Rory Sabbatini will take four more days of vacation in the Islands before he leaves, giving him a month-long Hawaiian holiday.

"What better place to start the year off than in Maui and Sony?" he said. "I enjoy being here. I think this golf course at Waialae is probably one of the consummate classic golf courses, and I think it's a very fair golf course, but at the same time it's an extremely tough golf course. So it takes a lot of concentration, a lot of discipline out here and it definitely shows why K.J. (Choi, the Sony champion) is doing so well here."

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR HAWAI'I'S FUJIKAWA

Sony champions K.J. Choi and Jerry Kelly both sought out Hawai'i 17-year-old Tadd Fujikawa to offer words of encouragement earlier in the week.

Fujikawa's next scheduled start is Feb. 7 at the $6 million AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. The tournament prevents him from defending his Hawai'i Pearl Open championship.

SHORT PUTTS

K.J. Choi is only the third outright wire-to-wire winner here, after Howard Twitty (1993) and Paul Azinger (2000). Waialae began hosting the tour in 1965.

Jerry Kelly has five top-10 finishes in 11 appearances at Waialae. He has broken par in 22 of his last 25 rounds.

Steve Stricker, second last week at Kapalua, tied for fourth. It is his fourth top-5 finish in six starts. He has gone from 10th in the world to third in that span. Stricker had three top-10 finishes from 2002 to 2005, and 18 since.

Doug LaBelle II qualified for the Sony on Monday and ended up 10th. LaBelle was fourth here last year. Qualifiers Spencer Levin and Mitsuhiro Tateyama also cashed checks.