defending champion Graeme Storm missed the cut by a shot, though, thanks mainly to his opening-round 75.

Canadian Austin Connelly shot a 1-over-par 73 to hold a share of 56th heading into the weekend at Glendower. Fellow countryman Mike Weir carded a second consecutive 73 (+2), missing the even-par cutline by two strokes.

VICTORIA, Australia – Team Canada’s Joey Savoie fired a 7-under 64 to momentarily break the course record at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club on Thursday at the Australian Master of the Amateurs.

Savoie, a La Prairie, Que., product, marched up the leaderboard on the heels of a bogey-free, seven-birdie effort to leap 26 spots in the final standings. The Middle Tennessee University grad finished T10 at 4 over par with fellow Amateur Squad member Hugo Bernard of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Que.

Savoie was one of four competitors to set a course record at Royal Melbourne, including champion David Micheluzzi of host nation Australia. Micheluzzi won by a comfortable five-stroke margin with a final score of 14 under par.

EXCITING NEWS!!! Joey Savoie from Golf Canada​ ?? has broken the Royal Melbourne Golf Club East course record ⛳️? shooting 64! Congratulations Joey! ?? #recordbreaker #AMOTA2018 pic.twitter.com/VTkSEA69Nl

— AMOTA (@AusMotA) January 12, 2018

The final-standing course record was set by American Shintaro Ban, one of two runner-ups. Ban fired two eagles alongside five birdies to finish with a 63 (-8). In 2017, Ban finished runner-up at the Canadian Men’s Amateur at Toronto Golf Club and Islington Golf Club.

Canadian Josh Whalen of Napanee, Ont., finished T32 at 11 over par (77-75-73-70).

https://www.facebook.com/AusMotA/videos/1497517936993287/

On the women’s side, Japan’s Yuka Yasuda cruised to a five-stroke victory in the first-ever edition of the women’s competition.

Click here for full scoring.

HONOLULU – Zach Johnson and Chris Kirk each made seven birdies and shared the lead in the Sony Open.

Jordan Spieth made eight birdies and for the second straight year walked away from Waialae Country Club amazed that he could be six shots behind.

A year ago, it was because Justin Thomas shot 59 playing in the same group.

On Thursday, it was one hole.

Spieth hit four trees with four shots on the par-4 eighth hole – his 17th of the opening round – starting with a tough break when his tee shot caromed off the trunk of a tree and down an 8-foot deep ditch that left him no good options. He wound up with a quadruple-bogey 8 and had to settle for a 69.

He signed his card, signed autographs and declined requests to speak to the media.

Canadians Mac Hughes (Dundas, Ont.) and Corey Conners (Listowel, Ont.) opened with even-par rounds to hold shares of 78th place. Fellow countryman Ben Silverman (Thornhill, Ont.) carded a 1-over-par 71.

Johnson and Kirk kept clean cards playing on opposite sides of the draw and closed with different brands of birdies on the par-5 18th hole – Kirk two-putted from about 10 feet, while Johnson found a bunker, laid up and hit a wedge to 5 feet.

They were a shot ahead of Brian Harman, Vaughn Taylor, Kyle Stanley and PGA Tour rookie Talor Gooch.

Mac Hughes of Dundas, Ont., and Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., shot 70’s and Ben Silverman of Thonrhill, Ont., was 1 over 71.

Thomas, who set the PGA Tour scoring record for 72 holes in his wire-to-wire victory, opened with a 67 and was all smiles at the end. Thomas, an Alabama alum, won a bet on the college football championship that required Georgia graduate Kevin Kisner to wear a Crimson Tide jersey on the par-3 17th.

“It’s definitely the best Kis has ever looked in a jersey,” Thomas said.

Kisner kept the jersey and plans to auction it off for charity. He shot 68.

More than half of the field – 77 players – broke par in the mild trade wind and relentless sunshine down the road from Waikiki Beach.

Kirk had only one top 10 last year – his final event of the year in the RSM Classic at Sea Island – and nearly two months off didn’t appear to half any momentum. He might have been rusty, but not when it comes to island life.

Because of the chilly weather in the South, Kirk brought his family out to Oahu a week ago Monday. He practiced a little in the morning at Ko Olina and hung out with his wife and children in the afternoon. He realized how littlegolf he had played during the short off-season when he reached into his bag and found golf balls that he had marked for the final round at Sea Island.

“I’ve probably been off long enough now that you never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I really had no expectations whether I was going to play good or bad after having some time off. But this is a golf course that I’ve traditionally done pretty well on, and a place that I really love. So you always feel like it’s possible.”

He hit wedge to about 3 feet on the 15th and 16th, and that final birdie on the par-5 18th was a two-putt from 10 feet.

Dry weather, a fast course and the trades allowed a rarity for Johnson, who hit wedge into the green on the 480-yard opening hole. That was first of three straight birdies, and he had ample more opportunities, including a shot that hit the pin on No. 10 and settled 3 feet away. He missed that, though the two-time major champion wasn’t too discouraged. He picked up an unlikely birdie on the 13th from the fairway bunker by making a 25-foot putt, and he made a 20-foot birdie on the next hole.

“Just kept the course in front of me and played solid golf,” Johnson said, winless since the 2015 British Open at St. Andrews. “Made a few putts, missed a few putts. But I’m very encouraged with the direction.”

Spieth played well enough to be right there with them except for a pair of long three-putt bogeys – and that one tee shot.

His drive on No. 8 was not terribly offline, and the trees to the left are a common spot. This one hit the trunk of a tree and tumbled down a wide (and dry) ditch about 8 feet below the fairway. He studied his options. He found none.

He could have dropped it with a penalty stroke, but there was nowhere to go. His plan was to hit out of the sandy base of the ditch toward the trees closer to the fairway. If it hit the trees and dropped out, he would have been closer than the drop and at least had an opening to the putting surface.

It hit one of the smaller branches and came back toward him, about a yard short of go back down into the ditch. For his third shot, he had a gap toward the front of the green (the pin was back left), but out of a fluffy lie, the ball came out high and hit more trees, bouncing left and settle near another tree.

Next, he had to go under the tree in front of him and over a tree guarding the green. He only got the first part right.

At this point, he was lying 4 and was only a few yards away from the second tee, waiting for another group to tee off. His only choice there was to dump it into the bunker, where the sand was thin. He hit that out to 30 feet and two putts later had a snowman (8).

Golf Digest released its third biennial edition of the World 100 Greatest Courses on Thursday, which included nine Canadian courses from coast-to-coast. View the full list on their website here.

No. 9

Cabot Cliffs
Inverness, N.S.

No. 20

St. George’s Golf & Country Club
Etobicoke, Ont.

No. 36

National Golf Club of Canada
Woodbridge, Ont.

No. 43

Cabot Links
Inverness, N.S.

No. 51

Capilano Golf & Country Club
West Vancouver, B.C.

No. 60

Hamilton Golf & Country Club
Ancaster, Ont.

No. 87

Highland Links
Ingonish Beach, N.S.

No. 89

Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge Golf Club
Jasper, Alta.

No. 99

Banff Springs Golf Club
Banff, Alta.

GAUTENG, South Africa – Branden Grace and Chase Koepka shot 7-under 65s to share the first-round lead at the SA Open on Thursday.

Koepka, the younger brother of U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, was among the morning starters and set the clubhouse target by hitting an eagle and seven birdies in his third tournament of his debut season on the European Tour.

Grace had three eagles – at Nos. 2, 8 and 15 – as he bids for a ninth European Tour title and to complete the set of wins at his native South Africa’s three most prestigious events. He has already won the Alfred Dunhill Championship in 2014 and the Nedbank Golf Challenge last year, as well as the Joburg Open in 2012.

England’s Chris Paisley was alone in third place after shooting 66.

Canada’s Austin Connelly recorded a 2-under 70 to sit inside the projected cutline in a tie for 31st. Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member Mike Weir notched five birdies against four bogeys and one double-bogey en route to posting a 1-over 73.

Coming off a season filled with milestones, Adam Hadwin believes there is no reason he can’t return to his winning ways early in 2018.

The Canadian golfer will play his second tournament of the year next week at the CareerBuilder Challenge in La Quinta, Calif., an event where he has found a lot of success. He finished runner-up there in 2017 on the heels of his record 13-under-par 59 during the third round, and was sixth in 2016.

“You can’t go to a place where you played well and finished second at the previous year and not think that you have a chance to win the golf tournament, that’s for sure,” Hadwin said from his home in Phoenix.

“My biggest hope is that people don’t expect me to shoot 59 again,” he added with a laugh. “At least now I know when I get going low in rounds I’ve gone really low before and it’s nothing new.”

Hadwin had a career-year in 2016-17, earning more than US$3.4 million, finishing 26th on the FedEx Cup standings and becoming Canada’s top-ranked male golfer. He earned first PGA Tour victory, become just the eighth golfer in history to fire a sub-60 round on Tour and became just the third Canadian to ever play in the Presidents Cup.

The breakout season earned him a spot in all four of golf’s major championships in 2018. As a result, his schedule this year will be built around the majors (a “good problem to have,” he said) and may not include the two-tournament Texas swing in May he has done in the past.

He’s never played the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tenn., but wants to add that event this year, the week before the U.S. Open in June.

The 30-year-old from Abbotsford, B.C., has won on every level of golf from the junior ranks in British Columbia through college and on golf’s developmental tours, and says last year’s breakthrough on the PGA TOUR was a combination of lots of hard work and a getting some breaks.

“Obviously I had been trending in the right direction and it just all came together that week. It was nice to play well under the gun and have things go your way,” he said. “There was a little bit of a monkey-off-your-back but after the last five or six months the monkey is right back on it, to be honest.”

Hadwin said his iron play is the key area he’s hoping to improve as the 2017-2018 PGA Tour season ramps up. He admitted he wasn’t hitting as many greens as he should be last season, but his putting saved him.

“When I’m good, I’m good, and I hit a ton of greens, but it just hasn’t been very consistent the last couple years,” he said. “That’s what we’re after now, just dialling in that consistency in certain situations.

“We’re going to dive into stats a little bit more? whatever the case is and really figure out why I’m not as consistent as I should be.”

Hadwin burst onto the scene in 2011 when he finished tied for fourth at the RBC Canadian Open when it was contested at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club, just over an hour from where he grew up. He explained he never wanted that result to be the defining moment in his career. With a victory now under his belt, he’s looking for more in 2018 and beyond.

“I’m at the point where I don’t want the win to be the defining moment of my career either? I don’t want it to be ‘blah’ after that. I’m always striving for more, always trying to get better, and always looking for win No. 2, then win No. 3 and so on and so on for the rest of my career,” he said.

Last year was a big year off the course as well for Hadwin, who got married, bought his first home, and bought dog – a cava-poo-chon cross breed named Brad.

“My wife chose the name Brad, and I extended it to Bradford,” he said. “She likes human names for dogs, which I’m fine with. He’s turned out to be a total ‘Brad.’ I don’t know why but it fits him so well, with his personality.”