10 destinations have three or more highly ranked courses on Golfweek’s Best Top 200 Resort Courses list.
What do you really want in a golf trip? If your answer is golf, golf, then more golf in one spot, sometimes followed by a wee bit of extra golf, we have you covered.
Golfweek’s Best ranks courses around the world by various categories, ranging from modern courses to the best in each state. One of our most popular rankings is the top 200 resort courses in the U.S.
Any of the layouts on the list would make for a great getaway. More than three dozen resorts have two courses on the list, always begging for a comparison between layouts over a nice cold drink and dinner after a full day of golf.
But if you’re looking for more, keep reading. Because 10 resorts are home to three or more courses on Golfweek’s Best ranking of top resorts in the U.S. From coastal Oregon to inland Florida, these destinations have the holes — and the pedigrees — to keep golfers swinging for days.
Pinehurst No. 4 (Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort)
Six of these resorts have three courses ranked among the top 200. They are Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri, Firestone Country Club in Ohio, Pebble Beach Resorts in California, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, Sea Pines in South Carolina and Streamsong in Florida.
Two of these are not traditional resorts. The first is Firestone, which for the most part is a private members club. But Firestone offers stay-and-play packages open to the public. That qualifies it as a resort based on Golfweek’s Best standards in which any course that offers tee times to the public, even if the club is mostly a private facility, is deemed to be public-access.
The other in question is the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, which offers golf at 11 sites around the state. Because all the facilities are managed under one umbrella and offer great opportunities to bounce from one site to another with relative ease, we opted to include the Trail on this list.
Next up are the resorts with four courses ranked among the top 200 — rarefied air. They are Destination Kohler in Wisconsin (Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run are two clubs, each with two courses, that are part of one resort) and Reynolds Lake Oconee in Georgia, which is a sprawling resort and residential community.
Only two resorts in the U.S. have five courses among the top 200 in the U.S.: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina. Both of them are bucket-list destinations that every golfer should see, hopefully more than once. They offer all the golf most players would ever want on one vacation — playing one round on each course would take days, and one round on each course is never enough.
The resorts with three or more ranked courses have gone about their development in multiple ways. Some were established more than a century ago and have added courses through the decades — these resorts often feature courses designed by multiple architects, offering an array of styles and architectural features. Others feature several courses by one designer, with the resorts sticking with the architects who proved to work best for them.
Either way, you can’t go wrong with a trip to any of these locations listed on the following pages. Included for each resort are its top-200 courses listed with their average rating on a scale of 1 to 10 as assigned by Golfweek’s Best rater program, their designers, the years they opened and their rankings on various Golfweek’s Best lists. We hope you enjoy perusing these elite resorts, both on these pages and in real life.
And it’s worth noting, there is one more resort destination that is very likely to join this list of 10 in the coming years. Pine Needles in North Carolina, not far from Pinehurst Resort, operates three courses, two of which are on the 2023 list of top 200 resorts: Pine Needles (No. 47) and Mid Pines (T-35). The company’s third course, the recently renovated Southern Pines, didn’t have the requisite number of votes to qualify for this year’s list but is almost a lock to appear on the list in upcoming years.
After opening with a 5-under 65, Steve Stricker stumbled during the second round of the Kaulig Companies Championship, shooting a 3-over 73 on Friday. He bounced back nicely on Saturday, however, firing another 65 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, to get to 7 under for the tournament and tied atop the leaderboard.
Harrison Frazar, the 36-hole leader, shot a third-round even-par 70 and is tied with Stricker. Frazar is looking for his first win on the PGA Tour Champions and hasn’t finished inside the top 10 of an event since February. Sticker on the other hand, has already won four times on the senior circuit this season. His worse finish in 12 starts is a tie for eighth at the Cologuard Classic in March.
Stewart Cink, after and third-round even-par 70, is in third at 6 under, one back.
Ernie Els and K.J. Choi are tied for fourth, two back of the leaders at 5 under. Scott Parel is solo fifth at 4 under while David Toms is alone in sixth at 3 under.
Harrison Frazar followed up his opening-round 65 with a 2-under 68 and leads the Kaulig Companies Championship at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.
The 51-year-old, who hasn’t finished inside the top 10 since February, is still searching for his first win on the PGA Tour Champions. In his last start, Frazar tied for 32nd at the U.S. Senior Open.
Frazar’s one-shot advantage is over Stewart Cink, who has used rounds of 66-68 to get to 6 under for the tournament.
This is Cink’s second start on the senior circuit this season. The first came at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship where he finished third.
Ernie Els is alone in third at 5 under, K.J. Choi is solo fourth at 4 under, while Steve Stricker and Scott Parel are tied for fifth at 2 under.
AKRON, Ohio — Like many golfers of all levels hoping to keep playing as long as possible, Bernhard Langer is in a battle with Father Time.
He’s aware of Father Time’s undefeated record. He’s still throwing punches anyway. And he’s landing a few, too.
Langer recently broke the record for the most PGA Tour Champions victory at the U.S. Senior Open. It was his record-setting 46th victory on the tour, breaking a tie with Hale Irwin, and his 12th major title.
He’ll also be celebrating his 66th birthday next month. Nobody has had more success on the PGA Tour Champions than Langer. Nobody has kept jabbing with Father Time at a higher level of performance longer than him, either.
“Father Time is always winning at some point, and I’m just trying to slow down the process of aging and falling apart,” Langer said ahead of Thursday’s Round 1 of the 2023 Kaulig Companies Championship. “I certainly have more aches and pains now than I’ve had 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. That just comes with the territory.”
Langer has three titles at Firestone Country Club, so his widespread success has also been felt in Akron. What’s behind his success in competing — and winning — into his mid-60s? It’s part mental, part physical, part genetics.
Bernhard Langer watches his team play out the No. 4 hole during the 2023 Kaulig Companies Championship Pro-Am at Firestone Country Club, Wednesday, July 12, 2023, in Akron, Ohio.
One could say it’s the holy trinity of punching Father Time in the mouth.
The first element? Genetics. Langer’s mom will be turning 100 in two weeks.
“Hopefully I have my mother’s genes,” he said.
The second ingredient? The drive to be the best never left him. That fire has remained stoked for decades, and it’s burning as bright now as it did during his best years on the PGA Tour.
“Yeah, that’s another thing not everybody has, and I think it was given to me — the drive I have is very unusual,” Langer said. “To be turning 66 in a month from now and still want to improve and get better and compete with the young guys out here, many people don’t have that.
“You look at Byron Nelson — his drive was to win enough money to buy a farm and be a farmer. So, everybody’s different.”
Ingredient number three? Langer has worked hard to maintain his same fitness levels. Quite amazingly, he still uses the same iron shaft flex that he has for the last 40 years. In order to make that work, his swing speed would need to remain stable.
Langer has, of course, noticed some slight distance loss with his driver and 3-wood. That is to be expected. But through some altered workouts, he’s actually regained some driver clubhead speed.
Father Time threw an uppercut, but Langer was able to land a few jabs.
“As I said, I’m trying to slow down the process of aging,” Langer said. “I’m not going to win. I’m just going to try and slow it down.”
Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByRyanLewis.
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.
“It was very unexpected how much attention we got, but she is really cute, so it is not too surprising.”
AKRON, Ohio – Jayni and Ryan Hershberger were “looking for something to do” Sunday afternoon in Akron.
With temperatures in the mid-80s and plenty of sunshine, the couple made the short walk to Firestone Country Club with their five-month old daughter, Marlowe, to watch the final round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.
They also brought a hand-written sign that read “My first golf tournament” to Firestone’s South Course.
Bridgestone Senior Players Champion Jerry Kelly saw the sign and young Marlowe after he compiled a four-day score of 11-under-par 269 and met with the family.
Kelly handed the Hershberger family his hat that he wore Sunday, posed for pictures and even held young Marlowe, who wore a shirt that read “Little Wonder.”
“I got her smiling,” Kelly said. “She is cute.”
Kelly also signed the hat and the sign, which came from the inside of a Pampers box.
When asked when was the last time he held a baby that little, Kelly said with a laugh: “Yeah, that would be 22 years ago, almost 23 years ago, yes. Nieces and nephews, things like that, but no grandkids. “Soon, I hope.”
Ryan Hershberger said the “My first golf tournament” sign idea came from his mother.
“We love the tournament that comes here every year,” Ryan Hershberger said. “We live two blocks away and decided to come over. We are looking forward to the Akron Symphony afterwards as well.”
“I grew up five minutes away and used to come to the golf tournament here all the time with my parents,” Ryan Hershberger said. “Now, we have this one so we wanted to share the tradition with her.
“… This is very memorable for sure, especially getting to meet the one who wins the whole tournament. To have that moment with our daughter is definitely something we can treasure forever.”
“It will be fun to show her things that she didn’t even know she was experiencing,” Jayni Hershberger said. “When she gets older, it will be fun to show her ‘Yeah, you met that guy.'”
Marlowe Hershberger smiled as her parents spoke and fiddled around with her new toy, a signed Jerry Kelly hat.
“It was very unexpected how much attention we got, but she is really cute, so it is not too surprising,” Jayni Hershberger said with a laugh.
Stricker led wire-to-wire in winning the 2021 tournament and endured a life-threatening illness in the months that followed.
Who will win the final Bridgestone Senior Players Championship? It’s up for grabs, but players appear to be enjoying themselves at the fourth and penultimate senior major of the season.
Alker has four PGA Tour Champions victories, including the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in 2022.
New Zealander Steven Alker is enjoying playing golf at Firestone Country Club for the first time.
Alker spoke Friday about the first time he visited Akron and walked the famed South Course — as a spectator in the late 1990s.
“Funny enough, a buddy of mine, Phil Tataurangi, who used to play the [PGA] Tour, I think he played here a couple times in the World event,” Alker said Friday after posting a 4-under 66 in the second round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.
“So, followed him around a couple days and I knew the layout and I’ve seen the golf course, but in terms of playing it, no. I’m loving it. You’ve just got to golf your ball.”
Alker was playing the Canadian Tour at the time and said he drove down to Akron and spent a couple of days walking the grounds of Firestone.
Alker, 50, left Firestone on Friday in a tie for first with Tim Petrovic, Alex Cejka and Joe Durant at 6-under through the first two days of the Bridgestone Senior Players.
“It’s nice to have a bogey-free round at Firestone,” Alker said. “It’s that type of golf course, you’ve just got to keep going. But kind of everything, drove it in the fairway for the most part and hit a lot of greens except for the last few. I scrambled nicely the last couple holes. Overall, just a solid day. Kind of kept my nose clean and haven’t done too much wrong. A few more putts would be nice, but yeah, at Firestone, just fairways and greens around here.”
Alker has won four PGA Tour Champions victories — the TimberTech Championship during the 2020-21 season, and the Rapiscan Systems Classic, the Insperity Invitational the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in 2022.
He also has seven international wins — the Fiji Open in 1995, the Tahiti Open and the Queensland Open (Australia) in 1996, the South Australian Open (Australia) in 1997 and the McDonald’s PEI Challenge (Canada), the Bayer Championship (Canada) and the PEI Challenge (Canada) in 2000.
Alker is also enjoying playing in a field of Hall of Fame golfers on the Champions Tour.
“Just getting comfortable in this company, I think that’s the biggest thing,” Alker said. “Just like learning to play my game. It’s been hard to watch these guys but just stay in my skin and play my game. And then learning the courses, these are all new. I like playing new courses, it kind of gets me up and going. So just everything, to travel to different places, just the whole package. It’s been fun.
“… I hadn’t played with a lot of these guys when I was on Tour or Europe or anything. So [Steve] Stricker, Vijay [Singh], Ernie [Els] and all those guys, I hadn’t played with them before. Just getting comfortable playing with them. And they’re super guys. Maybe get a little bit older and soften up, loosen up a little bit, I don’t know, but they’re very approachable and it’s a lot of fun.”
Michael Beaven can be reached at mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Beaven on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MBeavenABJ.
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.
Kaulig Companies will supplant Bridgestone as the title sponsor of the Senior Players Championship.
For a while, the financial commitment required for Kaulig Companies to become the title sponsor of the PGA Tour Champions’ Senior Players Championship was daunting.
“On first blush, people would say, ‘Oh, let’s pass because, you know, it costs some money,’” said Tim Clepper, president and CEO of Kaulig Companies.
But then Clepper and Executive Chairman Matt Kaulig thought about the memories they’d already made at Firestone Country Club.
Kaulig, 49, a Cincinnati native, played quarterback at the University of Akron from 1992-95, married a Zips cheerleader, and put his corporate headquarters in the area. He was a tournament volunteer during his UA days, driving a van at the prestigious PGA Tour event.
“My earliest thing was Davis Love III was in our vehicle and we just thought that was the coolest thing ever,” Kaulig said.
Clepper, 47, brought his sons when they were babies, remembering the day Zach Johnson flipped his 3-year-old a golf ball. While a student at Kent State, he and his father made it “our thing” to attend the Bridgestone Invitational, won by Tiger Woods eight times.
“It’s these kind of memories that we have in our own backyard that we’re excited to take to the next level,” Clepper said
The event’s philanthropic goals, shared by Kaulig Companies, sealed the deal.
It was announced Wednesday that Kaulig Companies will supplant Bridgestone as the title sponsor of the Senior Players Championship with a four-year agreement starting in 2023.
Kaulig Companies’ sponsorship will keep the event at Firestone through at least 2026. Bridgestone will continue to be a partner in the event, according to Miller Brady, president of PGA Tour Champions.
The announcement was made during media day for the 2022 Bridgestone Senior Players, set for July 7-10, 2022. Among those attending were Akron mayor Dan Horrigan and Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro.
This year, a field of 79 will compete for a $3 million purse in the 72-hole event. The 2023 tournament will be held July 13-16.
Don Padgett III, executive director of the Bridgestone Senior Players, said Kaulig Companies will be only the third title sponsor in seven decades of tournament golf at Firestone, joining NEC and Bridgestone.
“And when we say 70 years, we’re the fourth longest-running venue of consecutive professional golf in the country,” Padgett said. “The other venues are Augusta National, Pebble Beach and Colonial in Ft. Worth, so that’s pretty good company to be in.”
Through Northern Ohio Golf Charities, professional golf at Firestone has given over $30 million to area causes. Clepper said Akron’s I Promise School, founded by LeBron James, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation are among the 150 charities Kaulig Companies have supported. Kaulig said he and his wife Lisa will serve as chairs of Akron Children’s Hospital’s Walk for Babies this year.
Clepper and Kaulig had no idea they were signing on for the 70th anniversary in 2023.
“That’s a huge deal,” Clepper said.
“When Don said that today, 70 straight years, it is special and it’s a responsibility that we take very seriously,” Kaulig said. “Bridgestone has been unbelievable for the community and for this tournament over the last 16 years. We want to take it to another level and be great and make Akron proud.”
Firestone hosted the PGA Tour’s World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational from 2006-2018 before the event moved to Memphis, Tennessee, under the sponsorship of FedEx. With Bridgestone’s continued support, Akron was then awarded one of the Champions Tour’s five senior majors. Steve Stricker (2021), Jerry Kelly (2020), and Retief Goosen (2019) have captured titles at the iconic South Course.
Kaulig Companies Limited is the single-member family office (SFO) for Kaulig and his immediate family. Its business platforms include sports and entertainment, marketing and event management, private equity, real estate and investment advisory services.
Its sports interests include Kaulig Racing, a NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series team. Now it will expand its footprint into golf.
“If it was a golf tournament in Florida, I don’t think it would have as much interest,” Kaulig said. “We do like sports, the excitement of sports, and what it can do for us. We have NASCAR and that’s all about sponsorship and your logoed up everywhere. Just to have our name as the title sponsor, the name of the golf tournament right here in Akron is really special to us.”
Clepper sees broad marketing opportunities with the relationships Kaulig Companies has developed.
“We can bring partners together, new partners here to this event, which will ultimately help us raise money for the charities in the community,” Clepper said. “Ultimately this is a charity event and the more brands and friends and fans that we can bring to this tournament, the more money we can raise, the more money we can give back.”
