LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – It’s billed as the biggest party on tour. And the fatheads that line the 18th tee box, where the feel-good tunes are blasting, deliver on that promise.
But as Diamond Resorts CEO Mike Flaskey will tell you, this is no “slap-and-giggle” affair. Yes, John Smoltz will stop and sign an autograph even after a three-putt, but he came to win. Again.
The MLB Hall of Famer made it look easy on the celebrity side by wrapping up a successful title defense with one hole to play in the Stableford format with 150 points. On the LPGA side, it looked like another Hall of Famer, Inbee Park, might collect her 20th LPGA title until she splashed one on the third playoff hole. Instead it was Nasa Hataoka and Gaby Lopez who moved on to play five extra holes under the lights at the 197-yard par-3 18th in the season-opening Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions.
Alas, darkness won.
The two players will return on Monday at 8 a.m. ET to complete the tournament. It’s the longest playoff since the 2018 ANA Inspiration, when Pernilla Lindberg defeated Inbee Park in eight extra holes.
Flaskey said they had 141 applications on the celebrity side that they couldn’t accept. A committee had to be formed so that Flaskey wasn’t the one saying no. While it has quickly become a popular draw, Flaskey said many of the celebrities that live in his Isleworth neighborhood in Orlando, Florida, would love to play alongside the LPGA, but the format is too much to handle.
This isn’t a team event like the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Celebrities play on their own in a Stableford format in their own division for a $500,000 purse. Flaskey said it takes a special type of celebrity to put themselves under the gun on network TV. There are nightly concerts and cocktails, but Flaskey wanted to fill his tournament field with ballers. The elite field of LPGA winners and all-star athletes and artists makes the LPGA’s TOC a truly unique event.
The hope was that likes of Justin Verlander and Josh Donaldson, who reportedly signed a $92 million contract with the Twins last week, would remind folks that golf can be cool.
“At the end of the day, when you don’t have a Tiger (Woods),” said Flaskey, “you’d better figure out something different in golf because the same old, same old is just not exciting the younger generation.”
Angela Stanford, a first-timer at the tour’s revamped TOC, felt like she was living in a “dream world.” During Saturday’s round, all she could think about was how cool it would be to throw a football to Larry Fitzgerald. Stanford is a baseball superfan, having been to every MLB ballpark in the U.S. The most nervous she got playing alongside the likes of Smoltz and Josh Beckett was tossing the ball to her caddie to get it cleaned. And then catching it when he threw it back.
“I did tell Ray (Allen) that I made 90 free throws in a row in high school,” said Stanford. “I was hoping to impress him.”
Stanford, one of the few over-40 players on the LPGA, asked several athletes for tips on nutrition late in their careers. Allen talked about the importance of eating the same foods on the road as she does at home.
“I didn’t want to tell him that I pack my Diet Dr. Pepper, that’s not really athletic,” she said, flashing air quotes.
The Arizona Cardinals’ Fitzgerald said he has long admired Park and enjoyed “the clinic” she put on for him in the second round. Park, a seven-time major winner and Olympic champion, couldn’t keep that momentum going through Sunday, however, and let an opportunity slip that would’ve taken her one step closer to her ultimate goal for 2020 – a return to the Olympics.
Park’s caddie, Brad Beecher estimates that she went through a dozen putters last season trying to find the answer. Late last year she put a newer model of the Odyssey Sabertooth back in the bag, the same putter she used to win three consecutive majors in 2013.
Should Park regain that putting prowess, she won’t be denied in getting to Tokyo.
“Yeah this is only my first event back for 2020,” said Park, “and I have already played good golf this week. Just not great today.”
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