The World Champions Cup was scheduled for Dec. 5-8, 2024.
One of the newest team events in golf is going to have to wait a bit longer to have its second competition.
The World Champions Cup features players from the PGA Tour Champions and debuted last year at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida. It’s being postponed until 2025, however, with the news coming on the heels of two hurricanes, Helene and Milton, ravaging the Florida gulf coast and other areas of the United States.
“Our goal with the World Champions Cup is to provide a first-class experience for all our partners and fans,” PGA Tour Champions, The Concession Golf Club, Manatee County and Intersport said in a joint statement. “We are pleased that the Bradenton area sustained minimal damage, but given the timing of the tournament in relation to the recent storms, we believe that focusing our efforts on the future is in the best interests of everyone involved.
“Last year, the fourth global team competition renewed decades-old rivalries among many of the world’s best golfers in its inaugural playing, providing drama and entertainment to golf fans. We are excited to welcome back our fans and continue to build the event’s legacy in 2025.”
The World Champions Cup debuted in 2023. It’s a the three-day PGA Tour Champions competition involving three teams: Team USA, Team Europe and Team International.
In January, the event agreed to a multi-year extension to return to The Concession in 2024, 2025, and 2028. Host courses for the 2026 and 2027 tournaments will be announced at a later date.
The World Champions Cup was scheduled for Dec. 5-8, 2024. Team USA won the inaugural competition.
The area is estimated to have received 15 to 20 inches of rain.
Pelican Golf Club reopened for play Wednesday, one week after Hurricane Milton left much of the Belleair, Florida, course flooded. Remarkably, the show will go on at The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican next month in the Tampa Bay area, and with WNBA star Caitlin Clark playing in the pro-am, it’s likely to be a blockbuster.
Last Thursday evening, when Director of Golf/COO Justin Sheehan stood in the middle of the 13th fairway, he wasn’t sure what to expect. The 13th was flooded from 100 yards out, including the green. The 16th green was underwater, as was half of the 10th, a two-tiered green. Everywhere he turned, something was flooded.
How long, he wondered, could the greens hold up under this much water? Would the bunkers cave in?
Incredibly, the water receded back to almost normal overnight, Sheehan said. It was actually more upsetting, however, to see what was left underneath.
“There were piles of pine straw 4 feet high,” he noted. “The bunker on No. 3 was completely filled with pine straw, couldn’t see an ounce of sand in there.”
The club lost 20 to 25 substantial trees as 100 mph winds ripped through the state. The area is estimated to have received 15 to 20 inches of rain.
Friday morning was an all-hands-on-deck effort led by Chris Corr, the club’s director of grounds. Members of the Doyle family, who own the club, came out to help as well as a number of club members, including juniors, who put on gloves and wielded rakes, shovels and leaf blowers.
This will be the fifth edition of The Annika, held Nov. 14-17. As the penultimate event on the LPGA schedule, The Annika is the cutoff for finalizing status for the 2025 season as well as the field for the lucrative CME Group Tour Championship.
Sei Young Kim won the first edition in 2020, and Nelly Korda won the next two. Last year, Lilia Vu capped off her breakout season at the Pelican with a fourth victory and rose to No. 1 in the world.
“It’s part of the fabric of this club,” said Sheehan of an event that has quickly rose to prominence on tour.
No doubt it will feel even more special this year as so many work hard to rebuild.
Photos: Pelican Golf Club
Take a look at some drone images taken Thursday evening, after the season’s second Category 5 hurricane wreaked havoc on Florida’s coast:
By Sunday, incredibly, the maintenance staff was able to mow the entire golf course.
Which top courses are open, which are still closed after Hurricane Milton?
Hurricane Milton had different impacts on various golf courses along its path across the Florida Peninsula last Wednesday and Thursday, and some courses have reopened fully while others are waiting for water to drain before welcoming players.
Many people are still suffering mightily after the storm, with more than 400,000 Florida residents still without power. Food and water are in short supply in the worst-hit areas, lines are out of hand at some gas stations and federal agencies are trying to help as thousands of electric crews race to turn back on the lights, refrigerators and air conditioners.
It can seem like a weird time to think about a game, but golf is big business in Florida, and many people’s livelihoods depend on golf as the state begins its recovery. The National Golf Foundation reports there are more than 1,200 courses in Florida that serve nearly 1.6 million players, with an economic impact of $8.2 billion in 2022. More than 132,000 people work in Florida’s golf industry.
The biggest problem for most golf courses wasn’t Milton’s winds so much as its water. Some places in Florida received nearly two feet of rainfall overnight, and several courses are still under water in places. It can take weeks for that much water to recede from a low-lying course. It was especially damaging as Milton struck just two weeks in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which inundated Florida’s western coast with storm surge and dumped huge volumes of rain across the peninsula before hammering into Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Flooding waters from Hurricane Milton surround the par-3 16th green at Forest Lake in Ocoee, Florida, near Orlando. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
As an example of water damage, this author received a close-up look at storm water Sunday on a round at the daily-fee Forest Lake Golf Club in Ocoee near Orlando. The course had standing water on many holes, deep enough to resemble ponds more than puddling. Course operators had cobbled together a new layout, playing one par 4 and one par 5 as par 3s to avoid saturated areas in fairways while they clean up after the storm and await water to recede. One par 3 across a pond was closed entirely as water had risen to surround the green like a moat and covered two-thirds of the putting surface. Players should expect to find such conditions at many courses across Florida as grounds crews work to restore normal playing conditions.
Hundreds of courses stretch along the path of Hurricane Milton. For a sampling of how those courses are doing after the storm, we checked on the layouts that appear in Golfweek’s Best rankings of public-access courses. These vary from daily-fee operations to huge resorts. Some have reopened with negligible effects from the storm, while others remain closed. At the bottom of this story is an update on several highly ranked private clubs, too.
Streamsong
Streamsong Red in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Evan Schiller)
Home to three highly ranked courses – the Red by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the Blue by Tom Doak, and the Black by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner – Streamsong received no major damage in the storm. The resort will reopen Tuesday after having been closed for several days as power was restored. The three courses on a former mining site feature very few trees to have blown down, and they were built atop huge piles of sand that expedited drainage. The Red is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 2 public-access course in Florida and ties for No. 37 among all modern courses in the U.S. The Blue is No. 3 in Florida and ties for No. 53 among modern courses, and the Black is No. 4 in Florida and ties for No. 67 among modern courses.
Bay Hill Club and Lodge
No. 17 at Bay Hill Club and Lodge (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
Longtime home to the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, Bay Hill in Orlando is still closed as it deals with flooding after Hurricane Milton. The club is waiting for water to recede – notably on the around-the-pond par-5 sixth hole and the downhill over-the-pond 17th – before announcing a reopening plan. The facility also suffered tree damage. Bay Hill ranks No. 6 among public-access courses in Florida. Bay Hill hopes to have its 9-hole course, The Challenger, opened in the next several days.
Innisbrook
The Copperhead (Courtesy of Innisbrook Resort)
The home of the Copperhead Course – longtime site of the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship – is in Palm Harbor, just west of Tampa and closer to the Gulf of Mexico. The resort has posted on its website that limited dining options have reopened. The resort features four golf courses: Copperhead, Island, North and South. Of those four, nine holes reopened Monday. Those nine are a compilation of holes on the North and South courses. The Copperhead – ranked No. 9 among all public-access courses in Florida – has not reopened, and a timeframe is not mentioned on the resort’s website.
Southern Dunes
Southern Dunes (Courtesy of Southern Dunes)
The Steve Smyers layout southwest of Orlando in Haines City lost a few trees, but the course reopened Saturday with minimal damage. Southern Dunes sits on rolling sand dunes, which helps tremendously with drainage. Southern Dunes ranks No. 14 among all public-access courses in Florida.
PGA Golf Club
PGA Golf Club’s Dye Course (Montana Pritchard/The PGA of America)
PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie on Florida’s eastern coast – home to three courses ranked among the top 30 public-access layouts in the state – has reopened two of those courses, Dye (ranked No. 17) and Ryder (No. 30). The resort’s Wannamaker course (ranked No. 18) was closed well before the storm for a renovation, and it is scheduled to reopen in November as planned. A handful of holes on the two open courses are cart-path-only as the facility continues to dry out.
Orange County National
Panther Lake at Orange County National in Florida (Courtesy of Orange County National)
Home to two courses among the top 30 in the state, Panther Lake (No. 23) and Crooked Cat (tied for No. 27), this Winter Garden facility just west of Orlando reopened Friday after the storm. The property’s massive circular driving range was humming with business Saturday, as usual.
Celebration
Celebration Golf Club (Courtesy of Celebration)
Ranked No. 29 among public-access courses in Florida, this course southwest of Orlando is still closed after Milton. The club has posted on social media that it hopes to reopen Wednesday, as water continues to drain. Golfers can check the club’s Facebook page for more information and updates.
Grand Cypress
A longtime Central Florida golf icon, Grand Cypress is home to two courses – the Cypress and the Links – at the new Evermore resort southwest of Orlando next to Disney World. The Cypress is open for play now, while the Links is slated to reopen Tuesday as stormwater recedes. Formerly known as the New Course, the renamed Links ties for No. 30 among all public-access courses in Florida.
Private clubs
Belleair near Tampa shortly after a restoration of the Donald Ross-designed course by Jason Straka (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Calls to several top-rated private courses in especially hard-hit areas, such as Mountain Lake in Lake Wales and The Concession in Bradenton, went unanswered. Belleair, just west of Tampa along the Intracoastal Waterway, lost dozens of trees on its two courses, and its recently restored West Course reopened Monday while its East Course will take a few more days. Nearby, Pelican Golf Club – home to the LPGA’s The Annika Driven by Gainbridge scheduled for Nov. 14-17 – plans to reopen Wednesday.
Hurricane Milton forced the postponement at Plantation Golf and Country Club in Venice, Florida.
At the time, the LPGA made the decision “because of the potential impacts of Hurricane Milton, and with the safety of athletes, caddies, staff, volunteers, and the local community as our top priority.”
Venice is located about an hour south of Tampa, an area that was expected to take a direct hit from Milton, but the storm shifted farther south than originally forecast.
On Friday, the LPGA announced that Q-Series is back on. In a statement, the tour said:
Following an assessment of the course and in close coordination with Plantation Golf and Country Club, the Qualifying Stage of LPGA Q-Series has been rescheduled for October 20 – 25, 2024.
The safety of athletes, caddies, staff, volunteers, and the local community continues to be our top priority. Our thoughts remain with the entire Florida community as we further assess the impacts of Hurricane Milton.
The Qualifying Stage is the second of three in the LPGA Q-Series. Last month, pre-qualifying was held in California at Mission Hills Country Club and Indian Wells Golf Course. Final Qualifying is scheduled for Dec. 5-9 in Mobile, Alabama, at Magnolia Grove Golf Club.
Due to Hurricane Milton, the Tennessee-Florida rugby game has been canceled.
Tennessee was slated to host Florida in rugby on Friday and in football on Saturday. Due to Hurricane Milton, Friday’s Tennessee-Florida rugby contest has been canceled in Knoxville.
“Hurricane Milton has upended our plans to host Florida on Friday night,” Tennessee rugby announced. “Florida is not able to travel to Knoxville, so the match has been canceled.”
The Vols are slated to host Florida in football on Saturday at Neyland Stadium. Kickoff between Tennessee and the Gators is scheduled for 7 p.m. EDT and will be televised by ESPN.
Tennessee rugby will next host Alabama on Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. EDT ahead of the Vols-Crimson Tide football game at Neyland Stadium on Oct. 19 (3:30 p.m. EDT, ABC).
Before it has even made landfall in the United States, Hurricane Milton is affecting professional golf.
The LPGA announced Tuesday its Qualifying Stage Q-Series event, scheduled for Oct. 13-18 at Plantation Golf and Country Club in Venice, Florida, has been postponed. The decision was made because of the “potential impacts of Hurricane Milton, and with the safety of athletes, caddies, staff, volunteers, and the local community as our top priority.”
“Updates will be announced following a thorough assessment of conditions after the storm passes,” the statement continued. “Our thoughts are with the entire Florida community as we prepare for the storm.”
Venice is located about an hour south of Tampa, an area which is expected to take a direct hit from Milton, which is moving eastward through the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 5 hurricane. Landfall is expected late Wednesday.
The Qualifying Stage is the second of three in the LPGA Q-Series. Last month, pre-qualifying was held in California at Mission Hills Country Club and Indian Wells Golf Course. Final Qualifying is scheduled for Dec. 5-9 in Mobile, Alabama, at Magnolia Grove Golf Club.
Hurricane Milton: Jaguars ‘still on schedule’ for London flight
This story was updated to correct a typo.
Hurricane Milton, which reached Category 5 status with maximum sustained winds of 175 miles per hour Monday afternoon as it churns in the Gulf of Mexico, has not yet impacted the Jaguars’ plans as they prepare to travel from Jacksonville to London, England on Thursday.
The Jaguars are scheduled for back-to-back international games in Weeks 6-7, against the Chicago Bears at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Oct. 13 and the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 20, both in London.
“Right now we’re still on schedule to leave Thursday night, or Thursday afternoon, evening, whatever it is. 5:30 [p.m. ET], I think,” Pederson said Monday. “We’re going to monitor it, where it hits and how it comes this way. But as of right now, everything is still normal.”
As of Monday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center projects Hurricane Milton to make landfall around Tampa on Wednesday evening and likely ravage central Florida, moving across the state toward the greater Atlantic Ocean with a risk of hitting Jacksonville as a weakened storm.
