HONOLULU — From a golf course on the side of a mountain to one along the shores near Waikiki Beach, the 21 players at both PGA Tour stops in Hawaii will never see two tracks more different in consecutive weeks.

Walking is much more enjoyable at the Sony Open, where the only elevation is walking up a few steps to the tee box.

Keeping it in play? That will require a little more skill.

“Fairways are narrow. It’s a lot shorter. It’s an easy walk; not going to be as tired at the end of every day,” Justin Thomas said Wednesday as he outlined the difference at Waialae Country Club compared with last week at Kapalua. “Just a lot of 2-irons and more positioning.”

And if history is an indication, there will be as many birdies.

Fabian Gomez of Argentina last year ran off seven straight birdies in the middle of the final round and had 11 birdies in 20 holes to beat Brandt Snedeker in a playoff. The year before, Jimmy Walker shot 62-63 on the weekend for a nine-shot victory.

So while fairways are tight, winding and lined with palms, the small and relatively flat greens lead to opportunities.

The Sony Open is the first full-field event of the year on the PGA Tour. It’s the ninth event of a season that began in October, even though it feels like a fresh start for those who didn’t qualify for the winners-only event last week on Maui.

Thomas will try to become the first player since Ernie Els to sweep Hawaii, and he’s riding lots of confidence. He’ll be joined on the first two days with two other 23-year-old players, Jordan Spieth and Daniel Berger.

Spieth is playing the Sony Open for only the second time. He missed the cut in 2014, stayed home in 2015 when he wasn’t eligible for Kapalua, and didn’t play last year because he went on a global tour of Singapore and Abu Dhabi. It’s a course he believes should fit him.

“You have to have smaller misses,” he said. “I think that plays into our favor. We like to think our way around the golf course a lot and miss it in the right location. Kapalua, it didn’t really matter. There are a few holes that are tight. But for the most part, massive fairways, massive greens, and the way it played this year, was just kind of target practice with it being softer.

“I’m excited about this being a bit more of a challenge on approach shots.”

CHAMPIONS: Bernhard Langer received the Jack Nicklaus Award as the player of the year for the third straight season and record sixth time.

Langer, a 59-year-old German, won four times last season, including two major championships, and took his record fourth Charles Schwab Cup season points title. He was selected player of the year in voting by fellow players, edging Colin Montgomerie, Scott McCarron, Woody Austin and Paul Goydos.

Langer also won the Arnold Palmer Award as the tour’s leading money winner for a record eighth time, finishing with $3,016,959, and took the Byron Nelson Award for the record-tying fifth time with a scoring average of 68.31.

RYDER CUP: Jim Furyk was appointed as the U.S. captain for the 2018 event in France, where his team will try to win in Europe for the first time in 25 years.

Furyk was a unanimous choice by the Ryder Cup committee last month.