Vijay and Qass Singh will be back to defend their title in Orlando.
Six past champions have confirmed their entry for the 2023 PNC Championship, including defending champions Vijay and Qass Singh.
Vijay will be joined by colleagues John Daly (winner in 2021), Justin Thomas (2020), David Duval (2016), Stewart Cink (2013) and Bernhard Langer (2005, 2006, 2014, 2019) for the annual parent-child event at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club Orlando, Grande Lakes on Dec. 14-17.
“I can’t tell you what it meant to win last year with Qass after 16 attempts. This tournament is so special to us, and it is such an important week for our family every year,” said Vijay. “We love everything about the tournament, from playing amongst so many legends of the game, to getting to know their kids, to just spending quality time with my son as we enjoy this unique inside-the-ropes experience together. I have played in so many tournaments all around the world over the years, but it genuinely is hard to think of a week that I look forward to and enjoy more than the PNC Championship.”
This year’s event, the 12th with PNC Bank as the title sponsor, will be broadcast live on NBC, Golf Channel and Peacock. Last year the PNC Championship boasted a field with 73 major titles. The tournament features 20 players and their relatives competing in a two-day, 36-hole scramble for the Willie Park Trophy. To qualify, players must have won a major championship or the Players Championship, and their partner must not hold any status on a professional tour.
Perhaps fans imperiled by wayward shots enjoyed seeing those on exemptions, but fellow Tour players likely did not.
The criteria by which fields are assembled on the PGA Tour is considerably more byzantine than over on LIV Golf, where competitors require only the blessing of Greg Norman and amoral ambivalence about the abuses and butchery of their princely benefactor.
The Tour’s official list has 39 exemption categories, ranging from the obvious (winners of majors and the FedEx Cup) to the arcane (PGA Section champions, players with 300 career made cuts). They’re ranked by priority and not every classification is used at every event. The Zurich Classic, for example, used 20 categories to compile its field, a trickier construct than usual since the tournament is comprised of 80 two-man teams.
The most opaque criterion has always been sponsor invites, in which those who write the checks are granted tremendous latitude in deciding who gets the call for a handful of spots. As a general rule, that’s fair. Sponsors ought to have a say in drawing attention to their tournaments and not be hostage to filling tee times from a pre-determined pecking order of pedestrian pros, even if the basis for extending invitations appears parochial.
In February, Ricky Barnes was gifted a spot in the WM Phoenix Open — a designated event with a $25 million purse — for no apparent reason other than that he lives locally and is popular with the event organizers.
But an exemption category intended to benefit a tournament can also be a detriment when improperly applied.
When two-time PGA Tour winner Michael Thompson was added to the field at the Zurich Classic, he chose as his team partner Paresh Amin, a 43-year-old military veteran with a beggarly record on mini-tours, and who shot 42-over-par in Q-School for the Mackenzie Tour.
“He’s become my really good friend,” Thompson explained to my colleague, Adam Schupak. “I haven’t had any success with a partner in the team format. If I was going to play a team event, I wanted to be with someone I really liked. He’s trying to play professionally and I wanted to give him a chance to experience a PGA Tour event, meet the equipment reps, meet the caddies.”
In the opening round of best ball, when scores are typically lower, the pair managed only a 71 that placed them 77th among the 80 teams. A 75 in Friday’s alternate shot format dropped them another two spots.
“These guys out here obviously have an advantage over me,” Amin told the Times-Picayune, the local paper in New Orleans. “They’ve been doing it their whole life. I’m just trying to crack the code and make it full-time out here.”
Somewhere, the ghost of Maurice Flitcroft laughs.
Thompson and Amin were spared the indignity of last place only thanks to another pair of sponsor invites: David Duval and John Daly. Zurich presumably hoped the name recognition of these former major winners would draw eyeballs to an event that sits in no man’s land on the calendar, wedged amid majors and designated stops. The tournament could boast some quality names — Cantlay, Schauffele, Fitzpatrick, Morikawa, Homa — but too many others who would be recognized only by job-seeking caddies or alert process servers.
The problem is that Duval and Daly are woefully uncompetitive even on the PGA Tour Champions, much less a more demanding stage. Duval is 0-for-25 in cracking the top 10 in his senior career, while Daly has done so just once in his last 33 attempts. Predictably, their performance was execrable: rounds of 75-83 secured last place by 12 shots. Perhaps the few spectators who were imperiled by the team’s wayward shots enjoyed seeing the old timers, but there are ample reasons why some of their fellow Tour players might not.
[pickup_prop id=”33194″]
Each member of the winning team in New Orleans earns more than mere cash: fully exempt status through 2025, 400 FedEx Cup points, spots in the upcoming PGA Championship, Charles Schwab Challenge and Memorial Tournament, plus entry to the 2024 Sentry Tournament and Players Championship. It’s a heck of a return for only hitting half of the shots in half of the rounds.
FedEx Cup points are the currency of the PGA Tour, and have never been more valuable. Only the top 50 in points will guarantee access to all of 2024’s lucrative designated events. Only the top 70 will secure playing privileges for next season, down from 125 in years past. Fewer players have guaranteed status as more fields are reduced in size. Points are precious, and so too is the opportunity to earn them. There is less room than ever for veterans who fancy a couple of days in the Big Easy and friends Michael Thompson wants to introduce to equipment reps.
Doubtless, there will be locker room grumbling if Alex Fitzpatrick — an invited non-member of the Tour — earns status by partnering his brother, Matt, to victory in the Zurich Classic on Sunday. Family ties isn’t one of the 39 official exemption categories either. That will at least be a debate about an invitee who proved competitively relevant and earned those rewards, rather than the no-hopers whose presence only served to exclude others more deserving of a shot.
Next up on the PGA Tour schedule is the lone team event in New Orleans at the Zurich Classic at TPC Louisiana.
The defending champions, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, are teaming up once again — yes, they’re featured on this list — but they’re going to have to fight off a few loaded teams.
For example, world Nos. 7 and 13, Max Homa and Collin Morikawa, have their eyes set on a W. Both players graduated from Cal and were members of the winning 2022 U.S. Presidents Cup team at Quail Hollow.
Here are our five can’t-miss teams for the Zurich Classic in New Orleans (each player’s world ranking is featured in parenthesis).
This year’s event is yielding some of the most interesting partnerships since the tournament went to that format in 2017.
John Daly, playing a golf tournament in New Orleans?
Maybe his partner will keep him on the straight and narrow, at least as far as fairways go.
The PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic will be played next week at the TPC Louisiana in Avondale, La., about 15 miles away and across the Mississippi River from Bourbon Street. Eighty two-man teams will compete in the Tour’s only team stroke-play event.
This year’s event is yielding some of the most interesting partnerships since the tournament went to that format in 2017, including Daly playing with Jacksonville native David Duval, one of two teams to include PGA Tour Champions players.
Daly won two major championships, the 1991 PGA and the 1995 British Open. Duval won the 2001 British Open and the 1999 Players to highlight his 13 PGA Tour titles.
What most of the players in the Zurich field might not know – especially those in the current generation of PGA Tour players – is Duval and Daly occasionally played money games together when they were in their prime on the Tour and did quite well.
Here are some other teams to watch next week:
Defending champions Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele return. Word is that Cantlay is already on the clock. However, this has become quite the formidable team: they’ve gone 6-3 together in the last three international match play events (2019 and 2022 Presidents Cups, 2021 Ryder Cup).
Billy Horschel of Ponte Vedra Beach and Sam Burns are partnering again. They finished second by two shots last year. Horschel has won the Zurich Classic as an individual (2013) and with a partner (with Scott Piercy in 2018).
First Coast players Sam Ryder and Doc Redman are also together again. They finished third last year.
Zach Johnson of St. Simons Island, Ga., and Steve Stricker will form a team of the current and most recent U.S. Ryder Cup captains. Stricker is also the defending champion of the Constellation Furyk & Friends.
Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim will reunite their 2022 Presidents Cup partnership that resulted in a 1-up victory over Cantlay and Schauffele.
The team to beat, however, might be two-time major champion Collin Morikawa and Max Homa.
There are two more partnerships in which both players are from the First Coast: David Lingmerth and Jonas Blixt (who also are both natives of Sweden) and Tyson Alexander and Carl Yuan. Blixt won the Zurich Classic with 2022 Players champion Cameron Smith in 2017.
Find the full field and all teams for the Zurich Classic here.
The PGA Tour heads to Louisiana next week for the Zurich Classic at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, the lone team event on the schedule.
The two-mean teams will alternate between four-ball and foursomes all four days, starting with four-ball on Thursday. A cut will be made after 36 holes.
Eight players ranked inside the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking will be teeing it up, highlighted by defending champions Xander Schauffele (sixth) and Patrick Cantlay (fourth) and a new team of Collin Morikawa (11th) and Max Homa (seventh).
Joining the young guns are John Daly and David Duval, two PGA Tour Champions members who are teaming up in NOLA.
Someone keep an eye on Daly this week.
Find the full field and all teams below:
The Zurich Classic of New Orleans has featured a two-man team format since 2017 and is the only official FedExCup event on the PGA TOUR schedule that uses a team format.
The field consists of 80 teams (160 players), with each team comprised of two professionals. pic.twitter.com/B3UtENPtCF
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) April 14, 2023
Here’s the roll call of players considered “local” to TPC Sawgrass and Ponte Vedra Beach who have won majors. It’s impressive.
Despite the best efforts of the PGA Tour and a younger demographic of players and media who are keeping an open mind, The Players Championship still can’t crack the public consciousness of joining The Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship in being considered a major championship.
The Players will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024 so it’s had time. And the fact that it still isn’t widely recognized as a major has more to do with how entrenched the other four are.
Attitudes and history can change. When Bobby Jones was considered the best golf in the world in the 1920s and 1930s, he won 13 major championships. However, at the time, the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur were considered majors, along with the U.S. Open and British Open — largely because amateur golf was considered a higher level of competition since the professional game hadn’t yet blossomed and the Masters and the Augusta National Golf Club were still unrealized dreams by their founder — Jones.
Six of Jones’ majors were amateur events, five U.S, Opens and one British Open. And in 1930, when he won all four in one year, New York sportswriter George Trevor termed the feat, “the impregnable quadrilateral.”
Respect for Jones was so universal that gradually the Masters came to be thought of as a major, and when professionals such as Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson got into the prime of their careers, the PGA Championship also became more elevated.
Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus solidify the majors
The final piece of the puzzle in why the current four are accepted as majors was Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, whose powerful style of golf and charisma captured fans’ imagination. They especially cemented the Masters as perhaps the top dog of the grand slam events when they combined to win 10 times at Augusta.
Fast forward to the Tiger Woods Era. He had a poster of Jack Nicklaus on his wall at home as a young boy, with a list of Nicklaus’ 18 major championships. Woods dreamed of getting to that goal and he has 15, winning his last at the 2019 Masters — his fifth green jacket.
Woods followed the same script that Nicklaus and Palmer did: save his best for the majors, which only further served to keep their status at the top of the worldwide tournament food chain intact.
Majors history goes back nearly 160 years
Obviously, the majors have a rich history. The British Open is the oldest golf tournament in the world, having started in 1863. The U.S. Open launched in 1895, the PGA in 1916 and the Masters in 1934.
But the history of the world’s two main amateur events can’t be left in a dusty book. The U.S. Amateur began the same year as the U.S. Open and the British Amateur in 1885. Let’s just call them the amateur majors, which is both historically accurate and relevant to the modern game.
The history of those events also involves First Coast and South Georgia natives and those who have lived in the areas on a long-term basis. Six of those men have combined to win the four professional majors nine times. Six more have combined to win the amateur majors 11 times.
Here’s the roll call of players considered “local” to TPC Sawgrass and Ponte Vedra Beach who have won those 20 majors, listed on a chronological basis of when they won their first or only major:
Duval said, injuries pending, that he may play “20-plus” times.
For most golf fans, the number they quickly associate with David Duval is 59.
As in the 59 Duval shot in the final round of the 1999 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic — the desert’s PGA Tour event now called the American Express — a round that allowed him to come from seven shots behind to win the title with the best closing round in Tour history.
But these days, the number Duval thinks about most is not 59, but 50. When Duval turned 50 in November, he was automatically the latest rookie to be eligible for the PGA Tour Champions. Duval was on hand Tuesday for the announcement of a new PGA Tour Champions event in the Coachella Valley next spring, and he was happy at the prospect of playing competitive golf in the desert again.
“It’s cool that they are adding a new event, that we are going to have another good spot on the schedule,” Duval said of the event planned for Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage. “It’s a good time of year, more than likely perfect weather out there. My wife and I have been looking forward to this and getting back to playing full time. We are just kind of learning the in’s and out’s of it again, having not done it so long.”
Unlike some golfers looking ahead to their 50th birthday and eligibility on the PGA Tour Champions, Duval has not packed his schedule full of regular PGA Tour events to sharpen his game. In fact, Duval has played only one tournament on the regular tour, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, in both 2020 and 2021. The last time he played as many as 10 regular tour events was in the 2013-14 wraparound season.
Injuries, which have hampered Duval’s career since just after that 1999 win in the desert, including two replaced discs in his neck in 2020, have continued to plague him as he approached 50. But he still had the PGA Tour Champions on his mind.
“I don’t know exactly for certain (when he thought about senior golf), but a few years back,” Duval said. “With some of the injuries and things that I had gone through, I was looking to get healthy and try to play 10 or 12 times a year. And as we got closer and closer, it looks like we are going to play more than that, maybe 20-plus.”
[vertical-gallery id=778043779]
Back on a tour again
Duval has played five PGA Tour Champions events this year, with a best finish of 34th as he tries to return to competitive golf after spending nearly seven years as an analyst on Golf Channel, a position that earned him praise for his commentary on the PGA Tour and its players.
Duval believes his game should be producing better results, but in a recent tournament, he may have discovered a key.
“It started to dawn on me recently in completion that I have been playing golf at home for eight or 10 years, playing very few golf tournaments,” he said. “And I kind of recognized this last time we played in Mississippi that I’m still playing that way. I’m still playing what I call country club golf. And competitive golf, professional golf is not country club golf.
“It’s an entirely different animal and you have to really think your way around the golf course and put the ball in proper positions and be smart about that what you are doing,” Duval said. “Meshing that with how I am actually physically playing is going to kind of get me going.”
As part of that commentary, Duval would at times have to talk about sub-60 rounds on the PGA Tour. No one is more qualified than Duval for that discussion since he shot just the third 59 on tour with his round in 1999. Now there have been a total of 12 sub-60 rounds, including one 58 by Jim Furyk, who also has a 59 to his credit.
Duval acknowledges people still talk about his 59, but he has other things to say about the number than just how he shot his round.
“It gets talked about a little bit. I think more in the framework now of what sub-60 round was the best one. That’s kind of how the discussion has gone now,” he said.
Al Geiberger shot the first round of 59 in 1977 at Colonial Country Club in Memphis, and that round is often ranked ahead of Duval’s round at the Palmer Course at PGA West in La Quinta in 1999 as the best of the sub-60 rounds. While Duval accomplished far more in his career than the 59, including a British Open title, 13 PGA Tour wins and surpassing Tiger Woods to become the No. 1-ranked player in the game in 1999, the 59 discussion is still something Duval enjoys.
“I still feel like, when there were rounds like that shot, over the last number of years when I was doing TV stuff, I always kind of tried to direct it away from me and to the fact that there have only been four of the sub-60 rounds that were 13-under par,” Duval said. “I think there is a distinction there. There is a difference between shooting 11 under, 12 under or 13 under.
“That’s why I kind of direct it away,” he added. “I’m curious to see if someone can shoot 14-under par. They might. Who knows?”
The Mechanic earned his 12th victory on the senior circuit in Tucson, Arizona.
TUCSON, Ariz. — Miguel Angel Jiménez survived a playoff to win the PGA Tour Champions season opener in Hawaii. His win Sunday in Tucson, Arizona, was a walk in the park by comparison.
Two aces in 50 holes will do that for a guy.
Leading by three shots in the final round, Jiménez hit a 6-iron from 188 yards on the 14th hole. Four bounces and a clanged flagstick later, Jiménez had himself a second hole-in-one this week and more importantly, a five-shot lead with four to go in the Cologuard Classic.
Jiménez finished his round par-par-par-par to shoot a final-round 65 and finish 18 under, four clear of the field. Bernhard Langer and Woody Austin finished tied for second at 14 under.
Cologuard Ambassador Jerry Kelly started the final round tied for second, two shots back of Jimenez. He closed with a 70 after opening 68-67 and finished solo fourth. Scott Parel was solo fifth at 10 under.
Jiménez’s ace Friday also came off the face of his 6-iron on the 196-yard 7th hole. Tim Petrovic had a pair of aces a year ago but Jiménez used his 1s to guide him to his 12th Champions victory. The aces were the 12th and 13th in competition for Jiménez, who had 10 on the DP World (formerly European) Tour.
Jiménez started birdie-eagle and was five under through eight holes before clipping a tree with his second shot on the 9th. After a third shot to about eight feet, Jiménez missed his par putt but still made the turn at 15 under, four clear of Langer and Jeff Sluman. The lead was down to three after Langer and Woody Austin each birdied the 12th but the Jiménez ace on No. 14 essentially sealed the win.
Jiménez pocketed $270,000 for the win. He has earned $668,795 so far this season. Loren Roberts in 2006 was the last golfer to win two of the first three Champions events to start a season.
Sluman, who co-lead after the first round and was tied for second after 36 holes, was seeking to break a stretch of 2,821 days since his last victory in 2014 when he teamed with Fred Funk to win Big Cedar Lodge Legends of Golf.
Langer came into the week off his win a week ago at the Chubb Classic, his 43rd win on the senior circuit. He finished xx and remains two victories from tying Hale Irwin’s Champions tour mark. Langer will get another chance to cut the gap to one next week at the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach, California.
Other notables in the field:
Jim Furyk, playing just 15 miles from his college home at the University of Arizona, 74-74-69 and finished T-25.
Omar Uresti, one of four golfers to get through the qualifier on Tuesday, went 73-70-71 and finished T-33.
John Daly, in the field on a sponsor exemption, posted scores of 78-71-73 to finish T-66.
David Duval, Champions tour rookie and winner of the Tucson Chrysler Classic on this same course on the PGA Tour in 1998, shot 77-77-73 to finish T-69.
Celebrity Challenge winners
Annika Sorenstam, who played at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and Larry Fitzgerald, the former Arizona Cardinals receiver, teamed up to win the Celebrity Challenge on Saturday.
Sorenstam, who has committed to the U.S. Women’s Open in June, was runnerup in the celebrity division at the LPGA’s season-opening Tournament of Champions in January. In the best-ball format in Tucson, Sorenstam made a birdie putt on 18 to get her and Fitzgerald to 4 under to defeat the team of country music star Jake Owen and former NFL running back Eric Dickerson by two.
David Duval won one of his 13 PGA Tour titles in Tucson in 1998. Now he’s back with the senior tour.
The 1998 Tucson Chrysler Classic just about had it all.
Well, aside from Tiger Woods. The then-22-year-old waffled on a commitment to the tournament before ultimately deciding against it.
The desert stop—sandwiched in between the United Airlines Hawaiian Open and the Nissan Open (remember those?)—did have a field of Phil Mickelson, Nick Faldo, John Daly, David Duval, Justin Leonard, David Toms, Tom Lehman and Andrew Magee. It also had some weather, a 62 and a blown seven-shot lead.
Duval was still about a year away from reaching World No. 1 but he arrived in Tucson having won three of his last eight starts. By that Sunday night, he was leaving town with another, giving him four wins in nine outings — the best in professional golf since Nick Price won four out of six PGA Tour events in 1994.
Along the way there was some bad weather. The back half of Friday’s second round was hit by a rainstorm but Duval was out early and posted a second-round 62 that featured two hole-outs from the fairway for eagle.
Duval is back in Tucson, Arizona, this week as a rookie on the PGA Tour Champions, with some recollections of that wild week 24 years ago. He will tee it up in the Cologuard Classic starting Friday on Omni Tucson National.
“I played in the morning on Friday and shot 62. Basically, as I putted out on 18, all hell broke loose with the weather, with wind and cold and the temperature dropped,” he recalled during a media session on Wednesday at the Omni Tucson National. “So I had a sizeable lead because of conditions.”
His 62 was aided by some serious flag-hunting.
“I remember thinking to myself in the ninth fairway, I hadn’t really paid close attention to it, I guess, but I was like, ‘Oh, man, I’m 6 under after eight holes. If make birdie here, I shoot 29. That’s always cool.’ I holed out a 5-iron for a 2, so I shot 28.”
Friday’s weather led to some late starts Saturday and the third round didn’t get done before darkness set in. On Sunday, by the time Duval completed 54 holes, he was sitting on a seven-shot lead. By the time he got to the 15th tee box, however, Justin Leonard had tracked him down and the two were tied with four to go.
Duval made a birdie on 16 after he chipped one in, and did so again on 18 after he drained a 30-footer. Leonard, meanwhile, bogeyed both holes, leading to a rollercoaster four-shot victory for Duval.
David Duval celebrates with a first-place check in the amount of $360,000 after winning the 1998 Tucson Chrysler Classic. (Photo: J.D. Cuban/PGA Tour)
There was no title defense for Duval. The PGA Tour returned to Tucson in 1999 but with the newly created World Match Play Championship, relegating the “regular” Tucson event to second-tier status. Duval later played in those events in 2005 and 2006, missing the cut both times.
What would it mean to win this weekend?
“That would be spectacular, especially having won here before. That would be a real dream come true,” he said.
Duval is committed to a mostly full playing schedule as a rookie on the senior circuit in 2022. That means he’s cutting back on his TV work.
“This year I’m not going to be doing any Live Froms this year,” he said, referring to the popular Golf Channel segments before and after golf tournaments. “I just can’t fit it into if I’m going to try to play a full schedule of whatever it may be, call it 22 weeks.
“I can’t add in six more weeks of leaving my family and my daughter, who lives at home—my son is at a boarding school—and be that selfish. I still have to be a husband and a father along with being a professional golfer.”
NAPLES, Fla. — David Duval and Jim Furyk have won millions of dollars in their respective PGA Tour careers.
They’ve played some of the best rounds in Tour history. Duval shot a 59, and so did Furyk, who followed that up a few years later with a record 58.
The two reunite this week at the 35th Chubb Classic on the PGA Tour Champions at Tiburón Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort.
“To have been knowing and playing and competing against somebody for 35, 36 years, and he and I are dear friends, our wives are dear friends, Tabitha and Susie, I just think that just the opportunity to kind of reconnect that way, especially in a competitive environment, is a true blessing that the Champions Tour provides,” Duval said.
Duval is back playing after turning 50 last year and becoming eligible for the Champions tour following several years in the broadcast booth. Furyk has shifted more so to the Champions tour after playing both tours, but mainly on the PGA Tour until last year.
Duval said he was 15 when he first saw Furyk, who was 16 but already 6-foot, at an AJGA junior tournament in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Jim Furyk speaks at a presser during the Chubb Classic Pro-Am on Wednesday, February 16, 2022, at the Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Florida.
They became friends in college and closer when they both joined the then-Nike Tour, and played practice round games on Tuesday, pairing against fellow tour pros for money.
“We have a pretty good record, I will just say, and made a few bucks,” Furyk said. “He’s a heck of a partner. About three years after that, there was a couple veterans out there that tried to steal a little money from us, and three years later he was ranked in the top 10 in the world and I was ranked top 25 in the world, so they probably picked the wrong battle.
“But it was a lot of fun on Tuesday to gain some experience and play a lot of golf alongside him. We were always partners, so put a lot of practice rounds together on the tour, played a lot of practice rounds in majors together, and so I spent a lot of time with David.”
“We certainly dipped into a few pockets,” Duval said. “He and I were partners virtually every week. I don’t recall having to pay out too often.”
While Furyk did have that 58 in addition to a 59, he said Duval looks at his own 59 in a different way.
“David likes to brag that his was 13 under and both of mine were 12 under, but mine was still one lower, so we’re in a little competitive battle as good friends,” Furyk said.
First Tee Challenge returns
The Golf to Paradise – First Tee Champions Challenge is set to celebrate its 15th anniversary this week when 20 First Tee participants representing 10 chapters throughout the country play in conjunction with the Chubb Classic.
In partnership with the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention, and Visitors Bureau, the Golf to Paradise – First Tee Champions Challenge will feature three nine-hole rounds of competition, with an alternate format each day on three of Naples’ premier golf courses.
On Friday, the teams will play in a better-ball format at The Moorings Country Club, Saturday will be a scramble format at Royal Poinciana Golf Club, and Sunday will be alternate-shot format at Lely Golf and Country Club (Flamingo Course).
Prior to competition, the First Tee students will participate in a First Tee Champions Challenge Clinic presented by Premier Packaging, taking place on the back of the driving range on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at Tiburón Golf Club with PGA Tour Champions players. The First Tee participants also will participate in the “Keep Collier Beautiful Beach Clean Up” volunteer service activity on Saturday morning prior to their second-round play at Royal Poinciana.
The First Tee Chapters and participants include: Ty Kaufman and Julian Alonso, First Tee – Naples/Collier; Bradley Lardie and Adam Koval, First Tee – West Michigan; Dylan Callaway and Daniel McCloskey, First Tee – Pittsburgh; Brant Dattilo and Ava Heaton, First Tee – the Triangle; Gabriella Ishaq and Matthew Stolte, First Tee – Minnesota; Slade Aliff and Caroline Gilreath, First Tee – Roanoke Valley; Devin Carpenter and Isabella Magno, First Tee – Greater Philadelphia; Kaylee Dwyer and Annika Northey, First Tee – Chicago; Zara Karim and Kyndall Campbell, First Tee – Greater Washington, D.C.; Brant Tretter and Sam Reising, First Tee – Indiana
Jimenez remembers Romero
Eduardo Romero, who won five times on the PGA Tour Champions, died, the tour announced Monday, without giving any other details. An Argentina news agency said he died of cancer. He was 67.
“I was so sad to hear that Eduardo has passed away and I send my deepest condolences to his family,” Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez wrote on Twitter. “He was a fantastic guy, a really great golfer and a friend for many years.”
The Argentine, known as “El Gato”, won eight titles on the European Tour, in addition to the five on the PGA Tour Champion where he won major titles at the Tradition in 2006 and the U.S. Senior Open in 2008.
