KAPALUA, Hawaii >> Tom Hoge grew up in North Dakota and found the ideal vibe for Kapalua on Thursday, keeping expectations low and riding the momentum of good golf on his way to a 9-under 64 to take a one-shot lead at The Sentry in the PGA Tour season opener.

Hideki Matsuyama tried out a new putter — he saw someone else use it and figured it would work for him — and he had a birdie-eagle-birdie stretch on the back nine that carried him to a 65 and was one back along with beefed-up Will Zalatoris.

That was the theme for the first day of a new PGA Tour season with so much more at stake than previously. Most of the 60-man field is coming off a short winter’s nap with the holidays, looking to shake off some rust on a Plantation course with some of the widest, most generous fairways they will see all year.

Xander Schauffele, the double major winner and highest-ranked player in the field, was among the few who showed up on the weekend at Kapalua. He twice had a fruitless search for his golf ball that led to bogey on the back nine that led to a 72.

Hoge, among the 29 players who made it to Kapalua without winning — the field includes the top 50 in the FedEx Cup last year — and wasn’t sure what to expect.

The weather didn’t allow for much practice in Fort Worth, Texas, where he now lives. Neither did the birth of his first child, a boy named Thomas Bennett, born a few weeks ago.

“I played all the way through Mexico the first week of November, then was just at home,” he said. “We had our first child in early December, so kind of forced time off. I feel like with the changes in the schedule, last year was a lot of golf from now until the Tour Championship. I felt like I was pretty burned out.”

If the game was rusty, his putter was not. He made a 15-foot birdie out of the gate, saved par with a 6-foot putt on the next hole, holed an 18-foot birdie on the third and chipped in from a dicey spot on the fourth hole.

“It just kind of frees you up. And you’re in Maui, just no expectations, just let it go and see what you can do,” he said.

Zalatoris arrived looking a lot bigger. He took two months off after failing to reach the Tour Championship and used that time to build some muscle, which he hopes will give him a little more longevity from back issues that have forced him to miss too much time.

He missed the last four months of 2022, then the rest of 2023 with back surgery when he had to withdraw from the Masters.

“I don’t feel like I’ve even had surgery now,” Zalatoris said. “The ceiling is something that I wanted to keep raising, because I knew that if I was going to be sitting at 160 pounds and trying to hit it 300 yards out here, it’s not a recipe for longevity.”

He left the BMW Championship in August at 163 pounds. He weighed in at 182 pounds when he got on a plane to Maui.

The first day of the new season wasn’t bad. Zalatoris played bogey-free, though a three-putt on the par-5 fifth — the easiest hole on the Plantation — felt like a bogey.

Collin Morikawa, Cameron Young and Corey Conners were at 66, while Tony Finau was in the group at 67 in his first tournament in four months because of surgery on his left knee.

The new season starts without Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world who punctured his hand on broken glass preparing Christmas dinner.