The event will be aired on ABC and ESPN. Peter Jacobsen, a seven-time PGA Tour winner and TV golf analyst will be the chairman.
Jim Furyk will be a match-play captain again, this time against the world.
The PGA Tour Champions announced this week that the inaugural World Champions Cup Dec. 7-10 at the Concession Golf Club in Bradenton will bring together 50 and over players from the U.S., Europe and an International team for three days of match play.
The European captain will be Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland and the International captain Ernie Els of South Africa. Furyk and Clarke are past Ryder Cup captains and Els captained the 2019 International Presidents Cup team. All three will be playing captains.
The event will be aired on ABC and ESPN. Peter Jacobsen, a seven-time PGA Tour winner and TV golf analyst will be the chairman.
“The World Champions Cup is a tremendous addition to the game of golf and the PGA Tour Champions schedule,” said Miller Brady, president of PGA Tour Champions, in a statement. “This competition will give fans a new and unique opportunity to see the game’s greatest stars compete against one another on a global stage. Ernie, Jim and Darren are worldwide ambassadors for golf, and it will be thrilling to watch them and their teammates compete for the chance to win the inaugural World Champions Cup.”
Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland during the first day of The Senior Open Presented by Rolex at Sunningdale Golf Club on July 22, 2021, in Sunningdale, England. (Photo by Stephen Pond/Getty Images)
The format will be doubles and singles lasting nine holes for each match, for a total of 24.
Each of the teams will have five additional players, all active PGA Tour Champions members. Automatic invitations for each team will be extended to the top two point-earners in the WCC’s career-based rankings, with two additional positions going to Chairman’s picks.
The final spots for Team USA, Team Europe and Team International will be play-in positions based on the year-end Charles Schwab Cup standings.
The Concession Golf Club was named for Jack Nicklaus’ famous gesture of conceding the final putt in the 1969 Ryder Cup to Tony Jacklin of England, resulting in the first tie in the event’s history. Nicklaus and Jacklin collaborated on the design of the course, which hosted the PGA Tour’s 2021 World Golf Championships-Workday Championship and the 2015 Men’s and Women’s NCAA Division I championships.
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Furyk, won 17 times on the PGA Tour and has played in seven Presidents Cups and nine Ryder Cups. He was the U.S. Ryder Cup captain in 2018.
“I am honored to lead Team USA onto the global stage that the World Champions Cup represents,” Furyk said in a statement. “It has been such a treat being part of Team USA at different stages throughout my career. I look forward to having the chance to captain Team USA and compete against Ernie and Darren, with whom I walked fairways for more than 20 years.”
“Because the native contours and dune formations are so good, very little earthmoving will be required.”
Ernie Els has signed on as signature designer for a new course in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico: Oleada Golf Links Los Cabos. The course will anchor the new Oleada Pacific Living and Golf, an 860-acre oceanfront resort community 15 minutes from downtown Cabo San Lucas.
The Pacific Ocean will be the backdrop for the course built into a desert landscape. A media release announcing the news said the site features dunes and sandy ridges, ideal for golf. Also slated to work on the project is Greg Letsche, senior design associate of Ernie Els Design.
“Because the native contours and dune formations are so good, very little earthmoving will be required to build the course,” Els, a South African who has won four major championships among his 19 PGA Tour and three PGA Tour Champions titles, said in the media release. “Shaping will be very minimalistic. Man cannot improve on what Mother Nature has created over the eons. The golf course that we create at Oleada will be here long after I’m gone. That means something and it makes me feel very proud.”
Plans for Oleada also include oceanfront residences, and the first phase of development includes three resorts as well as the golf course. Work on the project began in January, and the development is slated to open in 2026. The course will allow non-resort public-access play for its first season.
Els Design has built more than a dozen courses around the world in locations such as the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, South Africa, the Bahamas and the U.S. The company’s website lists six other courses in development in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, the Dominican Republic and Croatia, as well as this project in Mexico.
“With its rolling dunes, elevation changes and majestic desert-meets-ocean setting, I believe we can produce a versatile test that will rank among the best and most beautiful courses we’ve ever built,” Els said of Oleada in the media release.
Bernhard Langer falls short of winning for 46th time on senior circuit.
Thanks to a late-round putting-grip change, Ernie Els is a winner on the PGA Tour Champions for the first time in three years.
Meanwhile, Bernhard Langer’s record-setting victory is going to have to wait at least another week.
Els rode a 65-65 weekend to win the Hoag Classic at Newport Country Club in Newport Beach, California, on Sunday. He birdied Nos. 2, 3, and 4 to get things going, then birdied the seventh. After eight straight pars, he birdied the 16th to get to 12 under. He found himself in a bunker on 18 but got up-and-down, draining one final birdie to get to 13 under. Els went to a left-hand low grip on his last two birdie putts.
Steve Stricker and Doug Barron tied for second at 12 under. Barron started the day one shot back of the lead and needed a birdie at the last to get to 13 under. With Els hitting 7-irons on the range to stay loose, Barron stuffed his approach but then missed a four-footer for birdie that would have forced a playoff.
Els is the fifth different winner in five Champions tournaments in 2023.
Langer, who was at 12 under after 36 holes and held the solo lead after two days, built a two-shot lead Sunday but bogeys at Nos. 6, 9 and 14 did him in as he never really got anything going in the final round. A birdie on 11 was negated by his fourth bogey on 14. He then missed a short putt on 17 for his fifth bogey of the day before a closing par for a 73.
Langer won for a record-tying 45th time on the Champions tour a month ago. His next victory will break the record held by Hale Irwin since 2007. Langer’s first senior win came 10 months after Irwin’s last.
The PGA Tour Champions returns to action next week at the new Galleri Classic in Rancho Mirage, California, on the Mission Hills Country Club course that was home to an LPGA major for 51 years.
Standing on the first tee ahead of the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Championship last month in South Africa, Christiaan Maas’ eye drew wide.
Also on the tee was Ernie Els, one of the greatest South African golfers of all time. The former world No. 1 with four major titles is now 53 and is on the decline of his stellar career. Meanwhile, Maas, a freshman at Texas, is only at the beginning of what’s looking to be a promising story.
Maas played alongside Els the first two days at Leopard Creek in Malelane, topping one of his idols, who’s also a friend and mentor. Maas finished T-17 at the DP World Tour event, capping a stellar fall that included his first semester for the Longhorns.
“Playing with Ernie was a dream come true,” Maas said. “All in all, probably the best two weeks I’ve had.”
Maas had met Els previously and talked with him on numerous occasions, partially because Maas’ coach and Els are close friends. Maas said Els talked with him about the recruiting process and was supportive of Maas’ choice to go to Texas.
A week before the Alfred Dunhill, Maas placed T-35 at the DP World Tour’s South African Open.
Maas’ brilliant play on the professional level at 19 years old is just a glimpse of how talented he is. The 25th-ranked golfer in the World Amateur Golf Ranking was named to the Fred Haskins Award watch list, which is awarded to the best player in college golf, after the fall season. Maas also captured the Brabazon trophy last year at the English Men’s Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship. He has quickly risen to become one of the top amateurs in the world.
And yet he’s only scratching the surface.
“He has got off to a really good start,” Texas men’s golf coach John Fields said. “He’s an absolutely wonderful kid. Everybody loves him in South Africa.”
Fields was able to go to South Africa and watch Maas compete, which he said was an incredible moment for him.
It meant a lot to Maas, too, to have his coach come and support him during the couple months off from college golf.
Maas took a couple weeks off after his appearances on the DP World Tour to rest and refresh before the spring college season. Texas is the defending national champion, and though the Longhorns had a slow start in the fall season, Maas isn’t worried about that carrying over to the spring.
“Our goal is to win a national championship,” Maas said. “If we can reach the match play at NCAAs, we’ll definitely have a chance.”
On a personal level, Maas said he wants to win a couple college events this spring. He came close in the fall, finishing third at the Ben Hogan Collegiate at Colonial Country Club, where the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge is contested. He also placed 12th at the Stephens Cup.
Maas notes the changes and adjustments he had to make to playing golf in the United States mostly compared to at home. There’s a premium on hitting the fairway and avoiding the rough around putting surfaces. Having the ability to practice at Texas has helped him adjust quickly.
The Longhorns’ spring slate kicks off later this month at the Southwestern Invitational in Westlake Village, California. It’s there Maas will look to continue building off his low amateur honors in South Africa and making a name for himself.
And he’s got his eyes on a big prize. Doing what Gordon Sargent did last year, winning the NCAA title as a freshman.
“That’s the ultimate goal,” Maas said. “And hopefully that can lead my team into a good position going to match play.”
On Monday, Scott Stallings posted a tweet that quickly made its way through the golf world.
A different Scott Stallings received the PGA Tour pro’s Masters invite and reached out through DMs to get the letter back in the mail. An unreal coincidence, and an unreal story.
The pro’s tweet leads our social media roundup this week, as does a first look at the upcoming TaylorMade Stealth 2. And since we’re back at Kapalua, it’s only right to look back at the incredible 2000 dual between Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.
Spoiler alert: Tiger won.
Check out some of the best social media posts from the past week below.
StrackaLine offers hole-by-hole maps of the Ernie Els design at Albany in the Bahamas, site of the Hero World Challenge.
The golf course at Albany in New Providence in the Bahamas – site of this week’s Hero World Challenge – was designed by Ernie Els and opened in 2010. It ranks as No. 24 on Golfweek’s Best list of courses in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Atlantic Island and Central America.
On the island of Nassau, the layout features five par 5s and five par 3s. Part of a resort community, it plays to 7,414 yards with a par of 72.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the players face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
The win is Stricker’s 10th on the PGA Tour Champions and third of the season.
Robert Karlsson opened with a 62 on Thursday, the best round of the week at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Steve Stricker went 64-64 over the weekend. By late Sunday, the two found themselves tied at 14 under and locking horns in a playoff at the Sanford International.
Karlsson was tied for the lead at 10 under with Jeff Maggert after 36 holes and Sunday, after birdies on Nos. 16 and 17, had a chance to win in regulation with one more birdie but ended up with a par at the last.
Stricker, who won this event in 2018, shot his 17th straight round of par or better and his 12th straight such round at the Sanford on Sunday.
He made quick work of the playoff with a birdie on the first extra hole, the par-4 18th, for his 10th win, and third this season, on the PGA Tour Champions.
“It didn’t break as much in regulation because I was a little bit, I don’t know what happened there, it just kind of rode high. So I had a good feeling for the speed here in the playoff,” he said. “You’re trying to hit a good putt, it’s a tough putt to make, but fortunate that it went in. It was a cool feeling. To make a putt last hole in a playoff in front of all these people is pretty cool.”
Stricker can now turn his sights on Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the Presidents Cup, where he will be an assistant captain starting Monday.
Fred Couples, also a 2022 assistant captain, closed his week in Sioux Falls by going backdoor on a closing birdie to shoot a final-round 72.
Couples joins Stricker, Zach Johnson and first-timer Webb Simpson as assistants alongside captain Davis Love III at the Presidents Cup. Couples tied for 38th.
Charles Schwab Cup points leader Steve Alker finished for tied for 58th after a final-round 76.
Colin Montgomerie withdrew from the Sanford before the start of the second round. John Daly withdrew during the second round.
The International team hasn’t won in a quarter century.
The eyes of Liezl Els told the result of the 2019 Presidents Cup. Ernie’s wife wiped away fresh tears and tried to hide her disappointment behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. Only she really knew the countless hours that her husband invested as Captain of Team International. The pain of a 16-14 defeat at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia, will linger because victory was there for the taking.
What transpired nearly three years ago in December was one of the most spirited competitions to date in the Presidents Cup, a team match-play competition between the United States and the world’s best non-European players. Credit to Els for devising a way to neutralize the so-called American advantage. He threw himself head-long into his captaincy, and he turned over every stone in search of the slightest edge. He became convinced that the pairings mattered, and he developed a strategy using advanced analytics. Els’s squad took advantage and jumped to a 6 ½-3 ½ lead.
“If you compare our team on paper with other teams in other sport, you would have laughed us out of the building,” Els said. “But we gave it a hell of a go and we came mightily close to winning and upsetting one of the greatest golf teams of all time…It didn’t quite work out, but we came damn close.”
International Team Captain Ernie Els gives a thumbs up during the second day of the 2019 Presidents Cup at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Victoria , Australia. (Photo: Keyur Khamar/PGA Tour via Getty Images)
The Presidents Cup has delivered such passion from its participants since it debuted in 1994 at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Prince William County, Virginia. (It was held there again in 1996.) The Americans, captained by Hale Irwin and Arnold Palmer in 1994 and 1996, respectively, won on both occasions against teams led by David Graham and Peter Thomson.
Royal Melbourne hosted the first Presidents Cup outside the United States in 1998, and Thomson’s International Team defeated a U.S. squad led by Jack Nicklaus. But the U.S. were prepared and got their vengeance in 2000 as Ken Venturi’s American side routed Thomson’s team by a record margin, 21 ½-10 ½.
The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, delayed the 2002 Cup until 2003. Held in South Africa, the match was an instant classic. Davis Love III, the U.S. Captain this go-round, participated in the first six Presidents Cups as a player and was an assistant captain to Fred Couples in 2013, Jay Haas in 2015 and Steve Stricker in 2017, and he thinks about his role in the outcome of the 2003 Cup all the time. He still regrets that he didn’t deliver in the clutch in South Africa, site of the infamous tie.
“I screwed the whole thing up,” Love said. “I had played a really good match from tee to green and had lipped out a bunch of putts and got to the last hole leading Robert Allenby 1 up, so I only needed to tie (that hole) and we’d have won the Cup.”
The finishing hole at the Links Course at Fancourt Hotel and Country Club is a par 5 and Love split the fairway with his drive. When he arrived at his ball, U.S. Captain Jack Nicklaus was waiting there and advised him that many players had overshot the green.
“Of course, I panicked and hit a big flare to the right and short, chili-dipped it and gave Allenby the hole,” Love recalled.
That meant a playoff for the first time in the history of the competition, with Tiger Woods selected to represent the American side against Ernie Els in his native land. The stalemate could not be broken after three playoff holes. As darkness descended, Captains Nicklaus and Gary Player agreed to share the Cup.
South African president Thabo Mbeki presents the Presidents Cup to the two sharing captains: Jack Nicklaus of the United States and the International Team’s Gary Player in South Africa. (Photo: Getty Images)
“Tiger claims that I put him in a terrible situation having to play Ernie in South Africa. I said, ‘I set you up to be a hero.’ I sat up on the hill with my head in my hands watching those guys play in the dark going there’s no reason we should be playing now,” Love remembers. “Nicklaus will not let it go. He’ll say, ‘If you had just hit the 4-iron on the green we would’ve won.’ I set him up for another great moment of sportsmanship in his legacy.”
Nicklaus oversaw his U.S. team edge Player’s International squad in the next two editions, played in 2005 again at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia and in 2007 at Royal Montreal Golf Club in Canada.
Fred Couples took over the captaincy for the U.S. side in 2009, and the Americans made it three in a row at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. In 2011, Royal Melbourne again hosted but the Internationals couldn’t stop the U.S. winning streak. Neither could Nick Price in the captain’s role push the Internationals into the victory column in 2013 at Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, as Couples captains successfully for a third time. Woods won the deciding point for the U.S. in all three wins under Couples.
In 2015, the Presidents Cup made its first foray into Asia at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea in Incheon City, South Korea. Captain Jay Haas watched his son, Bill, win the deciding point in the last Singles match as the U.S. edged Price and the Internationals for the sixth straight victory. The U.S. side dominated in 2017 back on home soil at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey, claiming the first four team sessions and needing just one point to clinch heading into Sunday’s singles.
The Presidents Cup returned to Royal Melbourne for a third time in 2019 and delivered one of the most closely contested matches in the biennial event’s history.
The close-but-no-cigar result meant the team’s record in the biennial event is 1-11-1 and it hasn’t won in a quarter century – a losing streak that dates to 1998. It’s a dubious distinction and one that The International side intends to rectify under the leadership of another South African.
Trevor Immelman, assistant captain of the International team for the 2019 Presidents Cup, looks on during the team photo session at Royal Melbourne Golf Course Australia. (Photo: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
Trevor Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion and lead analyst for CBS Sports’ golf coverage beginning next year, takes over the reins from Els this time and will lead his 12-man team into battle at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. In two Presidents Cup appearance in 2005 and 2007, he compiled a 1-6-1 record. Immelman is confident his side has turned a corner. He hopes to build on the blueprint for victory that Els implemented in 2019.
Immelman noted that he has “literally and physically massive shoes to fill,” but “Ernie for the first time gave our team an identity and something to try to build off. You know, we almost got there.”
Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the International team always has been creating a team atmosphere with players from so many different countries, different cultures and speaking different languages.
“We represent a large portion of the world,” Immelman said. “Last time in Australia we had eight different regions represented. So we have to try and bridge those gaps from a communication and culture standpoint, so those are the things that we work really hard on.”
“Sometimes you met the guy for the first time on Tuesday afternoon of the competition,” International Team assistant captain Geoff Ogilvy said. “I didn’t know K.T. Kim (in 2011). By Saturday we’re great friends but it took until Saturday.”
Has Els set the wheels in motion to end the U.S. domination by nearly pulling off an improbable upset? Will another loss diminish the team’s competitive spirit or ignite an intense rivalry?
Adam Scott of Australia celebrates on the 17th green after he and Byeong-Hun An of South Korea and the International team defeated Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau of the United States team 2&1 during Thursday four-ball matches at the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne Golf Course in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)
No one has endured losing at the Presidents Cup quite like Adam Scott. The Australian has represented the International Team nine times – this year marks his 10th – in the biennial competition since 2003, but he has yet to taste victory. As Ogilvy put it, “Adam is burning to win one of these.”
His resolve has not been broken.
“I’ve taken plenty of licks in this thing,” Scott said. “But I’ve always taken something so positive from this event. So many positive things have happened, so I don’t see this event as a real negative for me. I like what’s happening in the future and I can’t wait for another crack at it.”
Immelman is quite familiar with the Queen City from competing
in the Wells Fargo Championship, where he once finished second, losing a sudden-death playoff in 2006 to Jim Furyk, and from visiting his parents, who formerly resided there.
At 42, he will be the youngest man to captain either side and he and his men will face a tough test. Immelman served as an assistant captain in 2019 and as a TV broadcaster for CBS Sports and Golf Channel witnessed first-hand the USA’s youthful brigade and how it dismantled Europe in the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Add in the fact that the Internationals are playing on foreign soil and has never won an away match and it could be an uphill battle. But at least most of Immelman’s crew will have experience at the layout from playing in the Wells Fargo Championship or during the 2017 PGA Championship.
No. 16 at Quail Hollow Club, which will play as No. 13 in the Presidents Cup (Photo: Ben Jared/PGA Tour)
“I struggle to think of a better place to hold a team event like this,” Immelman said of Quail Hollow. “The Green Mile is going to be an incredible place to watch the pressure points of the match. There’s just nowhere to hide on those holes.
“The golf course has always been one of my favorites on the PGA Tour, and I believe from a match play standpoint, it’s going to be extremely exciting,” Love said. “The way the routing is planned out, I see like a seven- or eight-hole stretch where we’re going to have drivable par-4s, we’re going to have par-5s, we’ve got all these holes with water in play. It’s going to be fantastic to get the crowd really revved up supporting their home team, and I just can’t wait.”
Love has taken the responsibility seriously almost from the minute the U.S side clinched the Ryder Cup last September.
“We just got done with it on Sunday, and the guys said, ‘Are you going home? What are you doing?’ and I go, ‘No, I’m going to Presidents Cup. Midnight it starts Presidents Cup year.’ ”
Love has been looking ahead to the Presidents Cup ever since, but he won’t fall prey to assuming his team will march to an easy victory.
“They could bring 12 Korn Ferry guys and they could be really good. I’m not going to get into it being easy,” Love said. “You’ve got to win every session. That’s going to be the challenge. I feel bad for Trevor that some of his big-name guys have left him. Plus, we have home-field advantage with a really good team so expectations are high.”
Both Captains have participated in enough editions of the Presidents Cup to share the belief of Nicklaus, a four-time U.S. captain of the event, who said, “The Presidents Cup is as much about sportsmanship, goodwill and charity as it is about competition.”
No matter the result, these 24 players no they have been part of something special, something they will always remember, and have had a chance to represent their country in international competition.
“You wait so long, and it feels like time stands still, and then the tournament starts, and it’s just over in the blink of an eye,” Immelman said, “and at the end of the week you’re just walking around giving people hugs saying, ‘I’ve got to get on this team next time.’”
Mike Weir will seek his second PGA Tour Champions win Sunday at En-Joie Golf Course.
ENDICOTT, N.Y. — Through long shadows and squinting eyes, late-finishing competitors concluded Round 2 of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open on Saturday following a late-afternoon weather delay just shy of two hours.
Mike Weir will seek his second PGA Tour Champions win beginning 1 p.m. Sunday at En-Joie Golf Course following rounds of 67 and 65. His lead is one over Padraig Harrington and three over Ernie Els and Vijay Singh.
Jim Furyk is among a trio four off the lead following a 1-under 71. Beyond those, it’d take some serious doing to chase down a victory in Endicott, given the strength above.
Play was suspended a bit before 3 p.m. with the final group playing the sixth and leader Els — 9-under at the time — a hole ahead. The delay lingered 1 hour, 57 minutes.
Weir, 52 and an eight-time winner on the regular tour, made bogey on the second hole but set in motion a brilliant stretch beginning with birdie at the par-5 fifth.
“Yeah, it was a bit of a slow start,” he said. “Hit a nice shot into 2 that went a little long and made a bogey. Missed a very short putt on 3 for birdie from four feet, so it wasn’t the start I wanted. Then I hit some really nice shots. I hit a big drive on the par 5, No. 5, and just had a 7-iron in and made birdie there. Then the next hole I hit a good drive and a 9-iron to eight or 10 feet, made that one. Then I made a long one on 7, so then I had some momentum, three in a row.
“Maybe 30-foot putt on No. 7. The par 5, I was on the green with a good look for eagle again on 8, so there was four in a row there. I had a good look on 9, just missed it, and then hit it close on 10, eight feet, hit it six, eight feet on 11.
“So outside of the putt on No. 6 I made from long range, there were a lot of close putts. And then coming home I made the one birdie, made a nice birdie on 16 from an awkward position. I pulled my tee shot a little bit, got behind a tree, hit a very nice recovery shot, but it was a bonus that that putt went in there.”
Weir, 2003 Masters champion, broke through on the PGA Tour Champions with win at the 2021 Insperity Invitational, reduced to 36 holes by heavy rain. He was T4 in the late-May Senior PGA and finished T14 last weekend outside Seattle.
Of his seven birdies in an eight-hole segment beginning at the fifth, “It’s fun. You’re just thinking birdie, you’re just thinking middle of the fairway, get me in the fairway because my iron game is good and the putter’s finally starting to heat up for the first time this year. I was kind of chomping at the bit for more holes.”
Harrington, 50, was 2-under through 10 and made four birdies and a bogey coming in.
He came to Endicott on the heels of five top-three finishes in his most recent seven starts, highlighted by a win in the U.S. Senior Open. He tops the PGA Tour Champions in driving distance and birdie average, and sits third in greens in regulation.
“The happiest thing today was I rolled everything at the hole,” he said. “I think that’s the most important thing out here. At times you can struggle a bit with your confidence in the putting and I had a day today where they didn’t all drop, but I rolled the ball beautifully today. I wish I did that every day.”
Els made six birdies on the front, another at the par-5 12th, but played 2-over coming home. Last summer, rounds of 68-65-72 left him solo second at En-Joie. He was leader by three through 36 holes on the strength of that bogey-free 65 in Saturday’s second round.
Joey Sindelar, 3-under through eight, shot 70 and will begin third-round play 2-under. He is competing in the Dick’s Open for a 14th time.
Kevin Sutherland was 5-under through eight in Round 2 and closed with 69. As a rookie, he shot 13-under 59 in Round 2 of the 2014 Dick’s Open, a PGA Tour Champions record (12 birdies, 1 eagle, 18th-hole bogey).
Opening-round tri-leader Darren Clarke made birdie at the last for a 72 and sits five off the lead.
Just in case? Playoff holes will be (in order) 18-18-9 and repeated as necessary.
Last year’s 12-under, 204 total was highest by a Dick’s Open winner (Cameron Beckman) through the first 14 editions. Five times the champion cracked 16-under 200. The tournament record remains Lonnie Nielsen’s 21-under 195 in 2009.
Stars of the 50-and-over set are aligned in fine fashion to compete for $2.1 million in prize money.
BINGHAMTON, New York — Off one dark year followed by a decidedly modified version last summer, the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open is in celebratory mode for its return to presumed normalcy this week at En-Joie Golf Course.
Stars of the 50-and-over set are aligned in fine fashion to compete for $2.1 million in prize money on a municipal course that will host PGA Tour-sanctioned golf for the 51st time.
Competition is to commence Friday morning, with the conclusion of play − if all goes according to script − to come roughly 5:30 Sunday in Endicott.
Aside from utilization of digital tickets, which has become increasingly popular in the sports and entertainment industries, there’ll be no remnants of last year’s ticketing model. For 2021, when in deference to lingering COVID precautions capacity was capped at 5,000 per day − including for Friday’s Old Dominion concert − there were no exceptions to the $500 all-inclusive package for the tournament proper.
The field has been assembled — entries closed at 5 p.m. Friday and participants in the $2.1 million PGA Tour Champions event are to include:
• Steven Alker, who tops the PGA Tour Champions’ 2022 earnings list with $2,321,361.
• Alex Cejka, who has three top-four finishes this season.
• Darren Clarke, winner of last month’s Senior British Open.
• Ernie Els, runner-up by a stroke last summer in his Dick’s Open debut.
• Jim Furyk, a 17-time winner on the regular tour who was a three-time winner and three-time runner-up in 2020-21.
• Padraig Harrington, two-time British Open winner and this year’s U.S. Senior Open champion.
• Miguel Angel Jimenez, 10-time top-10 finisher this year who won last weekend’s Boeing Classic.
• Bernhard Langer, 43-time PGA Tour Champions winner who topped the 2014 Dick’s Open.
“I had a great time last year and you had a great champion, Cameron Beckman,” Els said via video on Twitter. “ … I’m really looking forward to coming back and enjoying the golf course and the people. Everything about the Dick’s tournament is just world-class.”
The 78-player field will be rounded out in today’s four-spot qualifier at The Links at Hiawatha Landing in Apalachin.
The Dick’s Sporting Goods Open has been played every year in Endicott from 2007 on, but for 2020, when the event was canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just one previous Dick’s Open wrap-up round has been played later in a calendar year than will be this week’s Aug. 21 closer. That came in 2015 when on Aug. 30, Jeff Maggert completed a two-stroke win over Paul Goydos for his fourth victory in a 10-start span − as an astute columnist wrote, “ … fairly well Langerian, or back in the day, Irwinian.”
A pre-competition treat comes in the form of the UHS Golf Expo featuring World Golf Hall of Fame member and PGA Tour Champions legend Bernhard Langer. That’ll be held Wednesday, with Langer’s presentation to come some time in the 6:15 p.m. range on the 18th green.
