Led by 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir, 15 players who have combined to win 30 PGA Tour events will be in the field for next week’s Korn Ferry Challenge at TPC Sawgrass, which will mark the return of the Korn Ferry Tour to Dye’s Valley.
The Korn Ferry Challenge is one of two high-level events that mark the return of professional golf since The Players Championship was canceled after one round on March 13. The PGA Tour is playing the Charles Schwab Challenge at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth.
The 72-hole tournament begins on Thursday. Fans will not be allowed on the course except perhaps to watch from their properties that border the playing area and there will be no live TV. The field of 156 players will be chasing a $600,000 purse, with $108,000 going to the winner.
Weir, an eight-time PGA Tour winner who has been plagued with injuries since 2011, is one of five players in the field who have won multiple PGA Tour events, only to lose their status and drop to the Korn Ferry Tour. The others are four-time winners Robert Allenby and Sean O’Hair, and two-time winners Ted Potter Jr., and Fabian Gomez.
Among the other Tour winners are David Lingmerth of Ponte Vedra Beach, Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey, and international veteran Alex Cejka.
Lingmerth, Cejka and O’Hair are notable in that they all led or had a share of the 54-hole lead in The Players Championship, at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course. Lingmerth was in a three-way tie with Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia in 2013 (Lingmerth shot 72 in the final round and Woods won), Cejka had a five-shot lead entering the final round in 2009 (Henrik Stenson won with a closing 66 as Cejka plummeted with a 79) and O’Hair led Phil Mickelson by one shot in 2007 (Mickelson won after O’Hair hit two balls into the water at No. 17).
In addition to Lingmerth, other area players in the field are Chris Baker (Jacksonville), Blayne Barber (Lake City), Sebastian Cappelen (Ponte Vedra Beach), Luke Guthrie (Jacksonville), Rick Lamb (St. Simons Island, Ga.), Sam Saunders (Atlantic Beach), Tim Wilkinson (Ponte Vedra) and Jared Wolfe (Nocatee).
Wolfe is sixth on the Korn Ferry points list and won his first tournament earlier this season in the Bahamas.
All six winners on the tour this season and the top-35 players on the points list at the time the tour was suspended are in the field, led by No. 1 Mito Perreira of Chile, a former Texas Tech player.
Eight Monday qualifiers will be added, four each from Palencia and Eagle Harbor.
The last time the Korn Ferry Tour played was March 1 when David Kocher won the El Bosque Mexico Championship.