Spieth opens year with 8-shot victory

Spieth is also on track to beat the tournament record of 31-under set by Ernie Els in 2003, though he said the South African’s mark was probably safe.

Rounding out the top five was Rickie Fowler, who is looking to build off his successful 2015 season where he won three times around the world, including the Players Championship.

He told reporters: “I’ll try and continue exactly what we were doing a year ago”.

Spieth carded a final round six-under-par 67 to finish on 30-under, becoming only the second golfer in PGA Tour history to finish a 72-hole event at 30-under or lower.

An unstoppable Jordan Spieth put on a dominant display in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii to win by eight shots from fellow American Patrick Reed.

During this time, a growing number of 19th-hole conversations will inevitably include comparisons between Spieth and Tiger Woods.

Do you think it’s right to compare Jordan Spieth to Tiger Woods after his blistering start to 2016? It’s awfully early. We’re excited about where we’re at to start our career.

Having backed Spieth and Patrick Reed after the first round, I never really had anything to worry about in Hawaii, so it’s been a great start to the year but not backing Reed in the Without Spieth market yesterday at around 6/4 turned out to be a mistake.

Reed, the defending champion at Kapalua, got within three shots with a birdie on the par-five ninth.

He leads Brooks Koepka by five shots, but it was Koepka who enjoyed the best round of the tournament so far, hitting 10 birdies, including six in a row through holes three to eight, in a flawless 63.

“What he’s done for the game of golf is phenomenal and personally I don’t think I deserve the comparison”.

Everyone else was playing for points – FedEx Cup, world ranking, Ryder Cup.

Just over a year ago when Spieth won the Hero World Challenge at Isleworth, he had a seven-shot lead going into the last round and a goal of reaching 20 under for the first time in his career.

Posting his second straight bogey-free round, Spieth plundered the par-fives, playing them in a total of five-under, and on the few occasions he was in danger of dropping a shot his flawless cross-handed putting came to the rescue. I don’t do it to talk back to any the players or people that believe that it’s not possible, that I got a lucky year or something. He finished first in putts per green in regulation and first in birdies and eagles.

The next questions is how good he can get.

Spieth will take off two weeks before heading over to the United Arab Emirates to compete in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, the true start to the 2016 European Tour schedule, before resuming his PGA Tour schedule at Pebble Beach and Riviera.

Much like Woods in 2000 and David Duval in 1999, by winning Kapalua, Spieth sent an early message that he wasn’t interested in seeing this wave end.