The 51-year-old Brazilian got his start in golf as a caddie after meeting a man buying tobacco.
FRISCO, Texas – Adilson da Silva had never been to the United States.
The statement seems logical for most people but for a man that has played professional golf since 1994, it’s mind boggling that he has never teed it up in the U.S., let alone set foot in the country. It’s even more puzzling that a player in his position would be in the running for a major title, but nonetheless, da Silva is making the most of his inaugural trip.
The 51-year-old Brazilian got his start in golf as a caddie after meeting a man buying tobacco in his hometown. The chance meeting would be the start of a decades-long career spanning more than six continents.
He showed promise as a player by winning the 1990 and 1991 Brazilian Amateur Open Championship. With those wins under his belt, de Silva took a leap of faith thanks to a friend that helped him settle his life in Zimbabwe.
“I met a gentleman called Andy Edmondson and became good friends,” da Silva told reporters following his second round Friday at PGA Frisco. “And after a year or two he invited me to go to Zimbabwe and that’s when golf started. So I was really fortunate to get a break. Brazil those days golf was a very closed society. My parents weren’t able to afford it. So I was really fortunate to start the golf.”
The opportunity to play golf professionally was something he simply could not pass up. Not knowing a single word in English, da Silva learned the language over the course of a couple of years before moving from Zimbabwe to South Africa to begin his life as a touring golf pro.
Once established in South Africa, de Silva began playing on the Sunshine Tour full time on the in 1995 where he racked up 12 wins from 1997 to 2012. In 2018, he ended a six year winless drought, taking home the Mercuries Taiwan Masters by one stroke.
With his best years seemingly behind him and two young children to raise, da Silva came close to calling it a career during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My wife and I, we sat down and we had to almost like make a fresh lens somewhere,” da Silva told Golfweek. “And then we just decided to give it a go at the seniors in Europe and just see how they go. Obviously, I got the invite at my first event at the Legends Tour and finished third and got an exemption into the next event and so I just sort of started getting momentum there.”
His big break came in 2022 at the PGA Seniors Championship.
“I won one at the PGA in Formby and then that gave me the exemption to play all the other ones (tournaments) so that was a big deal for me. So now I can stay on the tour and do what I love doing.”
The win reignited da Silva’s career. He finished second in the 2022 Order of Merit, allowing him to come to earn exemptions into the 2023 Senior PGA Championship and 2023 U.S. Senior Open. Before landing in Dallas this past Sunday, da Silva won his second Legends Tour event, this time in Austria.
Coming into the event in winning form, da Silva’s American welcoming is going about as well as one can expect given the travel and demands that Fields Ranch requires.
“This is top notch,” da Silva said to Golfweek. “It’s (Fields Ranch) is a beautiful golf course but it can also be a monster.”
So far, the East Course has been tamed by the Brazilian. Through two rounds da Silva is 6 under and tied for fifth.
He’s joined by a who’s who of the PGA Tour Champions, all trying to chase down Padraig Harrington.
The three-time major winner has yet to make a bogey all week, using his length to pick apart the new home of the PGA of America. Following an opening round eight under 64 with another bogey-free round of 68, Harrington is clear of the field by three strokes as the championship hits the halfway point.
“You want to be a little bit freer and take a few more chances. But sometimes when you’re leading you just get a little bit cautious,” he said. “That’s why, I suppose it happens all the time in golf, it’s very, very difficult for a leader to move away from the field. It’s easy for the field to chase him down. Because there’s a bit of freedom. They have nothing to lose. So obviously I have another 36 holes of that coming up, so it’s going to be a long weekend for me.”
Katsumasa Miyamoto (9 under), Stewart Cink (8 under) and Steve Stricker (7 under) are within striking range of Harrington while Darren Clarke, Y.E. Yang, Alex Cejka are tied with da Silva at 6 under.
For da Silva, the taste of American golf is something he will definitely be back for.
“I had a chance to come and I never did and it was a big mistake. So, but I may come back to the Tour school at the end of the year for the PGA Tour Champions.”
Padraig Harrington carded a bogey-free 8-under 64 to pace the field.
FRISCO, Texas — The PGA of America welcomed the golf world into its new home as Fields Ranch East Course at PGA Frisco plays host to the 83rd KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship.
While the state-of-the-art office space that serves as the new home of the PGA of America has been occupied since 2022, the Senior PGA serves as the christening of the Fields Ranch East course, a Gil Hanse design that has impressed plenty of pros as they have tried to meander their way through his strategic bunkering and subtle but taxing green complexes.
While Fields Ranch isn’t an easy test, two aces were recorded in the first-ever tournament round at the course.
Yet another PGA Professional made history in Thursday’s opening round as Dave McNabb lays claim to the first hole-in-one at Fields Ranch. Similar to Michael Block’s iconic shot at Oak Hill, McNabb never saw it go in the hole.
“I saw one bounce and I sort of picked my tee up,” McNabb told pool reporters. “My caddie, Donny (Wessner), says, ‘It went in!’ Good stuff.”
While McNabb’s ace on the 165-yard 8th will forever be known as the first in course history, former Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin made an ace of his own on No. 4.
Out of his 15 career aces, the one at Fields Ranch ranks up there with the 1 he had at No. 16 in the 1992 Masters. Coincidentally, Pavin’s playing partner, Kenny Perry, was witness to both.
“Kenny is my good luck charm apparently,” Pavin chuckled.
Aside from the two aces, plenty of red numbers dot the leaderboard.
As a second shot golf course, Fields Ranch plays into the hands of ball strikers. As one of the best ball strikers on the PGA Tour Champions, Padraig Harrington carded a bogey-free 8-under 64 to pace the field.
A key part to scoring at Fields Ranch? The wind.
“Because every hole nearly has a hazard down one side of it, the wind direct has a big effect on this course, it really, really does,” Harrington said.
“In some ways the reason it was an easy 64 is because when you’re playing with somebody like Rocco there’s always a bit of chat and there’s always a bit of fun going on, so you’re quite relaxed. And that really does make a difference to how you feel about your shots and things like that. So it’s something as professionals we always need to keep reminding ourselves.”
Rocco Mediate shared the same sentiment.
“Going around here in the pro-am you’re not seeing low, you don’t see ’em because then — but then when the things change, the golf course is perfect. Wind wasn’t that bad today. I don’t think it’s going to be that bad. You give these guys some different irons into some of these greens they’re going to tear the grass off it. That’s how it’s always been.”
With wind typically a factor this time of year in North Texas, Fields Ranch offers a fair test whether the wind is ripping or not. Luckily for the players this week, the winds should stay at or around 10 miles per hour for the rest of the tournament.
With the wind remaining calm, we’ll get a preview of just how low players can go at the home of the PGA of America. With 25 more championships scheduled through 2034, it will be interesting to see the pace set this week.
Fields Ranch has allowed players to take advantage of well executed shots but has also gotten the better of players who weren’t committed to every single shot. PGA Professional, Bob Sowards, was one of a handful of players thrown off of his game plan.
“Oh, it was very frustrating,” Sowards told reporters following his first round 1-under 71.
Three under at the turn, Sowards lost all progress with a double bogey-bogey start on the back nine.
“I got pretty angry out there. I told KB, I got to be the dumbest guy on this whole property. Because if you’re going to make a game plan you might as well follow it. I chose not to and paid the price. So, oh, well. At least I still shot under par and gives me a chance going forward.”
Through round one, over 30 players are in red figures with over a dozen more at even par. Ideal weather and fast and firm playing conditions could result in one of the lowest scoring senior majors in recent history.
Defending champion Steven Alker shot a 2-under 70 and is tied for 18th after 18 holes.
“I still feel like there’s more to do and I can continue to play and play at a higher level,” said Stricker.
Steve Stricker is taking over the PGA Tour Champions.
The 55-year-old won his 12th Champions tour title – his fifth win in his last 11 starts – on Saturday after he eased his way to a six-shot win at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai. Stricker finished at 23 under to beat out Steven Alker, Mike Weir, Ken Tanigawa and Darren Clarke, who all finished T-2 at 17 under.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Stricker. “To win here, I didn’t know what kind of game I had coming into this week, but it was pretty good.”
Stricker began the final round with a two-shot lead and proceeded to make three birdies in his opening four holes. Two more birdies on Nos. 10 and 13 as well as an eagle on the par-5 14th led Stricker to his 12th win in just over five seasons on the senior circuit.
Stricker shot a 12-under 60 during Friday’s second round to become the just second player shoot 60 or better on both the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions, joining Paul Goydos. Stricker shot an opening-round 60 at the 2010 John Deere Classic, the same day Goydos signed for a 59. Goydos shot 60 in the second round of the 2017 3M Championship on the Champions tour.
Also a 12-time winner on the PGA Tour, Stricker has now won a quarter of his starts on the PGA Tour Champions.
“You know, I saw that stat somewhere along the way. I feel lucky and blessed to be able to be doing this still, especially where I came from a year ago,” said Stricker, referencing a nasty illness that saw him lose nearly 30 pounds. “It’s still a lot of fun. I still put in the time, I put in the effort. I’ve got a great support system in my wife and kids love to see me play, and Mario helps when he’s not playing. You know, everybody that’s with me is so supportive; my family, my parents I should say and my in-laws. It still keeps going, I still feel like there’s more to do and I can continue to play and play at a higher level. So it’s exciting for me still to come out here and play.”
Stricker plans to “play a pretty full schedule” this season and wants to continue to play a few PGA Tour events as well, such as the John Deere Classic, where he’s a three-time winner.
The Champions tour is back in action Feb. 9-11 with the Trophy Hassan II in Morocco and returns to the states the following week with the Chubb Classic, Feb. 17-19, at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida.
Maltbie said his age and a past spat with Greg Norman may keep him from getting a call from LIV Golf.
“Welcome to the graveyard of old fired golf announcers.”
That was the playful introduction for Roger Maltbie earlier this week when the former PGA Tour player and NBC on-course reporter joined Gary McCord and Drew Stoltz on their SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show.
Golfweek was first to report last week that Maltbie and Gary Koch won’t be returning to NBC in 2023 after the network told the pair of longtime broadcasters it wanted to “refresh” the team for the future.
Maltbie was originally told 2021 would be his last year before Jim “Bones” Mackay left his on-air role with the network to caddie for Justin Thomas. He returned as an on-course reporter for 2022 but wasn’t renewed for 2023. A five-time winner on the PGA Tour, Maltbie, 71, had been covering golf for NBC Sports since 1992.
“Does it hurt when you hear the words? Sure. ‘You’re not in our plans.’ Thirty-one years I spent with NBC. ‘You’re no longer in our plans and you’re not part of our future. We need to go young,’ which is a nice way of saying you’re old, and I understand all that,” said Maltbie. “But you know, there’s hurt feelings and there’s also a lot of gratitude. They were great to me for 31 years. I don’t have a complaint.
"There's hurt feelings and there's also a lot of gratitude."
The golf world is still reacting to the news that Roger Maltbie's time with NBC Sports is ending. Maltbie himself reacts with Gary & Drew on McCord & Stoltz. Hear the full interview on the SXM App.@thesleezymanpic.twitter.com/BPQd78kdMi
“I absolutely love the guys I worked with. I will miss watching the greatest players in the world play great,” he continued. “My role was to walk with the final group on Sunday, so I was watching the best players in the world playing their best and I still get a kick out of it to this day, even though I can’t do it anymore. I sure like watching it and I’ll miss all that. I will.”
If anyone knows how Maltbie and Koch feel, it’s McCord. In Oct. 2019, he and Peter Kostis, two longtime members of the CBS golf team, were not renewed for 2020. Both were told by the network that things were getting “stale.”
“I would have liked to have kept going but it’s a funny thing, the phases your career goes through over the course of 31 years,” Maltbie explained. “When I first started, hell, I knew every player, I was a player still. I was one of them and I was doing TV. I knew the names of their wives and the names of your kids and competed with and against them. There was a real familiarity. Then you go through a period where they know who you are and they know you played and so on and so forth, and then you meet a new bunch of young kids and you go on and then the later years, most of those kids don’t even know I played golf for a living, really to be honest with you. There’s a timespan to everything.”
Maltbie said he’s mulling over calling some PGA Tour Champions events for the network, noting how he’ll miss the adrenaline rush that comes with live TV. But what about a hypothetical chance with LIV Golf?
“I guess at this age, at 71, you never say never, but that would shock me beyond belief,” said Maltbie. “Greg Norman and I had sort of a spat you might call it years back, and I doubt that I would get a call from LIV, let’s put it that way.”
The international travel and 14-event schedule would be something to consider for Maltbie if the call did come, and he’d have “no compunction about going to work for somebody that’s willing to pay you a salary.”
“This LIV thing, it’s kind of crazy. There’s so much hypocrisy involved in it,” Maltbie said. “I don’t begrudge any player that accepted that money or decided to do that. That’s still a decision that is 1,000 percent their right. I don’t like the idea that they think they could do that and play the PGA Tour. I don’t follow that, but I’m not upset with it.”
“There are people that have this moral outrage about accepting money from the Saudi Investment Fund and it’s like, really? All the business that our government does with Saudi Arabia, and the largest corporations in America, so many of them do some business with the Saudis. Why all of a sudden are golfers the moral compass of the world? I don’t understand that. So I have no problem with those guys taking that money.”
With Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as its sole funder, LIV Golf has long been criticized as a way for the Kingdom to sportswash its human rights record. Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Not to mention members of the royal family and Saudi government were accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.
It’s still to be determined when and where golf fans will see Maltbie in the future. Whether its on a Champions tour or LIV broadcast – maybe he’ll pull a McCord and help with The Match? – the longtime voice will surely be missed by many.
Averee Dovsek sat down with Justin Leonard on Instagram to chat with him about golf fitness, The Presidents Cup and the Champions Tour.
“When I stepped away from the game back in 2015 and 2016 and kind of stopped playing full time, I got away from golf specific training,” said Justin Leonard.
“Just in the last year or so I have gotten back into much more specific golf training. The swing trainer cuts my time in half because I am able to do such specific workouts. I can get right to it, work on my core, stability and rotational movements,” said Leonard.
Golfweek’s Averee Dovsek sat down with Justin Leonard on Instagram live to chat with him about his golf fitness, The Presidents Cup and his plans on the Champions Tour.
Watch the interview on Golfweek’s Instagram below.
The GolfForever Swing Trainer is one of the most universal products on the market. There are so many different ways to use the 44.5 inch training bar and attachments to improve mobility, balance and strength for the golf swing.
GolfForever Swing Trainer. (GolfForever)
Justin Leonard is a brand ambassador and contributor for the GolfForever trainer.
“The Ascension Charity Classic PGA Tour Champions event is a new highlight for me,” said O’Neal.
Tim O’Neal is set to make a little history in Missouri.
After turning 50 earlier this month, O’Neal has received the first-ever exemption for an APGA Tour player into a PGA Tour Champions event at the Ascension Charity Classic presented by Emerson, September 9-11 at Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis.
Along with O’Neal, the field includes the likes of defending champion David Toms, Bernhard Langer, Justin Leonard, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Jerry Kelly, and John Daly.
“The Ascension Charity Classic PGA Tour Champions event is a new highlight for me and I am super appreciative of the opportunity,” said O’Neal. “I love the challenge of teeing it up against some of the biggest names and best players in golf and I’m excited to play a role in raising money for the St. Louis-area charities involved.”
“We’re thrilled to have Tim join this elite field,” added Nick Ragone, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Ascension. “By bringing the PGA Tour Champions and APGA Tour in closer alignment, we hope that other PGA Tour properties will do likewise as we help make the game more diverse and inclusive.”
O’Neal has played a handful of PGA Tour events and has made numerous Korn Ferry Tour starts in his professional career, but his biggest achievements have come on the APGA Tour, which aims to bring greater diversity to the game of golf by providing opportunities to minorities and underrepresented players.
The Savannah, Georgia, native has won nine times on the APGA Tour, played in the tour’s first event in 2010, and is the only Black player to have won both the Georgia Amateur and Georgia State Open. O’Neal received the Charles Sifford Memorial Exemption at the PGA Tour’s Genesis Open in 2019 and earned an exemption into the 2021 Rocket Mortgage Classic after he won the John Shippen National Invitational.
Ascension and the APGA Tour announced back in February a three-year agreement to host the APGA Tour St. Louis – Ascension Classic presented by Daugherty Business Solutions, which will debut September 8-9 at Glen Echo Country Club in North St. Louis County. The event will be the first tournament on the APGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Fall Series.
Champions Tour star Jerry Kelly supports wife’s cancer battle.
Jerry Kelly looked at his fist, often used for comparison to the size of a healthy kidney.
Kelly looked at his fist again, nearly the size of his wife’s tumor.
It has been more than eight months since Carol Kelly had her cancerous right kidney removed. But a glance at his hand reminded 10-time PGA Tour Champions winner Kelly how close he came to losing his beloved partner of 28 years.
And in a sense, Carol has been lucky.
Two doctors dismissed the blood in her urine as a normal urinary tract infection. When she doubled over in pain and went to the emergency room, Kelly said they were fortunate it was a hospital, not an urgent care center. Kidney stones were suspected; a CAT scan was ordered. Kelly said they knew it was bad news because of the interminable wait.
The tumor was four centimeters by six centimeters, he said.
“There’s no way her fist is bigger than four centimeters by six centimeters,” Kelly said Saturday at Firestone Country Club. “And it was contained. Pretty amazing.”
Since her diagnosis, the Kellys take amazing any way they can get it. As they stepped out of the car Sunday for the final round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship, Carol gave Jerry the words to win by.
He used her motivation to capture his second Senior Players title in three years, his final round 68 and 269 total two strokes better than defending champion and close friend Steve Stricker. The victory earned Kelly $450,000 and a trip to the 2023 Players Championship, one of the PGA Tour’s signature events.
“She said, ‘It doesn’t matter what happens, I want to see the attitude up the entire time,’” Kelly said Sunday after the trophy ceremony. “The lid was on the hole for a long time and I was rolling my eyes. But I was doing it with a smile on my face like I used to a little bit more. That was keeping me in a positive frame of mind knowing that it would come to me because of that. That was all her with that attitude.”
With Carol diagnosed with cancer for the second time — the first was melanoma when she was pregnant with son Cooper in 1998 — Kelly is cherishing the fact that Carol has been traveling with him since November.
“Just the fact that she’s here this week … It may not be our normal restaurant-laden place or the hotel that is our favorite on tour, but the golf course is that special,” Kelly said. “She’s like, ‘You know what, I want to be there for you, I love that golf course, it’s really cool just to be out there.’ I mean, this is a different world once you step inside these gates. I love it that she can appreciate that and that she wanted to come here.”
She nearly didn’t make it. Carol, 57, is undergoing immunotherapy treatments of Keytruda every three weeks, flying from their home in Madison, Wisconsin, to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, where they have another house.
Jerry Kelly gets a closer look at the green on the 16th hole during fourth round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club on Sunday. (Photo by Jeff Lange/Akron Beacon Journal)
There are side effects. Carol said sometimes she feels run down for a couple days after treatment, a couple times it’s stayed with her until she was about to return to Phoenix.
“I was kind of dragging coming into this week and I was going to pass, just to try to recover again. He kind of gave me the sad eyes, so I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll go,’” Carol said Sunday morning. “This tournament, I love to walk this golf course.”
The bear hug Kelly gave her after he left the 18th green showed how glad he was that they shared the victory together.
“She’s been troopering it out,” he said.
With their positive attitude, luck has shined on Carol Kelly more than once of late.
Initially she was told she was not a good candidate for immunotherapy, which she called “the future of cancer treatment.” Eventually that was approved due to what she called a “reclassification.”
The every-three-week routine began in January, and Kelly has only missed one treatment, that when he had early-week commitments at his hometown tournament, the American Family Insurance Championship in Madison on June 10-12.
“I’m only going to miss one more, she’s got to have it done when I go to the British Senior,” Kelly said of the Senior Open Championship at Gleneagles July 21-24. “So I’ll miss two out of that year of treatment and I’m not happy about missing two of them.”
After capturing his second senior major, Kelly isn’t considering skipping the trip overseas.
“She would want me to go do my job. She knows how important the Senior Open Championship is to me, I love going over there,” Kelly said. “I’d love to have her with me, but she had to do it on those dates and we didn’t want to mess with that.”
Jerry Kelly celebrates after winning the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club on Sunday. (Photo by Jeff Lange/Akron Beacon Journal)
Carol knows how much accompanying her to treatment means to her husband, and said his devotion is not out of character for him.
“There’s been one time he wasn’t able to be there, and I took a picture of his empty chair. I know he’s there with me in thought,” she said. “That’s who Jerry really is. I don’t think he lets people see that side of him very often. He gives me a lot of strength.”
She just went through her six-month scans and said, “I’m on a really good track. Things are looking real good right now.”
Kelly and Stricker families support each other during health crises
The Kelly and Stricker families are close as both live in Madison. Recovering from his own serious health crisis, Steve Stricker was glad to hear about Carol’s recent scans.
“She’s gotten some good news of late, so things are looking better. But still, with that you just cross your fingers with cancer, right?” Stricker said Sunday. “You just don’t know when it’s going to come back, you hope and pray that it won’t.
“To see her out here and them having a good time with each other, it kind of puts things in perspective really quickly. We’re out there battling for a golf tournament, but it’s not really what they were going through in life.”
It’s possible the kidney cancer was linked to her melanoma, but the Kellys will never know.
“They’ve just looked at everything and nothing makes sense. I’m just one of the unlucky ones,” Carol said. “But I’m lucky, too. It was not looking good originally. It sounds corny, but just to be alive it feels pretty good because I wasn’t feeling that way early on that I was going to be around.”
Kelly remembered when Carol was pregnant and said it took some coaxing for her to address the melanoma.
“We made her go and get it out because if Coop would have been born, she never would have given a thought about herself,” Kelly said. “It would have been all him and she never would have got it checked and she wouldn’t be here already.
“There’s incredible positives.”
Golfer Jerry Kelly marvels at the advancements in cancer treatment
Kelly marvels at the immunotherapy “targeting system” that is helping her body attack renal cell carcinoma.
“The way I was described it, cancer cells hide from the body, so we don’t kill it. Certain immunotherapies plant a cancer flag for that type of cancer,” Kelly said Saturday. “So the body comes over and says, ‘That’s a cancer cell, I’m going to kill it.’
“Gene therapy, you find different gene mutations are susceptible to certain cancers. It’s amazing what they’re doing through the drugs, through the genes, the human genome, breaking that trail. It’s growing leaps and bounds.”
Carol has been back walking with her husband since the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Phoenix on November 11-14. Not that far removed from late October surgery, she could only last nine holes.
“I think it’s good for her to keep the blood going and keep that medicine actually circulating through her blood. It just wears her out,” Kelly said.
“I think I’ve been doing really well as far as bouncing back,” Carol said. “My energy is not great. But I know I can walk 18 holes, so I’m going to try it. I pay for it sometimes; it just depends on the day.
“Fresh air is good.”
Jerry Kelly poses after winning the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club on Sunday. (Photo by Jeff Lange/Akron Beacon Journal)
Jerry Kelly credits his wife, Carol, for motivating him to two victories in 2022
Kelly, 55, said Carol’s presence provided huge motivation as he won the Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 5.
“It’s the whole reason I won at Des Moines,” he said Saturday. “That just brings life into perspective so golf can be a little easier, and it really has been easier. Eased up on myself just because we’re having so much fun when we come out that we’ve got to realize that’s what life’s about.
“The work can obviously pile on you, especially in this sport, in any job I would say. We’re hard on ourselves out here, but to have a partner like Carol, we’re just loving it.”
He felt the same way Sunday.
“You know I get frustrated pretty much more than just about anybody. When you guys used to say Tiger [Woods] hates making bogeys more than anybody, I beg to differ. He just never made them,” Kelly said of the 18-time major winner and eight-time champion at Firestone. “But, yeah, perspective is a beautiful thing if you can get it.”
Kelly had no doubt Carol would eventually rejoin him.
“I knew she’d always come back out,” he said Saturday. “She’s always been there and she’s there. All I can do is be there for her, be strong for her, and hopefully play good golf for her. We just do it together, we always have.”
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.
Rocco Mediate listens to wife’s advice to succeed in Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club.
Rocco Mediate is in search of the perfect swing on each shot.
Every golfer is.
Mediate has had his share through the years on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour, but in recent years he has experienced what he calls “physical failures in the golf swing.”
Recent conversations with his wife have helped Mediate, 59, overcome a few shortcomings and increase his confidence.
“I’m getting a little better,” Mediate said Thursday after carding a 2-under-par 68 in the first round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship on the South Course at Firestone Country Club.
“I had some issues, I call them physical failures in the golf swing. I had a few things I messed with. But, you know, actually Jess, my wife’s kind of like, you know, you’ve been doing this for now 37 years now on tour, maybe you want to trust your muscle memory? Do you always have to keep screwing around with stuff?
Rocco Mediate reads the green on the 5th hole during the first round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Tournament at Firestone Country Club on Thursday. (Jeff Lange/Akron Beacon Journal)
“And it’s true, coming from someone who doesn’t play, she doesn’t play, she just watches. She’s like just go play. And I think that’s what I’m trying to do more. My attitude was like this is terrible, how am I going to get around with this? I think all of us go through it and it’s not really that bad. It’s just a matter of trusting — I call it trusting your shape. My shape does this. If I can’t trust it, no matter what’s over there, I’ve got issues. I’ve been trusting it more.”
Mediate finished Thursday’s first round four shots behind first-round leader Alex Cejka, who shot a 6-under-par 64 with six birdies.
Cejka started on No. 10 and made a birdie on Nos. 10, 12, 15 and 16 on the back nine. He then dropped in birdie putts on Nos. 7 and 9 on the front nine.
David Toms posted a 66 to sit in second place, and Jerry Kelly and Ernie Els are tied for third at 3-under-par.
Mediate’s 68 tied him with Miguel Angel Jiménez, Tim Petrovic, Steven Alker, Shane Bertsch, Bob Estes, Cameron Beckman and Tom Gillis for fifth at 2-under-par.
“I had a reasonable Open, the week before I played OK in Madison and this was a really clean — just a couple loose ones, but we’re human, unfortunately,” Mediate said. “I don’t know where I got the idea that we never miss because I must have been thinking — I must have had a dream that I was someone else because we always miss. It’s a matter of fixing your — you know, making up for that short game. Jerry Kelly, he never misses, he never misses.”
Rocco Mediate plays out of the bunker on the 6th hole during first round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Tournament at Firestone Country Club on Thursday. (Jeff Lange/Akron Beacon Journal)
Mediate said it is important to not overthink and overanalyze.
“Pete Bender’s one of the best of all time [caddies],” Mediate said. “He goes, ‘The only time you ever play crappy is when you think too much. No kidding.’ And he’s right, he’s right. It’s like it cuts through the crap. It’s like you’re doing this because you’re doing that. So my swing key always used to be gather and go, gather and go and that’s all I thought about today. Most of them came off where I was looking.
“You know, I didn’t think of any physical thing, just get in behind it and go, that’s it. So it worked most of the day. Hit a few bad ones. But Mr. Short Game, that’s why we do all that crap that makes up for it. It’s just Golf 101, I guess. But around here, it’s a good one. It’s just relentless. We were talking about it, it just doesn’t stop. There’s no like walk in the park if you miss a shot. It’s a nightmare if you miss in certain spots, but it is a great place. It’s cool that we’re here.”
Mediate finished tied for seventh last year at Firestone with a 4-over 284 that earned him $96,000.
“I’ve loved this course since I [first] played it,” Mediate said. “I think my first NEC was ’91 and I had a couple of 1-under rounds maybe and it was just so hard, and it still is.
“This year the rough’s not up like it was and I hit it in most of the fairways. Missed a couple, which [was] much easier to play from the short stuff. Always tell people, you know what, fairway mowers are really, really expensive and make the fairways perfect. Rough mowers are cheap, they don’t need good mowers to mow the rough. This is another one of those courses where it actually rewards you for hitting in the fairway. I think most of us love that, I know I do.
“And if you miss, too bad, deal with it. I caught a horrible two lies on 16, but it’s rough. You know, I’m like, God, I wish this was a foot more to the right. I had a hard pick. It was hard. That’s the game. We have to deal with it. I love courses like this. And like I said, I wish we played twice a month like this. Not every day because then we would all go completely bonkers, but I love the hard — and I’ve always loved Firestone, it’s hard not to like it.”
Michael Beaven can be reached at mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Beaven on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MBeavenABJ.
Douglass won three times on the PGA Tour and 11 times on the senior circuit.
Dale Douglass, a former PGA Tour winner and U.S. Senior Open champion, died in Scottsdale, Ariz., after a long illness on July 6, according to the University of Colorado Sports Information Department; he was 86.
Douglass won three times on the PGA Tour (with three playoff losses), represented the U.S. at the 1969 Ryder Cup and was one of the early players to have great success on the Senior Tour (since renamed the PGA Tour Champions). He won 11 times on that circuit, including one major, as he defeated Gary Player by one stroke in the 1986 U.S. Senior Open in Columbus, Ohio.
Born Dale Dwight Douglass on March 5, 1936 in Wewoka, Okla., he grew up in Fort Morgan, Colo., where he graduated high school before enrolling at Colorado in the fall of 1955. Douglass was a three-time, first-team all-conference performer, in the Big Seven in 1956 and the Big Eight in 1958 and 1959. He was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010, the second golfer to do so after Hale Irwin.
“Dale was so very proud of being from Fort Morgan and the University of Colorado,” Irwin said. “He wore the school colors proudly…Dale was like my big brother, and I was like his bratty little brother. We throw the word mentor around a lot, but in Dale’s case, I can elevate the word mentor to friend. I’ll miss him.”
Douglass became the first University of Colorado golfer to play on the PGA Tour, and went on to become just the fifth player in history to play in 500 tournaments when he reached the mark in 2003. He earned more than $9 million as a professional after turning pro in 1960 and earning his PGA Tour card in 1963.
“I was 27 years,” Douglass told Golfweek in 2010. “I was an assistant pro in Wyoming. I was a Monday qualifier. It was kind of fun, and yet we hated it. You wouldn’t do anything else. If you wanted to play golf, that’s what you did. Monday qualifying was a difficult way to do things. It allowed you to make the team every week rather than if you missed at the Q-school you’re out for the year.”
Irwin was in Charlotte at the 1969 Kemper Open and watched Douglass wrap up a four-stroke win over Charles Coody, his second Tour win at the time. In 1974, when Irwin won his first of three U.S. Opens at Winged Foot (Mamaroneck, N.Y.), both Irwin, Douglass (who tied for 18th) and their wives (Sally and Joyce, respectively) celebrated that evening with room service, one of countless dinners the couples had together.
Douglass joined the Senior Tour in 1986, where he would become a fixture for more than 20 years, playing in exactly 600 Senior/Champions Tour events through 2011, with 26 runner-up finishes and 151 top-10 finishes to go with his 11 victories.
“I had lost my game in the middle 1970s,” Douglass told Golfweek. “Playing the Senior Tour seemed like I had gone to heaven.”
He was preceded in death by his wife, Joyce. Services are pending but will be held in Colorado Springs.
“Golf has lost a real gentleman and a man who really championed golf throughout the country,” Irwin said. “He did so much for a lot of people, particularly in Colorado. There was never a bad word you heard from anyone about Dale Douglass.”
After narrowly getting an extension, officials are hopeful PGA Tour Champions event can stay in South Dakota.
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota — Miguel Angel Jimenez stood in the Minnehaha Country Club driving range Thursday morning, stretching with a club in his arms, a lit cigar dangling from his mouth. Just then a fan approached him and asked for a selfie. Jimenez nodded, leaned in and smiled toward the man’s phone, then went back to work as the man thanked the 2020 Sanford International champion and scurried away.
A short chip shot away, Bernhard Langer stood on a practice green and strained to squeeze his name onto a golf ball, fulfilling the autograph request of a fan who had nervously approached the two-time Masters champion.
Those little moments have made the Sanford International a success in Sioux Falls, and the PGA Tour Champions event returns this week for the fourth year of its original five-year contract. And thanks to a summer agreement that wasn’t exactly last-minute but was definitely taking long enough to make organizers nervous, there’s an extended future for the tournament in Sioux Falls, as a deal was struck with Minnehaha Country Club to keep it there through 2024.
A year ago when the tournament was getting underway, the COVID-19 pandemic was still canceling and limiting sporting events across the country, and the Sanford International went out of its way to advertise itself as the first major sporting event to allow fans. They pulled it off largely without incident, and the tournament was a rousing success, with Angel Jimenez memorably celebrating his victory with a cigar on the 18th green and a glass of wine at his post-round press conference.
Erin Bormett / Argus Leader
But behind the scenes there were rumblings that getting Minnehaha membership to agree to an extension was not the sure thing outsiders might expect.
While the tournament itself is essentially one week of events, its overall presence at the country club covers more than two months, in the height of golf season. After an initial breakdown in talks after the Minnehaha board of directors rejected an extension proposal, the two sides got back to the table this summer and struck a deal.
Now, as the fourth year of the event kicks off, there’s a strong sense of relief among tournament organizers.
Erin Bormett / Argus Leader
“I can remember pretty vividly sitting here in this exact spot a year ago and being asked what the future of the tournament looked like, and saying we had every intention of extending it,” said Sanford executive vice president Micah Aberson. “And then finishing that press conference and saying to (tournament director) Josh Brewster, ‘We should probably figure out how to get that done.’ It was a bit of an adventure to get there, but we’re extremely excited to extend it and very happy that it will be here at Minnehaha Country Club for at least (three more years after this).”
After hearing the concerns of membership and taking steps to address them, the extension was reached.
“It was kind of a scary process, but I think at the end of the day the membership, the tournament and all the sponsors understood what was at stake for the community,” Brewster said, referring not just to the warm reception the Sanford International has received from local sports fans, but the philanthropic impact it has on the community.
Tournament made concessions to get more country club members on board
Of course, now it’s time to deliver, and win over the members who still weren’t in favor of keeping the event.
“We made a lot of promises,” Aberson said. “The membership met us in the middle, but then my gaze goes to Josh and his team and it’s time to execute on all that now. I’m proud of the work they’ve done. We want the membership to feel like this is their tournament, too. We want them to have pride in the Sanford International just like we have, and I feel like we’re making progress in that regard.”
Erin Bormett / Argus Leader
A membership tent is new this year, along the 17th green, and plans were reworked to get the village assembled faster and with less of an impact on the course. A new merchandise pavilion has been added to the 9th green, and concessions will be expanded around the course. Most of the other logistical changes, however, were behind the scenes.
“I think the players and fans won’t see too much (difference),” Brewster said. “A lot of it was on the front end, just in regards to the construction we do. We had to look internally to how do we do it quicker and make it less of a burden on membership.”
While the course always receives extra care for a televised PGA event, it looks objectively even better than usual this year, thanks in part to heavy rains a few weeks ago and recent sunshine. Ticket sales are up over 30 percent from last year.
“I’ve been coming here for 15 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the golf course in better shape than it is now,” said tournament host and two-time U.S. Open winner Andy North.
“The course looks very good, it’s great,” added Jimenez. “No complaints about that. I hope we have a beautiful weekend.”
North added that the field is also as good as it’s ever been. Big names like Ernie Els and Fred Couples are back after debuting last year, while Jim Furyk is here for the first time. Furyk is vice captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, serving under captain Steve Stricker, the winner of the inaugural Sanford International.
Erin Bormett / Argus Leader
That they’re both here the week before the Ryder Cup illustrates how this event has resonated with the tour pros. They don’t skip this one.
And they’re happy it’s staying in Sioux Falls.
“I had heard the rumblings of maybe not being here any longer,” Stricker said. “So I’m very excited to come back here and for the guys to come back here. I think it’s a great venue for us. It’s challenging – the greens are great, they’re tricky. And you got a good support system here. The people show up here to support the event. I was concerned when I heard that (the tournament may leave), so good news that it’ll be coming back here.”
