Tag: PGA Tour Champions

Chubb Classic: ‘Fast and Furious’ actor Lucas Black caddying on PGA Tour Champions this week

Does Craig Bowden’s caddie look familiar? You’ve probably seen him in the “Fast and the Furious” movies.

NAPLES, Fla. – Actor Lucas Black has played as an amateur in the PGA Tour’s Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, starred as a golfer in a movie, and even talked about taking it up professionally.

This week, the 38-year-old who will be in the next “Fast and Furious” movie later this year — it will be his third — is inside the ropes as a caddie for sponsor exemption Craig Bowden in the Chubb Classic presented by SERVPRO at Tiburón Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort.

Black, who was also in “NCIS” and “NCIS: New Orleans” on TV from 2014-19, was in the third installment of the “Fast and Furious” franchise – “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift” – in 2006 as Sean Boswell, had a cameo in “Furious 7” and will have another in the upcoming ninth movie slated to be released this summer.

“The other day we got to teach the First Tee kids, and that was fun, just watching them hit balls and try to help them with a few tips,” Black said Saturday. “They recognized me mainly from Tokyo Drift. A lot of the youngsters have seen the Fast and Furious franchise.”

Black also played quarterback Mike Winchell in the movie version of “Friday Night Lights” in 2004.

After an even-par first round in Friday’s first round, Bowden shot a 4-under 68 to move up into the top 25.

“Lucas and I have been friends for 13, 15 years, something like that,” Bowden said. “He caddied for another buddy of mine, Jason Schultz, back at the Wayne Gretzky event a long time ago, and we just kept in touch and have grown really close as buddies and brothers in Christ and just enjoying each other’s company.

“This is the maiden voyage (with Black as his caddie). We spoke a lot on the phone, and I help him with his golf swing from time to time.”

Black and Bowden would see one another at the BMW charity pro-am in Greenville, South Carolina, regularly. They’d play practice rounds, and also were paired together.

“I hit him up on the phone, ‘Hey, give me some tips, what do I need to do, what do I got to do. I’m feeling this, what do you think?'” Black said.

Black said he is practicing a lot with his boys, especially after finishing his stint as Special Agent Christopher Lasalle on “NCIS: New Orleans” in 2019.

“I’ve got a lot more time to get back out there, and I’m learning a lot out here,” Black said. “Craig is teaching me a lot, so it’s awesome.”

“I’m teaching him how to hit it short and keep it in play,” Bowden joked.

Black played golf in high school in Alabama, and also was golfer Luke Chisholm in the movie “Seven Days in Utopia” in 2011.

“I love the game,” he said. “I think you’ve got to use your imagination, or at least I do, around the short game area, and I think it kind of feeds into acting, too. You can create something and create shots.

“You only get one take in golf. You might get multiple takes in front of a camera, but that’s good, just accepting the challenge and it’s a fun game. I love it.”

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Here are 6 players to watch for at this week’s Chubb Classic

Here’s a look at a few players to watch this week at Tiburón Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, which will be played on the club’s Black Course.

The field of the PGA Tour Champions’ Chubb Classic presented by SERVPRO is filled with World Golf Hall of Famers, major champions, and those who have made their names on the Champions Tour.

Here’s a look at a few to watch this week at Tiburón Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, which will be played on the club’s Black Course, the first time it has been used for a tour event. The Gold Course, the original of the two Greg Norman layouts, has been used for every QBE Shootout since 2001, and also for the LPGA Tour’s CME Group Tour Championship since 2013.

Tiburón had 27 holes, then an additional nine were added, with the Black Course opening in 2002, four years after the Gold. The fourth nine joined with the old South Course to become the Black Course. The North and West became the Gold Course.

Here are a few players to watch for:

Three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson still driven to get his best game back

Phil Mickelson has won three times at Augusta National. He spent hours early this week trying to find that Masters-winning form.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Just as the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals were ending Sunday at Augusta National, Phil Mickelson took to the practice ground to begin a marathon putt, iron and drive session of his own.

For nearly three hours, Mickelson spent time sending golf ball after golf ball toward the horizon on the pristine practice range. He also spent more than 90 minutes on the putting green. Then he played a 9-hole practice round.

Mickelson has hit so many balls since arriving for his 29th Masters appearance that he showed up for his Tuesday meeting with the media with a heavily bandaged left index finger.

“I had some work to do to make sure that I had the setup in the bag that I wanted and that when I practiced this week, that I was working with the right clubs; that I wasn’t searching for things, that everything was dialed in,” Mickelson said. “I thought it went well. I feel like I’m playing well. I’ve got some good things going.

Masters: Leaderboard | Tee times | How to watch | Hole-by-hole

“I’ve made progress, but I haven’t played at the level I expect to recently. I actually enjoy the challenge of getting my game back because there’s really nothing physically holding me back from playing at the highest level, but mentally I’ve got to be sharper. And I’m working on that.”

Mickelson, who turns 51 in less than two months, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame nine years ago. But the winner of 44 PGA Tour titles – his most recent coming in the 2019 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am – still thinks he can add to that total despite his recent struggles.

He racked up two wins on the PGA Tour Champions in 2020 but had just three top-10 finishes in 17 starts on the PGA Tour. This year, he hasn’t been better than a tie for 25th in six PGA Tour starts and missed the cut three times.

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His most recent of five major triumphs came in the 2013 Open Championship at Muirfield. His three Masters wins came in 2004, 2006 and 2010. He tied for second in 2015 when Jordan Spieth sped away from the field but has missed one cut and finished in ties for 22nd, 36th, 18th and 55th in his last five starts here.

“I’ve seen a lot of progress in my game without a lot of results,” he said. “The difficulty is when you’re on a plateau and you’re not really making advancements and you’re putting in the work and putting in the work and you’re not seeing the results, to stay consistent and to stay committed.

“As I continue to do that, I need some results to keep my motivated to compete against the best players. Otherwise I really enjoy the Champions tour.”

Mickelson gave no hint how soon he has to see results competing against the best players in the world before the Champions Tour becomes his first pursuit. But hearing Mickelson talk about playing more with the elder set indicates it might not be long unless those results on the PGA Tour start arriving.

“I enjoy having pins that are five (paces) from the edge and not 2 1/2 or three, and I enjoy having a chance to short-side yourself and still get up-and-down,” he said. “And I enjoy having 15 feet around the hole where you can have an aggressive putt and not having the pin on a fall-off ledge like three feet from it like we seem to have every week. And I enjoy being able to play more aggressive.

“I’m having fun, a lot more fun than I thought on the Champions Tour, but yet the challenge that gets the best out of me is trying to play and compete against the best players. It’s what gets me motivated to be in the gym and to try to be physically able to swing fast enough to compete against these guys, and to be strong enough in my core to be able to practice as much as I need to and hit balls, like you said, on Sunday for hours and still be fine and able to do that.

“That’s what drives me and motivates me.”

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KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship to be played at Southern Hills with limited fans

The 2021 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship will be played at Southern Hills with limited fans in attendance.

The PGA of America announced Friday the 2021 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship will allow a limited number of spectators on-site at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The event, scheduled to be held May 25-30, plans to welcome approximately 8,000 spectators each day after coordinating with the city of Tulsa and guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The health and well being of our volunteers, spectators and players has always been our top priority, and we are thrilled that we were able to work together to find a safe way to bring back this incredible event,” said Deb O’Connor, director of Global Corporate Reputation and Community Relations at Whirlpool Corporation, the parent company of KitchenAid. “With 1,500 people currently employed at our Tulsa Whirlpool plant, we could not be more excited to bring this iconic Championship to such a special community.”

Fans, staff and volunteers in attendance will be required to wear face coverings at all times, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status. Social distancing will also be enforced and sanitation stations will be present around the property.

The PGA of America plans to continue monitoring COVID-19 developments and work with local health officials before and during the event.

The tournament returns to the Champions Tour calendar after being canceled in 2020 at Harbor Shores Resort in Benton Harbor, Michigan, due to a Michigan stay-at-home order as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“After a year away, we’re excited to re-establish the legacy of the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship,” PGA President Jim Richerson said in a statement. “Southern Hills, with all of its pedigree, is certainly a special place. It’ll be exciting to watch this great American golf course ー which our friend Gil Hanse restored to Perry Maxwell’s original vision ー on a Major Championship stage, not once, but twice, in as many years.”

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Phil Mickelson on Tiger Woods: ‘We’re thankful he’s still with us’

Phil Mickelson was asked about Tiger Woods on Thursday at Omni Tucson National ahead of the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Like the rest of the golf world, Phil Mickelson says he’s grateful that Tiger Woods is still alive.

Mickelson finished his pro-am round on Thursday at the Omni Tucson National Golf Course ahead of the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic and then met the media, with the first question being about Woods, who was injured in a single-car accident on Tuesday morning in Los Angeles.

“All the guys here understand and appreciate what he has meant to the game of golf and for us and the PGA Tour,” he said. “We all are very appreciative and supportive of what he’s done for us, but right now that’s so far from our minds.

“And I thought Rory McIlroy really said it well when he said that we’re just lucky and appreciative that his kids didn’t lose their father. We all are hoping and praying for a full and speedy recovery, but we’re also thankful, because that looked awful, and we’re thankful he’s still with us.”

Mickelson, who is seeking to become the first player to win his first three starts on PGA Tour Champions this week, was later asked about how his relationship with Woods changed over the years.

“We we were opponents. … You know, competing against each other for quite some time,” Mickelson said. “Then we started working together to try to get the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup team events, to get our players to play our best, and then we became partners in developing a couple of matches. It’s been fun to be able to work with him. Again, I realize, just like all the guys here do, how much he’s meant to the game of golf and the growth and getting us off the back page and onto the front page. We’ve all benefited from him.

“It has really evolved from competing against each other to working with each other.”

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Phil Mickelson on Tiger Woods: ‘We’re thankful he’s still with us’

Phil Mickelson was asked about Tiger Woods on Thursday at Omni Tucson National ahead of the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Like the rest of the golf world, Phil Mickelson says he’s grateful that Tiger Woods is still alive.

Mickelson finished his pro-am round on Thursday at the Omni Tucson National Golf Course ahead of the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic and then met the media, with the first question being about Woods, who was injured in a single-car accident on Tuesday morning in Los Angeles.

“All the guys here understand and appreciate what he has meant to the game of golf and for us and the PGA Tour,” he said. “We all are very appreciative and supportive of what he’s done for us, but right now that’s so far from our minds.

“And I thought Rory McIlroy really said it well when he said that we’re just lucky and appreciative that his kids didn’t lose their father. We all are hoping and praying for a full and speedy recovery, but we’re also thankful, because that looked awful, and we’re thankful he’s still with us.”

Mickelson, who is seeking to become the first player to win his first three starts on PGA Tour Champions this week, was later asked about how his relationship with Woods changed over the years.

“We were opponents. … You know, competing against each other for quite some time,” Mickelson said. “Then we started working together to try to get the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup team events, to get our players to play our best, and then we became partners in developing a couple of matches. It’s been fun to be able to work with him. Again, I realize, just like all the guys here do, how much he’s meant to the game of golf and the growth and getting us off the back page and onto the front page. We’ve all benefited from him.

“It has really evolved from competing against each other to working with each other.”

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Is Phil Mickelson ready to make PGA Tour Champions his full-time home?

Phil’s 44 career wins rank ninth all-time on Tour. He has won five majors, and has finished second in the U.S. Open six times.

When Phil Mickelson headed to California in January for his second year as official host of The American Express, he was asked the expected question: How does Mickelson, at age 50, decide whether to keep playing on the PGA Tour or start playing more on the PGA Tour Champions, where he won twice in two starts last year?

“If I don’t play well early on, I’ll start to re-evaluate things and maybe play a few more events on the Champions Tour because what’s fun for me is competing, getting in contention, and trying to win tournaments,” Mickelson said in January. “But I’ve made some strides in my game. I’m excited to start the year and see if I can play at the highest level like I expect to.”

Four weeks later, it sounds a bit like Mickelson has started to make some of those decisions, and the idea of playing a little more senior golf doesn’t seem to be so bad to Lefty.

Phil Mickelson tees off on the 13th hole of the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West during the first round of The American Express in La Quinta, Calif., on January 21, 2021.
Phil Mickelson tees off on the 13th hole of the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West during the first round of The American Express in La Quinta, Calif., on January 21, 2021.

Mickelson told Golfweek on Friday that his first PGA Tour Champions start of the year will be this coming week at the Cologuard Classic in Tucson, the second senior event of the calendar year. The start will come 30 years after Mickelson won the Tucson Open on the PGA Tour as an amateur.

What is interesting is the event is being played opposite the WGC Workday Championship at The Concession in Florida. Mickelson — a long-time spokesperson for Workday — has been a fixture in World Golf Championships since they debuted, but he is not eligible for the field this year.

So it will be three rounds of senior golf for Mickelson next week. But the decision isn’t that surprising if you look at Mickelson’s words from January. In the four tournaments since he spoke those words, Mickelson’s play has been anything but Mickelson-like.

Tough month for Lefty’s scores

Mickelson missed the cut at The American Express, failing to break par in either of his two rounds. The next week, he needed birdies on his final two holes in the second round to make the cut but finished just 53rd at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego.

In a start on the European Tour in Saudi Arabia, Mickelson played well the first two days but drifted back to 53rd by the end of the week. He then jetted to Pebble Beach for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, one of his favorite tournaments where he has won five times, as recently as 2019. But he missed the cut last week, including shooting an 80 in the second round.

Phil Mickelson, left, coaches soccer star Landon Donovan during the American Express Charity Challenge at PGA West in La Quinta Wednesday.
Phil Mickelson, left, coaches soccer star Landon Donovan during the American Express Charity Challenge at PGA West in La Quinta.

In all, since the start of the 2020-21 season, Mickelson has missed four cuts in eight starts on the PGA Tour and hasn’t finished better than 44th in the four events he has played the weekend. Mickelson said he would re-evaluate things if he didn’t play well early on, and he certainly hasn’t played well recently.

But all Champions? Not just yet

Still, none of this means that Mickelson is cutting ties with the PGA Tour anytime soon or that he will become a full-time senior golfer. That will never happen for Mickelson, who likes to test his game against the best in the world on a regular basis.

Besides, Mickelson is eligible in the next three months for The Players Championship, the Masters and the PGA Championship, and he’d never skip those events. And there is that hosting spot at The American Express every January.

It just means that Mickelson is more open to playing in PGA Tour Champions events than he was perhaps a year ago. It might also be behind talk in the last week that Mickelson is willing to discuss with networks about being a commentator rather than a full-time player.

Mickelson has nothing to prove to anyone in golf, really not even himself. His 44 career wins rank ninth all-time on Tour. He has won five majors, has finished second in the U.S. Open six times, and he did it all in the era of Tiger Woods.

Perhaps there is a win or two yet for Mickelson on the big Tour as a 50-year-old. Perhaps this is just a bad stretch of golf, something that Mickelson has faced before during his stellar career.

But at 50, with senior golf and television and surely a Ryder Cup captaincy in his future, Mickelson can still be active in golf without 20 starts on the regular Tour each year. Mickelson won’t disappear from the PGA Tour for years and years. But some senior golf with friends could certainly sound appealing.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for the Palm Springs Desert Sun, part of the USA Today Network. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @Larry_Bohannan.

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Bernhard Langer signs equipment contract with Tour Edge

The German star has used a Tour Edge hybrid in competition, and the two-time Masters champion is working to fill a bag with Tour Edge gear.

Tour Edge, which has focused most of its Tour marketing energies on the PGA Tour Champions in recent years, has signed one of the winningest players ever on that circuit: Bernhard Langer. Terms of the deal were not announced.

The German Langer – a two-time Masters champion and winner of 45 events combined on the European Tour and PGA Tour, as well as winner of 41 senior titles – used a Tour Edge Exotics EXS Pro Hybrid at Augusta National in November when he became the oldest, at age 63, ever to make the cut in the Masters. Tour Edge said in a media release that Langer is working with the company to dial in specs on a new driver, fairway woods, irons and wedges.

Langer leads the 2020-’21 Charles Schwab Cup money list for the PGA Tour Champions, a combined-season schedule in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Langer has won more than $1.5 million in 16 tournaments and has a slight edge on Ernie Els.

“I’m extremely excited to be joining the Tour Edge staff, they have been truly incredible to work with as I start updating my equipment,” Langer said in the media release Monday. “I have been playing many of the clubs in my bag for a long time, and when I started working with Tour Edge out on the PGA Tour Champions, I realized that they were the best option to getting me exactly what I needed to continue to perform at the highest level.”

The company, which was founded in 1986 and is based near Chicago, also said Langer will use a Tour Edge Exotics staff bag and wear the company’s logo on his right sleeve. Langer’s official Tour Edge debut will come at the Cologuard Classic on Feb. 28-March 1 in Tucson, Arizona.

“To be able to sign this awe-inspiring icon to our professional staff is a crowning achievement in our 35 years as a golf brand,” Tour Edge president and founder David Glod said in the media release. “He’s one of the very best players to ever play the game, so to have him trust Tour Edge to keep him at the top is something we are extremely proud of.”

Tour Edge said in its media release that Langer will join its professional staff that includes Tom Lehman, Scott McCarron, Tim Petrovic and Duffy Waldorf, and the company said it will announce another addition to its professional staff in the coming weeks.

“We’ve admired Bernhard for many years, so to be able to start working with him has been an amazing and humbling experience,” Glod said. “He is a shining example of what a professional should be, a great gentleman and global ambassador to our sport. We believe this signing will introduce a lot of Bernhard Langer fans around the world to Tour Edge.”

Remembering Jimmy Powell: PGA Tour Champions winner and a fighter for his fellow players

Powell eventually joined the senior tour in 1985 and impressed fellow players with his game and his knowledge of the swing.

When the Senior PGA Tour began as an actual sanctioned tour in 1980, it was seen by most golf fans as a chance to watch old favorites play against each other. And it was a chance for players who might have drifted away from competitiveness in their later 40s to feel like rookies again the minute they turned 50. It happened for players like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Trevino.

But the Senior PGA Tour, now called the PGA Tour Champions, was also a chance for strong golfers who never did much on the PGA Tour to get a second chance at being winners in big-time professional events. Such a player was California’s Jimmy Powell.

Powell, who died Jan. 16 in La Quinta, California — the day before his 86th birthday — of what the PGA Tour said was kidney failure, never won on the PGA Tour. While playing in a few PGA Tour events and even two full years on the tour, Powell spent most of the 1960s and 1970s as a talented club professional and teacher at courses like Indian Hills Golf Club in Riverside, Via Verde Country Club in San Dimas and Stevens Park  Golf Course in Dallas. And he was still an accomplished player, winning the Southern California PGA Championship three times.

Powell eventually joined the senior tour in 1985 and impressed fellow players with his game and his knowledge of the swing.

“He was always working on his swing,” said long-time Powell friend Al Geiberger. “He really knew the golf swing, We’ve lost a lot of knowledge of the golf swing.”

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Geiberger played against Powell on the senior tour and with Powell in senior divisions of the Legends of Golf tournament. Powell won the senior division of that event twice, his two unofficial wins on the tour. But he also had four official wins, the first in 1990 and the last in 1996.

“He hung around that group from Dallas, Hogan and Nelson and a lot of names like that,” Geiberger said of Powell’s background. “A lot of teaching came out of Dallas.”

By 2000, Powell was playing fewer than a dozen tournaments on the tour, and just a few years after that he was playing only a handful of tournaments. His last official start on the PGA Tour Champions was in 2008. But he had taken advantage of his second chance at tour success and done well. And he did it all with rugged good looks that Geiberger would joke that Powell should have been a television cowboy star instead of a golf pro.

In recent years, Powell was fighting not for another trophy but for himself and a handful of players who he believed had fallen through the cracks in the PGA Tour’s pension system. While the PGA Tour had pension plans for players who started on the senior tour in the early 1980s and in the mid-1990s and later, Powell, Geiberger and a group of players like Powell friend Gibby Gilbert felt they had been left out.

“Jimmy was a big fighter for fairness,” Geiberger said. “We talked a lot about that. Jimmy knew how much money the PGA Tour had for a non-profit and where the money was. I think he was a thorn in the tour’s side.”

Jimmy Powell, left, and partner Al Geiberger hold their trophies after winning first place in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf Demaret Division at The Club at Savannah Harbor.
Jimmy Powell, left, and partner Al Geiberger hold their trophies after winning first place in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf Demaret Division at The Club at Savannah Harbor.

It was just a few months ago that Geiberger last saw Powell at The Palms Golf Club in La Quinta, where Geiberger’s son was hosting an annual tournament. Neither Powell nor Geiberger played because of the aches and pains 80-year-old golfers feel. But Geiberger was impressed that Powell was still talking about golf and the swing.

“We sat and talked for about an hour,’ Geiberger said. “He was still talking about, well, we’re getting older, we get weaker shafts. He was really technically about the weaker senior shaft.”

Golf is a game of a lifetime, and for Jimmy Powell, it was a game that he never left.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for the Palm Springs Desert Sun. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @Larry_Bohannan. 

Pro golfer Lonnie Nielsen dies after battle with dementia

He qualified for the 1986 PGA at Inverness and finished T-11, which still ranks as the highest finish by a club professional in the PGA.

Professional golfer Lonnie Nielsen, a longtime South Florida resident, died last week after a battle with dementia. He was 67.

Nielsen learned golf on sand green courses in Iowa and was an All-American golfer at the University of Iowa. Despite his success, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to play golf for a living or use his business degree.

“I’d like to turn pro,” Nielsen said at the time, “but I don’t want to do it if I don’t think I can do it well.”

Nielson turned professional and played the PGA Tour full time from 1978-84. His big moment was tying for fifth at the nearby 1979 Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad Cities Open.

But there weren’t enough of those big moments, so Nielsen became a PGA Professional and spent 20 years as the director of golf at Crag Burn Golf Club in East Aurora, New York. He qualified for the 1986 PGA at Inverness and finished tied for 11th, which still ranks as the highest finish by a club professional in the PGA.

He kept competing and won more than 100 Western New York Section titles and was named the PGA Professional Player of the Year three times. He won so often, the WNYPGA eventually named its Player of the Year Award in his honor.

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Upon nearing 50, Nielsen had another difficult decision: Remain at his secure club job or take a shot at the PGA Tour Champions, knowing he would have to earn his way onto the 50-and-older circuit.

“When Lonnie first told the club he wanted to play on the Champions Tour, they were like ‘Go ahead. You’ll always have a job here,’ ” said Steve Barber, a PGA Professional and one of Nielsen’s close friends.

“But once he left, it was more like ‘good luck.’ The pressure for him to play well and support his family was gigantic, but he did it.”

Nielsen not only earned a spot on the PGA Tour Champions, but he won a pair of titles: the 2007 Commerce Bank Championship and the 2008 Dick’s Sporting Good Open. Nielsen played in 191 PGA Tour Champions events, compiling 33 top-10s while earning more than $5.2 million.

“The PGA of America is deeply saddened by the passing of three-time PGA Professional Player of the Year Lonnie Nielsen, who left an indelible mark upon his peers while competing at the highest level and with countless amateurs he inspired in the Western New York PGA Section,” said PGA President Jim Richerson. “But perhaps Lonnie’s greatest gift was his humble approach to success and being a premier ambassador for the game of golf.”

Nielsen had a sneaky sense of humor. Once, when he was playing at Pebble Beach, some fans asked him if he was Jack Nicklaus because he resembled the Golden Bear. Nielsen quickly said he was “Jack’s son,” and the fans followed him along, asking him questions about his famous “dad.”

Nielsen, who was 14 years younger, was close to Nicklaus in the locker room, which was almost always done alphabetically.

“Lonnie was a very humble guy,” said PGA of America historian Bob Denney, who also attended the University of Iowa. “I remember watching him live at one event where you could see him mouthing the words ‘Got to close.’ Lonnie had trouble closing out tournaments. But what a great guy.”

Nielsen moved to Palm Beach Gardens during his PGA Tour Champions career, living at PGA National. He moved to Port St. Lucie about a decade ago and played in the PGA Winter Championships as recently as two years ago and played Treasure Coast golf courses with a group called the “PGA Dogs.” He died in New York.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Jo, daughters Sarah and Mollie and son Andy, as well as four grandchildren and three sisters.