McIlroy, Rose among PGA Tour winners skipping 2016 opener

The PGA Tour resumes its 2015-16 season on Thursday in Hawaii with the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. The only way to qualify for the ’16 opener is to win a PGA Tour-sanctioned event since the last time the event was played in January 2015.

Defending champion Patrick Reed is back at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course — the only par-73 course on the PGA Tour — but a number of familiar faces didn’t make the trip.

Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Jim Furyk and Shane Lowry are the four winners eligible to play but chose to take the coming week off.

McIlroy won the WGC-Cadillac Match Play and Wells Fargo Championship, while Rose won in New Orleans, Furyk took the RBC Heritage and the Irishman Lowry won the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational for the biggest win of his career to date.

Curiously, there may well be fewer European-born players in next year’s Akron event, as it will conflict with the 100th French Open. The European Tour chose not to co-sanction the conflicting World Golf Championships event and offer bonus Ryder Cup points for players who make the trek to Paris for the French Open.

As for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, after four years going from Friday to Monday so the event’s conclusion would line up with the kick time for college football’s national title game, it’s back to a standard Thursday-Sunday docket.

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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