Jerry Kelly led by two with two holes to go Sunday at the 2024 SAS Championship in Cary, North Carolina. And that’s when things got interesting.
Kelly three-putted for bogey on the 18th hole at Prestonwood Country Club, his only bogey of his final round, to shoot 5-under 67 and fall into a tie for the lead with overnight leader Padraig Harrington, who had moments before birdied the 17th.
With both golfers at 13 under, Harrington then flew his second on 18 from the right rough to the back left of the green. He chipped his third about eight feet past the hole, and with Kelly watching nearby, Harrington caught the edge of the cup but it lipped out for a closing bogey to give Kelly a one-shot victory.
It’s Kelly’s 12th PGA Tour Champions win and his first on the senior circuit since winning three times in 2022.
“I mean, it’s a long time coming,” he told Golf Channel a few minutes after clinching the win. “You wonder if you’re ever going to do it again when the injuries start piling up.”
Harrington, who closed in 71, was aiming for his third win in 2024. His runner-up finish was his sixth top 10 in 12 outings on the Champions tour.
Shane Bertsch was solo third at 10 under. Angel Cabrera was solo fourth, his best finish since returning to the Champions tour, at 9 under. Steven Alker tied for fifth at 8 under alongside Matt Gogel.
This was the final regular-season event on the senior circuit. Next up: the three-event Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs. Ernie Els shot 73-74 over the weekend to finish T-45 but he’ll head into the playoffs in the No. 1 spot in the points race.
The top 72 players in the Charles Schwab Cup standings have advanced for a chance to play for the season-long title. Up first is the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond, Virginia, next week. Kelly told Golf Channel that despite moving up to ninth in the points after his win, he’s planning to skip the event.
On this day, former Boston Celtics Bruce Bowen, Rick Brunson, and Jerry Kelly were born.
On this day in Boston Celtics history, former Celtics small forward Bruce Bowen was born in Merced, California in 1970. Bowen played his collegiate ball with Cal State Fullerton and was signed by the Miami Heat in 1997 after several stints playing overseas, having gone undrafted in the 1993 NBA draft.
While Bowen only played one game for the Heat, it was enough to get him noticed by the Celtics, who signed him as a free agent the next year. With Boston, the Californian would slowly establish a reputation as a defensive stalwart, eventually earning an All-Defensive Second Team nomination.
He would play two seasons in total for the Celtics, averaging 4.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and as many steals per game.
The autoimmune disease causes the immune system to attack healthy cells by mistake.
MADISON, Wisc. – In advance of the U.S. Senior Open at SentryWorld in Stevens Point last summer, Jerry Kelly talked about having to play through a wrist issue – an odd one where it was going out of joint, and how inflamed it felt despite his best efforts at rehabilitation.
Just about a year later, as he readied for the American Family Insurance Championship that started Friday at University Ridge Golf Course in Madison, Kelly acknowledged that inflammation had spread to other joints – to the point where he couldn’t get out of bed, or a chair.
Kelly, 57, sought out a cause and testing discovered that he had rheumatoid arthritis. The autoimmune disease causes the immune system to attack healthy cells by mistake, causing inflammation in joints. Kelly also said the testing revealed lyme disease, which in its late stages can also cause swelling in joints.
The Madison native said he has been put on a regimen of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate and is in his eighth week of treatment.
“Small levels compared to what normal chemo patients take,” Kelly said Thursday. “It’s just kind of a first line of defense trying to get those white blood cells that are killing you from the inside, they’re eating healthy tissue. Got to my lungs, got to my esophagus, my stomach. It didn’t get to my heart, which that’s one place that it gets to, so I’m thankful for that. I went through a week in Newport (in March) where I couldn’t eat. Anything that I ate was just getting attacked from the inside. I feel like my lungs are getting a little bit better.
“It’s taken a lot of muscle away from me, and the fatigue is real. You know, I just felt a couple times where I couldn’t get the adrenaline up for tournaments. You know, I have a hard time playing without adrenaline.”
Kelly has kept playing, and the AmFam Championship is his 11th start of 2024 on the PGA Tour Champions. He tied for second in his tournament, the Cologuard Classic in Tucson, Arizona, and has two other top-10 finishes.
He opened on Friday with a 69 and joked after a putt that he might need a few cocktails.
“I made a 20-footer for par on 10. I’d like to say it got me fired up, but I actually said, ‘I’m going to start drinking tonight.’ The next thing you know, I made four in a row,” he joked after the opening round. “Again, it’s smoke and mirrors out there again. I didn’t feel like my body responded very well.
“I know I’m jumpy, but that’s ridiculous, a little explosion on every shot, doesn’t matter if it’s driver or a putt. So, you know, battled through it and see if I can shoot a couple low ones, who knows.”
Some of Kelly’s statistics have been impressive. He’s leading the tour in driving accuracy and scrambling and is sixth in actual scoring average and seventh in greens in regulation. An indicator for his loss of strength, however, might be the fact he is 57th in driving distances (269.7 yards).
“I’m used to, in tournament mode, just thinking of what I want to do and my muscles will actually cooperate, connect with my brain, let my autonomous system kind of take over and it comes out,” he said. “There’s a bit of a disconnect there right now. That’s what I have to fight through. I may have to talk it out more, I have to be clearer about what’s going on because one thing comes into my head and I forget about everything else that I really need to do. There’s some things that I may need to change with my pre-shot to be crystal clear. And I’m bouncing around all the time, I’m changing shots when I’m over the ball.
“That’s why I’m so jumpy, because I’m reacting to everything, I’m not just being kind of a robot swinger. That’s hurting me. I think it’s hurting me because I don’t have the strength, I can’t save it as much. It’s just different, you know? If I can relax on myself a little bit more, I think that part will come back, but as anybody knows that gets any kind of a diagnosis, you go through a little bit of an anger phase and that’s either going to make you fight or flight. It’s going to make me fight. I’ve just got to find my way mentally through that kind of situation, not get down on myself and really get it done.”
Kelly hoped a return to his hometown – and a course and tournament where he is a two-time champion – can give him some extra juice. But even with some physical obstacles perhaps stacking the odds against him in a talented field, the fiery ex-hockey player has never shied away from a challenge.
“I’m not going to quit,” Kelly said. “I’ve gotten down on myself fairly hard because my body’s not responding to my brain, things like that. There’s a little disconnect going on and that bothers me, but there’s still – there’s still the fight.
“As long as there’s a fight left to be fought, I’m going to be in the mix, I’m going to be in the middle of it. So I expect myself to play well this week. It’s a course that I really like. I’m going to try and find a way, that’s all I’m going to try and do every single week, every single day. Yeah, I’ve got a few years to figure it all out.”
On Saturday, Kelly posted another 3-under 69 and is tied for fourth, three shots back of the lead.
Jim Furyk rode his unique swing to 17 PGA Tour wins and $71 million in career earnings.
He’s long had one of the more unusual swings in pro golf.
But players are rare to knock it because Jim Furyk made his unique approach to ballstriking work, his 17 PGA Tour wins and $71 million in career earnings are all the evidence you need.
This week, the three-time PGA Tour Champions winner is hosting his Furyk & Friends event on the senior circuit in Jacksonville, Florida. In advance of the event, some of his fellow pros talked about his swing, tried their best to recreate it and ultimately they all had nothing but praise for him.
“Just because it didn’t look like everything else doesn’t mean it doesn’t work,” said Rocco Mediate, who stressed Furyk was consistently getting the club in the right spot at impact.
The smooth-hitting Ernie Els tried to mimic Furyk’s signature move but the Big Easy’s swing is so buttery, he couldn’t quite contort himself enough to pull it off.
The funniest explanation, though, came through the thick Southern drawl of Boo Weekley.
Today’s installment focuses on the four players who wore No. 14 over the years as of September 2023.
The Boston Celtics have more retired jerseys than any other team in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean the rest of their jerseys have little history of interest tied to them.
In fact, with 17 titles to their name and decades of competitive basketball played in them, their unretired jersey numbers pack in some of the most history not hanging from the rafters of any team in the league. To that end, we have launched our accounting of that history, with every player in every jersey worn by more than one Celtics player in the storied franchise’s history accounted for.
Today’s installment focuses on the four players who wore No. 14 over the years as of September 2023.
Who are the most influential players in the history of the NBA? Per one a ccount, a Celtics legend is among them. https://t.co/vgz9oMvWzc
Today’s installment focuses on the four players who wore No. 24 over the years as of August 2023.
The Boston Celtics have more retired jerseys than any other team in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean the rest of their jerseys have little history of interest tied to them.
In fact, with 17 titles and decades of competitive basketball played in them, their unretired jersey numbers pack in some of the most history not hanging from the rafters of any team in the league. To that end, we have launched our accounting of that history, with every player in every jersey worn by more than one Celtics player in the storied franchise’s history accounted for.
Today’s installment focuses on the four players who wore No. 24 over the years as of August 2023.
Some of the greatest players to play the game have suited up for Boston at the 5 over the course of the organization’s storied history. https://t.co/CRdgIu4vPm
On this day, the Boston Celtics lost Fred Roberts to the Miami Heat in the 1988 NBA expansion draft, and Gary Payton and Javonte Green were born.
On this day in Boston Celtics history, the team lost power forward Fred Roberts in the 1988 NBA expansion draft, held to populate two new teams set to join the league that coming season, the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat.
Technically speaking, the Heat drafted Roberts with the fifth overall pick of the expansion draft but immediately traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks for a collection of draft assets. Roberts himself had come to the team in a trade from the Utah Jazz (for the pick that would one day become current-day NBA head coach Billy Donovan), where he would play two seasons for the storied franchise in a reserve role.
Roberts would average 5.8 points, 2.4 rebounds, and an assist per game while with the team.
It was seemingly always a matter of when, not if. Now it’s official.
Bernhard Langer won for the 46th time on the PGA Tour Champions on Sunday when he captured the 2023 U.S. Senior Open at SentryWorld Golf Course in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
His 46th victory breaks a logjam he’s had with Hale Irwin since February. It’s his second U.S. Senior title and it’s a record 12th senior major for Langer, the ageless wonder who turns 66 in two months. It marks a 13-year gap between his two U.S. Senior titles, by far the biggest stretch on the senior circuit. He’s the only golfer to win all five senior majors.
Langer started his final round with a two-shot lead. Through five holes Sunday, he got to 9 under for the week to stretch that lead to five over one of the local favorites Jerry Kelly. On the seventh hole, Langer’s approach came to rest on the edge of the cup and the ensuing tap-in birdie gave him a six-shot lead.
That cushion allowed him to navigate a bogey-bogey-bogey finish and he made it all official with a final-round 70 to secure a two-shot victory over the other local favorite, Steve Stricker, who closed with a 69. Kelly was third at 4 under.
Langer’s accuracy and ability to putt from off the green over the weekend allowed him to avoid hitting a single chip shot over the closing 36 holes.
The best final round score Sunday – in fact, the best score of the week – was Steven Alker’s 6-under 65. Padraig Harrington, the 2022 U.S. Senior Open champ, finished 6 over, tied for 18th.
The 2024 U.S. Senior Open will be contested at Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
STEVENS POINT, Wis. – At one point Thursday afternoon, 17 of the top 20 names on the U.S. Senior Open leaderboard had begun their first round on the back nine of SentryWorld. That included early leader Rod Pampling, who opened his tournament at 2-under on the back before finishing at 3-under for the day.
Then Steve Stricker set off the first tee box just after 2 p.m.
A tournament favorite coming in as the winner of the first two majors on the senior tour – and with the home-state good vibes emanating from his galleries – Stricker began his tournament with a solid 2-under 33 on the front with two birdies and seven pars.
The Madison resident was just one of just four players to not bogey at least one hole on the front nine.
The round seemed set up for Stricker to have a strong closing nine to supplant Pampling and his round of 68.
Then something odd happened.
The turn proved trouble for Stricker, as his tee shot ran up against a tree on the par-5 10th. His left-handed recovery attempt landed in a divot, and an admittedly over-aggressive bunker shot culminated in a double bogey on a hole that yielded birdies for most players.
That set him back to even for the tournament. Stricker then hit it in the water on the par-3 12th, leading to another double-bogey.
“You have to stay away from doubles,” he said. “If I make bogeys there, I shoot 1-under, and that’s the difference. You have to stay away from those.”
He finished with a 1-over 72, snapping his Tour-record 55 consecutive rounds at par or better. He admitted he thought about the streak down the stretch, but he wasn’t able to get one more birdie on his card.
“It can get you – I mean, I doubled 10, and it’s probably ranked one of the easier holes out there today,” Stricker said. “So any hole can come up and grab you. You just have to hit good shots, bottom line. You have to play smart, hit good shots, and not put yourself behind a tree.”
Steve Stricker holds his follow-through after hitting a tee shot on the 10th hole during the first round for the 2023 U.S. Senior Open on Thursday, June 29, 2023, at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Pampling has a two-stroke lead over Mike Small, Retief Goosen and Miguel Ángel Jiménez
Stricker’s playing partner David Toms took advantage of the back nine to start, as he birdied 10, 11 and 12 to capture a share of the lead. But then he, too, backtracked with a 3-over finish down the stretch.
So it was Pampling, with his seven birdies, two bogeys and one double, who would sleep on the lead after one round.
“It was obviously a fun day,” Pampling said. “I’d been playing well for the last month or so. To get here and see the course, it felt good. I drove it really well and made a lot of birdies out there.”
Earlier in the day Mike Small made four birdies on the back nine and also got to 3-under before a double-bogey on No. 9 dropped him to 1-under. He joined Retief Goosen and Miguel Ángel Jiménez at that score in second place, two back of Pampling.
“The pins were really difficult on this front nine,” Small said of Thursday’s setup. “I think the wind came up. The first few holes on the front are down and then coming into the wind a little bit, and there’s more trouble. They’re both hard. The rough is so thick. I don’t think the guys out here – I’ve probably played 15 or 16 Champions Tour events and this is my third one of these – I’ve never seen the rough this thick. These guys, they’re not used to it.”
Small, the University of Illinois men’s golf coach, is one of Stricker’s closest friends as they played together for the Illini in the late 1980s. The two helped Illinois to the 1988 Big Ten championship and were eventually groomsmen in each other’s weddings.
The pair teamed up with Jerry Kelly for some practice round work, too, to try and get a feel for how the first-time championship venue would play.
Struggling with a wrist injury Jerry Kelly manages a par round
Jerry Kelly stalks his putt as it rolls toward the cup on the 9th hole during the first round for the 2023 U.S. Senior Open on Thursday, June 29, 2023, at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis.
Small made six birdies against three bogies and a double, while Kelly battled through a left wrist injury to make four birdies. He was part of a group of 10 players that finished the day at even-par, though Kelly’s two birdies on the back side were negated by a double-bogey on the par-4 13th hole.
“It’s been going out of joint for about a couple months, and it just inflamed so bad the last week or so,” Kelly said of his injury. “I’ve been having it worked on constantly, and that’s aggravating it more. So it’s inflamed. I was hoping it was going to be better. It is better. I could barely play three holes yesterday.”
The Madison native added that if you had asked him when the day started if he’d take even par, he would have gladly accepted it, so he left the first round comforted by the fact he’s not trying to make up ground.
“It’s a good score,” Kelly said. “I’d like that to be my highest. I think it’s out there for the taking right now, there’s no question. You just have to hit it straight. If you don’t hit it straight, it’s not out there for the taking at all.”
Ernie Els, who won two U.S. Opens and recorded five other top-five finishes in the tournament, said “It’s really playing like a U.S. Open. It’s really playing where you’ve got to kind of hit shots where you’re going for the perfect miss – get your wedge out of the way there. You’re going for the perfect shot, but you’ve got to miss yourself where you get it up and down.”
Defending champion Padraig Harrington, who finished tied for 27th at the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club earlier in the month, finished his round with a 3-over 74.
But, he felt its difficulty would allow those a few shots back to chase the leaders.
“It is possible to go out there and shoot a really good score if I have a great day,” Harrington said. “It’s not a pretty golf course to be defending on. Maybe I was a bit defensive today because I kind of – you kind of know going to a U.S. Open, I think, first day out you can get a bit defensive.
“Yeah, I have to say I found L.A. Country Club a lot easier than this place. I know this is shorter, but the length doesn’t bother me. L.A. Country Club was a lot easier.”
Mick Smith, Bradley Lanning have mixed results
The two local Wisconsin qualifiers, Mick Smith of Summit and Brad Lanning of Hortonville, had mixed results in their first round.
Smith found his name on the front page of the leaderboard at one point as he got to even par through eight holes but he shot a 3-over 38 on the front nine (his back nine) to finish with a 3-over 74. It did put him in position to make the cut, however, with a strong Friday.
“You gotta hit the fairways – makes it a lot easier,” Smith said, noting he rolled in some long putts to keep his round on track. “I enjoyed it. First experience. It’s just hard work.”
Lanning began his day on the tougher front nine and shot an 8-over 43. He settled down and balanced two bogies with two birdies on the backside to finish 8-over for the round.
“It’s our home – I mean, we’re 40 minutes away – and I’ve played this course a lot,” Lanning said. “I am comfortable here and I think that helped me on the back because I’ve played here quite a bit without all these tents and everything, and the high rough. I just feel like hey, I can play if I hit the shots because I’ve seen the golf course before. We’ll see how it goes (Friday) and if I can get some momentum and get a few putts going, maybe, hopefully, I’ll make the cut.”
STEVENS POINT, Wisconsin – It had been 39 years since Jerry Kelly walked the pristine, manicured fairways and greens at SentryWorld.
Needless to say, his memory of the golf course was a bit foggy.
“It’s pretty much all been redone. I kind of remembered one of the par fives. The Flower Hole was No. 7 back then, I think,” Kelly said.
The Madison golfer was on the grounds last Thursday for his first look at the venue for this week’s U.S. Senior Open Championship, essentially cramming for a major test that could have many answers to the same question.
“I pretty much played at least 27, maybe 36 holes today,” he said during a phone interview shortly after Thursday’s lengthy practice session. “Hit three drivers off a bunch of tees. Hit utility, 3-wood, driver on a few other ones just because of bunkering and trying to hit it short. See if you want to squeeze something up, see if you want to get up close to it or you really want to lay back. A million putts from the centers of the greens out to all the corners – uphills, downhills, sidehills. Short-side bunker shots.”
And what did Kelly learn about the course he last played during the 1984 WIAA state tournament, when he shot 77-82 and finished in 10th place seven shots behind another state golfing legend – Steve Stricker?
“I think it’s about as classic of a Wisconsin parkland, wooded golf course as you’re going to find,” Kelly said. “What they’ve done with this golf course … there’s nothing tricked up about this golf course. The only tricked-up situation you could get into is set-up, and that’s entirely on the USGA side. This golf course is awesome.”
Here’s what Kelly had to say about the course, the state of his game heading into the major championship and his prediction for the winning score:
On the thick rough at SentryWorld
“It’s very uniform and it’s very thick. So even if they top it, those morning rounds with the wet grass it is going to be impossible really. A few guys with some good lies may be able to advance it 150, 170 but nobody’s going to chance it when they’re going over some of the water and into greens like that. There’s going to be a lot of punching it out of the rough and hitting wedge shots in. It is that thick and that deep. It’s Wisconsin. We know how to grow rough here.
“A lot of the guys were sending me pictures. It was up to their shins in some spots. And I’m like, ‘Guys, understand you have an illusion of getting a tournament course ready.’ You have to grow it out so it can be uniform once you do cut it. They’ve done a fantastic job. But holy crap, it is still really thick and really deep. … It’s gnarly right now. You’ve got so many strands that you have to go through that it’s definitely stopping the club here. It’s crazy stuff.”
On staying patient in a major
“It’s really going to be a cool championship and it’s going to be a U.S. Open style test. I’m going to have to have my patience hat on. I don’t always have that on. I lose patience hats all the time. I leave them in hotels. I leave them in my car. They’re all over the place. … But I have got absolutely nothing sideways about this golf course. I was talking to it all day because I was by myself. I had no one else to talk to but the golf course. I was like, ‘You are awesome.’ It’s fun to play.”
The fifth hole as seen at the Sentry World Golf Course in Stevens Point, Wis. on Monday, July 25, 2022. (Copyright USGA/Fred Vuich)
On the keys to winning
“No. 1, you have to get the ball in the fairway. I mean, that’s A-No. 1. You can’t play out of this rough to these greens. It’s absolutely not possible. You can’t even go at a bunch of these greens if you happen to put it in the rough with some of the water and some of the creeks and things like that. No. 2, if you do get the ball in the fairway there’s a few greens that slope away and you really have to pay attention to what you’re hitting into them and you may not be able to go fly something back to a pin. And it may come up short. And it may be like, ‘Oh, what’s he doing. It’s a terrible shot.’ But if I land it 5 feet further, it bounces forward and goes in the water. I did that on 12 today. Ball-striking is going to be key, but again fairway is going to be most key because these greens are very difficult.”
On finishing 11th at the American Family Insurance Championship at University Ridge two weeks ago after a first-round 72
“I did this to myself at University Ridge. I was like, ‘Man, this is the hardest this place has ever played.’ I’m going, ‘You shoot 2, 3 under you’re golfing your ball here.’ Next thing you know there’s a 10-under the first day (by Justin Leonard). I played the front side and there’s no scoreboards on the front side, so I didn’t realize the guys were going low until I made the turn. I think I made the turn at even or 1-over, something like that, and I’m like ‘I’m in the game. Just get some birdies.’ I talked myself out of shooting low because I thought it was going to be a grind. These guys just attacked like they always do and blew by me so far on the first day and now I’m playing catch up and it just wasn’t a great situation. That’s one of the few times where I let myself think about a score. ‘Oh, it’s not going to be as low so I can just kind of make sure that I do the right stuff and do all this stuff,’ where normally I’m attacking the golf course.”
On the winning score this week
“You’re going to have to shoot low to win. I think there’s no question about that. Do I see a 20-under? I don’t. There’s going to be too many bogeys. There’s enough trouble around this golf course. There’s really no trouble around (University) Ridge. This there’s actually trouble and when you get in the rough, it’s a major penalty where it wasn’t there. I never put a number on things because of Mother Nature. If the wind blows, my goodness hitting the fairways is going to be tough. If the wind blows, distance control into those sections of greens is going to be tough. There’s an awful lot of slope that can bring balls back into water in a lot of different places. Whether it firms up or softens, there’s difficulty in both of them. If it blows and it’s cold, I’d say good luck at this place because it’s long. I am not a long hitter and I hit a lot of long clubs today. With that said, it’s the U.S. Open. We know what we’re in for when we sign up to these tournaments. That’s exactly what we want because it should separate the field quite a bit. It’s going to be an incredible finish.”
