This wasn’t quite a tradition unlike any other, but Charles Howell III rarely got through the early part of the year on the PGA Tour without being asked about the Masters. He grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and no other tournament meant more to him.
Now the big change is the calendar and the scenery. Plus, there’s no guarantee anyone at the Hong Kong Open this week will even ask Howell about what’s at stake.
Winning the Hong Kong Open comes with an invitation to the Masters (and The Open). Howell is part of a field with a heavy influx of LIV Golf players, particularly those who are not already secure for Augusta National or Royal Birkdale.
What stands out about Howell is he has not played anywhere but LIV Golf since he joined the Saudi-funded league in July 2022 after playing the John Deere Classic, the last of his 607 starts on the PGA Tour as a professional.
Two other chances remain for LIV players after this week, the Australian Open the first week of December and the South African Open the last week in February.
The Hong Kong Open has 33 players who competed on LIV this year, 29 of them the entire season. The field includes everyone from Talor Gooch and Paul Casey to Graeme McDowell and Harold Varner III. Gooch has not played outside of LIV Golf in three years.
Patrick Reed and Charl Schwartzel are the only players already in the field for the Masters as past champions.
The Spanish Open and Japan Open in recent weeks were the first of the six national opens Augusta National identified for awarding spots. There might be another reason Howell chose Hong Kong to play.
After some two decades of mainly playing at home, Howell took his wife and two children on a five-week tour of Asia. He played PGA Tour events in South Korea, Japan and Shanghai and explored Hong Kong and Thailand.
Howell once recalled being in Hong Kong as 20,000 people involved in pro-democracy protests were in the streets. The trip ended with his kids seeing elephants in Thailand. He called that a “once-in-a-lifetime” trip to for his family.