Tag: Innisbrook Golf Resort

John Smoltz, Jerome Bettis among captains in new pro sports golf league

It’s no secret that athletes from the other major sports love to play golf.

It’s no secret that athletes from the other major sports love to play golf. For example, Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen has been a regular at PGA Tour events over the years, playing in various pro-ams, and the MVP candidate took part in the 2022 Match with teammate Patrick Mahomes.

But now a group of retired (and some current) athletes are taking their affection for the sport to a new level, as part of a five-tournament golf series slated to begin later this year.

The Pro Rivals Open will feature former greats from each of the four major sports, competing on teams in their respective sports. The first event is scheduled for Dec. 9-14 at Innisbrook Resort near Tampa, Florida.

The captains for the respective teams are as follows:

  • Baseball: John Smoltz
  • Football: Jerome Bettis
  • Hockey: Mike Modano
  • Basketball: Jon Barry

The three-day match play events will include doubles and singles matches and full rosters are expected to be announced soon. The circuit is owned by BW Sports and Pure Sports Holdings and was co-created with ETZEL, its management partner.

Copperhead Course. (Photo: Innisbrook Resort)

“Throughout my playing career, I always found an outlet on the golf course and when I get the chance to compete, I take advantage of it,” said Smoltz, a baseball Hall of Famer who has dabbled on the golf circuits for years. “I wanted to be a part of something that pushes me as an athlete, and The Pro does that in a new way. It will bring together some of the greatest professional athletes from across the world of sport, testing us in a completely new environment and format. This is such a unique and exciting concept, and it meets the ongoing passion and desire that we all have to compete at a high level.”

“Professional athletes of this caliber are never done competing,” said Nick Clark, the GM of the circuit. “The Pro taps into the relentless competitive drive of professional athletes and gives them an opportunity to compete at a high level in a new arena. We’re bringing some of the top athletes in the world to America’s biggest sports cities to deliver a compelling golf experience for players and fans, while making a positive impact in local communities by showcasing the transformative impacts of sports.”

Like other pro tournaments, the events will include two early week practice rounds, a tournament pro-am and three days of competition. Tickets, hospitality packages and more info are available here.

‘I saw blood … after that I wasn’t right:’ How beaning a spectator led to this PGA Tour rookie losing his concentration

“I really hope that she’s doing OK. If she’s seeing this, I’m truly sorry.”

Chandler Phillips shot a final-round 2-under 69 on Sunday to tie for third with Mackenzie Hughes, the best finish of the rookie’s season. But afterward, Phillips expressed concern for the members of the gallery he hit with his tee shot at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort.

“Tell you the truth, after 8, I was kind of, I don’t know, man, I hit somebody, or, I hit actually two people, and the lady that I hit didn’t look too good. So, after that, I wasn’t right,” he said.

Phillips started with an eagle at the first hole to grab a share of the lead and he hung around all day, making birdie at No. 14 to improve to 10 under and trailed by one. A bogey at No. 16, the hardest hole on the course, sealed his fate.

NBC’s Curt Byrum noted that Phillips “didn’t play like a rookie,” referring to his calm demeanor most of the day, but Phillips said that hitting two spectators – he said the ball ricocheted off of a woman and then struck a man – threw him for a loop.

“I walked up and I saw a guy, he was holding an ice pack on the back of his head,” Phillips said. “Then I see four or five people crowded around the lady, and I saw blood. I don’t know where it hit her, but they, I just wanted to make sure that they had called, like, EMS or something out here, trainers, do whatever they can to help her out. But I didn’t even get to talk to her or anything like that. I really hope that she’s doing OK. If she’s seeing this, I’m truly sorry. Obviously I’m not meaning to do that.”

He added: “I tried to keep my concentration, but kind of lost it for a handful of holes. Just hoping that she’s OK.”

Ready for Houston

Phillips, who played his college golf at Texas A&M, is looking forward to this week’s PGA Tour stop in Houston, where he expects to have a big following of friends and family.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my friends get kicked out,” he said. “They’re pretty rowdy.”

And he said the loudest of them all will be his mother.

“You damn sure will be able to hear my mom, because she don’t even call me by my name, she calls me by my nickname,” Phillips said.

The nickname? Goose.

“I don’t know where she got it,” he said. “So it will be cool to hopefully hear that next week and have them all there.”

After snapping club, this PGA Tour player withdrew from the Valspar Championship

It’s been a frustrating stretch for the pro, who finished tied for third at the Mexico Open.

Justin Lower’s opening round of the Valspar Championship was one to forget with the star finishing the day with a 77 at  Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Florida.

It’s been a frustrating stretch for Lower, who finished tied for third at the Mexico Open but has since missed two of the last three cuts, including last week at the Players Championship.

And his discontent grew on his final hole of the opening round as he tried to blast out of a greenside bunker and caught the fringe.

As Lower was exiting the bunker, he stepped on his sand wedge, snapping it in two.

With what would certainly be an uphill day on Friday, as the cutline is expected to fall somewhere near par, Lower withdrew prior to the second round of play, with no explanation given on his exit.

Kevin Streelman held the solo lead after the opening round of play as his 64 gave him a one-stroke edge over Kevin Roy and a two-stroke lead over the trio of Adam Svensson, Carl Yuan and Peter Malnati.

(Editor’s note: A previous edition of this story incorrectly listed Lower’s university. He attended Malone University in Canton, Ohio.)

Snake Pit awaits: Golfers must navigate tough closing stretch at Valspar Championship

The Snake Pit at the Valspar Championship is one of “the most difficult finishing holes on the PGA Tour.”

The Masters has Amen Corner.

The Cognizant Classic has the Bear Trap.

At the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship, golfers will need to navigate the Snake Pit, the final three holes on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook Golf Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida.

“You are entering the Snake Pit,” the plaque on the giant copper snake statue on the 16th hole says. “The Moccasin, the Rattler and the Copperhead are among the most difficult finishing holes on the PGA Tour.”

Here’s a breakdown of the closing stretch:

  • The par-4, 475-yard 16th hole was the ninth most difficult hole in 2023 with an average score of 4.373, +.373 strokes over par
  • The 215-yard, par-3 17th was the 332nd most difficult hole in 2023, with an average score of 3.074 (+.074)
  • The par-4, 445-yard 18th hole was the 187th most difficult hole in 2023, 4.146 (+.146)

Last year’s champion Taylor Moore went bogey-free over that stretch, recording nine straight pars on those holes before making birdie on No. 16 during Sunday’s final round. He then parred Nos. 17 and 18 to secure a one-shot victory.

The golf course as a whole was the seventh most difficult venue on the PGA Tour last season, with an average score of .935 strokes over par. The par-71 layout will measure 7,340 yards once again in 2024.

Tommy Fleetwood becomes PGA Tour’s second $15-million winless man

Fleetwood is gaining on Cameron Tringale, the all-time leader among the PGA Tour’s winless with $16,981,931.

Just call Tommy Fleetwood the $15-million winless man.

For the second straight week, Fleetwood teed off in one of the final groups with a chance to secure his first PGA Tour title, but once again it wasn’t to be. Don’t feel too badly for Fleetwood, who finished T-3 with Jordan Spieth at the Valspar Championship on Sunday and cashed a check for $477,900.

That moved his all-time PGA Tour earnings across the $15-million mark and nary a win in 112 career starts – $15,186,842, to be exact, for Fleetwood’s accountant and those scoring at home.

Fleetwood, of course, has won six times on the DP World Tour and ranks 10th all time on its Order of Merit with another €24,153,564.80. Fleetwood is gaining ground on Cameron Tringale, who jumped to LIV Golf last season but remains the all-time leader among the winless on the PGA Tour with winnings of $16,981,931.

Fleetwood carded a final-round 1-under-70, just his second score in the 70s in eight career rounds at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Florida, for his second top-10 finish on Tour this season (T-4 at the CJ Cup in South Carolina) and fourth finish of T-4 or higher in his last nine Tour starts. He snapped a streak of 46 Tour starts without a top-three finish, dating to a third at the 2020 Honda Classic.

Fleetwood shared the lead with Spieth and Adam Schenk at 9 under until he made bogey at the par-5 14th hole and couldn’t manage another birdie.

“I love the standard of golf over here,” Fleetwood said of playing the PGA Tour. “I’ve had my chances before and it’s not happened for me, but I think I’ve got a lot of events left in me and I don’t plan on winning once I would like to win multiple, multiple times. When my day comes that will be great.”

Here’s a list of the other players who have won more than $10 million without winning on the PGA Tour.

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Valspar Championship: Adam Schenk’s wife, 8-months pregnant, flew in Sunday morning to follow her husband, the 54-hole leader

Kourtney Schenk said that Adam even made her breakfast Sunday. What a guy!

Kourtney Schenk wasn’t going to miss seeing her husband, Adam, try to win his first PGA Tour title at the Valspar Championship.

“Really, really important,” she said of seeing Adam, the 54-hole leader, play in the final group on Sunday at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. “You can’t miss stuff like this.”

Did we mention that Kourtney is eight months pregnant and the couple is expecting its first child? Adam is playing his 10th tournament in a row on the PGA Tour in an effort to make as many FedEx Cup points before the arrival of their baby.

Courtney would not be denied. She was at home in Indiana and had family over Saturday preparing baby acknowledgements. She hardly slept, rising at 2 a.m. to catch a flight to Tampa, Florida, and made the drive to nearby Palm Harbor for the final round.

“I’m here, so, it’s fun,” she said.

She arrived at the hotel where Adam was staying about the time he was waking and preparing to go to the course. Kourtney said that Adam made her breakfast. What a guy!

Equally impressive? Kourtney was interviewed on the course by NBC’s Cara Banks, and said, “I’m feeling good so I decided to walk 18.” That meant she was in her hubby’s gallery to see him chip-in for birdie at the first and build an early two-stroke lead. (Update: A 71-foot bomb for birdie at No. 12 vaulted Adam into the lead.)

Banks asked Kourtney if she expected Adam to be in the hunt for his first trophy. “Of course, I did,” she said.

At the end of the interview, Banks added, “You are a trooper, Kourtney.”

“If you are at home, how can you not pull for the Schenks?” NBC’s Dan Hicks said.

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Kramer Hickok saw others like Max Homa winning and decided to change coaches (and it’s working so far at Valspar)

If you can’t beat ’em, hire the same coach. That’s the logic Hickok implemented last fall when he moved to swing coach Mark Blackburn.

If you can’t beat ’em, hire the same coach.

That’s the logic Kramer Hickok implemented last fall when he made a move to work with swing coach Mark Blackburn, who has seen success with players like Max Homa, Chez Reavie, Kevin Chappell, Sean O’Hair, Charley Hoffman, J.J. Spaun. Harris English, and recently, Justin Rose.

But this was no quick fix. Despite occasional flashes of brilliance, like an exhausting eight-hole playoff loss to Harris English at the 2021 Travelers Championship, the former University of Texas star had developed some bad habits that weren’t quick to disappear, even under Blackburn’s tutelage.

After missing eight straight cuts, Hickok finally stuck around for the weekend at the Genesis Invitational in February, using a pair of 69s in the opening two rounds to garner a top-30 finish.

He fared even better at the Honda Classic, finishing T-14 after posting an impressive 66 on Saturday. And although he didn’t really get in contention last week at the Players Championship, he made his third straight cut.

And this week at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course, Hickok’s sights are set even higher. After a second consecutive 68, he was among the leaders after the early wave of Friday’s action at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida.

“It’s just a process. I switched coaches back in the fall and I’m just making some swing changes, and so when I get in tournaments, it sort of reverts back to my bad habits,” Hickok said of working with Blackburn. “So I can do it really well on the range, but when I get to the golf course, things sort of go back to the old pattern. So it’s just kind of trusting those feels and just really almost feeling like I need to exaggerate some of the feels to get to where I want to be.

“But it’s just a process. It gets more comfortable for me every week. It’s certainly better than it was last week and it’s better than it was a week before. So it’s just coming along.”

Hickok still made a few mistakes on Friday, including a pair of chips that led to bogeys on Nos. 2 and 16, but he’s 6 under through the opening two rounds, and was just a shot behind leader Adam Schenk after the early players left the course. And there are some familiar names around Hickok on the leaderboard as Jordan Spieth and Cody Gribble, his teammates on the University of Texas’ 2012 NCAA Championship team, are also in the hunt.

But for now, Hickok isn’t thinking about college reunions or celebration speeches. He’s simply trying to keep it simple and let his hot putter make a difference.

“I’ve been putting really nice. Really just seeing the lines really well and hitting some good putts. I don’t really feel like I’m playing that well tee to green, but just keeping the ball in front of me and really just scoring pretty well,” he said. “So I like this golf course a lot. It suits my game. You don’t have to have a lot of power, just kind of fetch it around and hit it pretty straight.

“I like the way I’m sitting right now, but need to go work on the swing a little bit and kind of get back to how it was feeling back on Wednesday and Tuesday.”

That means working with the system Blackburn put in place. And what exactly was it that drew Hickok to work with his new coach?

“His guys were playing really well. So Max Homa has been playing great. Chez Reavie seems to win every other year. Trey Mullinax won last year. He’s got Justin Rose, he won this year,” Hickok said. “So I just tried to follow the hot hand and he’s really helped me a lot, so I’m really excited about our path together.”

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Valspar Championship: Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed among the notables who missed the cut

The top two players in the world made the cut at the Valspar. Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and others will be home for the weekend.

PALM HARBOR, Fla. – The top two players in the world, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, are among those on the right side of the cutline at the Valspar Championship, but with a lot of catching up to do on the weekend.

For Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed and others, they’ll be home for the weekend.

Mickelson missed his sixth cut in 13 starts this season, but not without a fight. After shooting 2-over 73 on Thursday he made bogey at No. 4 before making back-to-back birdies at Nos. 5 and 6 and a string of three birdies in a row beginning at No. 11. But the Snake Pit, the three-hole stretch at the Copperhead Course comprising of Nos. 16-18, bit back. Bogeys at 16 and 18 had Mickelson signing for 2-under 69 and one stroke too many to play the weekend.

Valspar: Check the yardage book | Leaderboard | Photos

The best part of Keegan Bradley’s day came after carding 64 in opening round at Valspar Championship

Keegan Bradley equaled his finest round of golf in 18 months during what he called “an all-around great day” that was “basically zero stress.”

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Keegan Bradley just equaled his finest round of golf in 18 months during what he called “an all-around great day” that was “basically zero stress.”

And the best part of his Thursday had yet to come.

After a 7-under 64 that gave the Jupiter resident a two-shot lead after one round at the Valspar Championship, Bradley was back to the real life … being a husband and a dad.

Keegan and his wife, Jillian, crossed the state along with sons, Logan, 3, and Cooper, 3 months, to enjoy what has started out to be a nice relaxing week on the Gulf Coast. Now, if the rest of the week goes the way it started and the only stress Keegan faces is making sure Logan eats his vegetables and Cooper gets his naps, this definitely will be a memorable family vacation.

“I’ll go back today and, doesn’t matter what I shoot, I got to go be a dad and play baseball and play golf in the backyard, which I look forward to,” said Bradley, who called his family his “good luck charm.”

Valspar: Check the yardage book | Leaderboard | Photos

Shooting a bogey free round has to make Dad Time a bit sweeter. Especially on a Copperhead Course that the two-time defending champion, Paul Casey, said is “as good and as tough as it’s ever been.”

Bradley, the nephew of LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley, burst on the PGA Tour scene early, winning twice as a rookie in 2011, including the PGA Championship. That was a thrill only equaled by the Vermont native receiving a text that day from one of his sports heroes, Tom Brady, who, Keegan says, would be part of his dream foursome along with his dad and Ben Hogan. That Wannamaker Trophy then sat on the floor in his Jupiter home topped by a Red Sox cap.

Although Bradley, 34, admits that major title “changed my life forever,” it also ratcheted up the spotlight and expectations. After being named PGA Tour rookie of the year, Keegan won again in 2012 (WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) and cracked the top 10 of the World Golf Ranking (No. 10) in 2013.

That victory at the WCG event was 229 starts ago. Since then, Bradley has one win (2018 BMW Championship, with his family on site) and his world ranking has dropped to 135.

Few have had their careers altered over a rule change as much as Bradley. In 2016, the practice of anchoring a putter was banned. Bradley, who used a belly putter, was the first golfer to win a major using an anchored putter. The putter was part of a package that also earned Bradley spots in the Ryder Cup and President’s Cup teams.

Bradley was outspoken about not being able to use something he had adopted, not as a crutch, but as part of his game.

And as Bradley’s putting suffered, so too did his game. In 26 events in 2016, he had two top 10s (the fewest of his career) and missed a career-high 11 cuts. Bradley’s game has ebbed and flowed in the last five years, but something has clicked the last three months, and Bradley knows exactly what it is.

“When you putt poorly, golf isn’t that much fun,” Bradley said. “But I’ve been putting very well since Phoenix.”

Since missing back-to-back cuts in January, Bradley has played in seven tournaments, starting with the Phoenix Open in early February, and finished in the top 30 six times. He’s coming off a T-4 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and had a T-10 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The key to Bradley’s quick start Thursday was simple. Of his seven birdies, three were accomplished by sinking putts of more than 17 feet. He dropped consecutive putts of at least 30 feet on the 14th and 15th holes.

Bradley shot a 30 on the back nine.

“The putter’s been a lot better,” he said. “After I won, putting went into a pretty big dip and I had to kind of work my way out of it again. I feel like I’m on the other side of that right now.”

Bradley credits a lot of work with his coach, Darren May, and caddie, Scotty Vail, for rediscovering his putting stroke.

“I got a lot of good things going my way right now,” he said. “A really fun day.”

On and off the course.

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