HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – Ernie Els isn’t going to play much on the PGA Tour this year. Maybe he should. The Big Easy – who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011 – was a prominent fixture on the first page of the leaderboard …
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – Ernie Els isn’t going to play much on the PGA Tour this year.
Maybe he should.
The Big Easy – who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011 – was a prominent fixture on the first page of the leaderboard Thursday in the first round of the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links.
He was sailing right along on this seaside resort without a bogey on his card before his stumbled by missing a 3-footer on the 17th hole. Still, Els turned in a 4-under-par 67 and stood three shots out of the lead.
“I’ve been playing a lot at home, but under tournament conditions, you know, not quite,” Els said. “I’ve shot some good numbers. The last time I played, I played quite well on the Champions Tour, so I need to keep thinking about that.
“But it was really nice to shoot something under 70. Really, really nice.”
Played quite well on the Champions Tour? He won the tournament, the Hoag Classic in California, the first week in March, his first title on the senior circuit.
“It was really a nice thrill for me to win a tournament again and definitely gave me a bit of momentum,” Els said.
Forgive him if at any time in Thursday’s round he thought he was playing the PGA Tour Champions. At 50, he was the youngest member of the threesome. World Golf Hall of Fame member Bernhard Langer (inducted in 2002) was the oldest at 62, World Golf Hall of Fame member Vijay Singh (2006) in the middle at 57. Between them, the three have won 56 PGA Tour titles, 72 European Tour titles and nine majors.
“I’ll play most of my golf on the Champions. I really like it out there,” Els sad. “I think I’ve done what I could out here on the regular Tour. I will play every now and again if I get in the field on past champions or something like that. I’ll play some select events, but mostly on the Champions Tour.”
Jim Furyk, who turned 50 on May 12, will still ply his trade on the PGA Tour but wants to taste the senior circuit.
Phil Mickelson isn’t sure when he’ll play on the PGA Tour Champions.
Jim Furyk is heading out there this year.
Furyk, who turned 50 on May 12 and has won 17 PGA Tour titles including the 2003 U.S. Open, will still ply his trade on the PGA Tour. He played in last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge and is playing this week in the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links.
He remains confident – just as Mickelson does – that he can win on the PGA Tour. But since Furyk and his wife, Tabitha, are hosting a new event on the PGA Tour Champions next fall, he wants to get a taste for the senior circuit.
The Constellation Furyk & Friends tournament will be played Oct. 8-10, 2021, at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville.
Furyk and Mickelson, who turned 50 on June 16, could play in the PGA Tour Champions’ Ally Challenge in Michigan beginning July 31.
“My goal, when (COVID-19 break) started, was to play the PGA Tour through our playoff schedule and hopefully be able to play some Champions Tour events,” Furyk said Tuesday at Harbour Town Golf Links. “I’m still holding pat with that. I would like to get at least a couple, say two to four, Champions Tour events in probably this calendar year and kind of reevaluate.
“Eventually, the timing is going to be right, and I’ll kind of flip the switch and go play the Champions Tour full-time. With Tabitha and I, with our foundation hosting an event, I want to get out there and see the guys.
“I played a practice round last week with Olin Browne and Scott McCarron. I played with Davis (Love III) today. I want to get out there and see the look, the feel, what a Champions Tour event is all about, what the Champions Tour is all about, because we have an event we need to build, and I want it to be successful, and I want the guys to like it.”
“I don’t really feel any different. There’s still a lot of time ahead to get a lot of things done,” Phil Mickelson told Golfweek.
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What will Phil do next has long been a query that’s followed Phil Mickelson in a World Golf Hall of Fame career full of plenty of laughs and hitch-up-your-pants adventure, thrilling victories and crushing defeats.
Thus it seems appropriate to pose the question once again as he prepares to blow out 50 candles on his birthday cake on June 16. If asked, the new quinquagenarian knows one thing for sure – he will not go gentle into that good night.
“It’s just a number,” Mickelson told Golfweek. “I don’t really feel any different. There’s still a lot of time ahead to get a lot of things done.”
Starting with a celebration in his San Diego home with family and friends instead at the now-postponed U.S. Open this week. And as he neared making the turn in his life at 5-0, and with the COVID-19 pandemic putting a 91-day halt on the PGA Tour, Mickelson had plenty of time to look back on a half-century of life.
And smile.
His thoughts often turned to his family, which has always been his priority – his parents, Phil and Mark, his brother, Tim, and sister, Tina, and his beautiful wife, Amy, and two daughters and one son.
Phil Mickelson with family after winning The Match: Tiger vs Phil on Nov. 23, 2018. Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images
His other love has produced a bountiful of memories, as well, from the days he started copying his father’s swing in the back yard and thus turning himself into a left-handed golfer despite being a natural righty.
The three NCAA individual titles, becoming the first left-hander to win the U.S. Amateur, winning his first PGA Tour title as an amateur, cashing in on 100s of money games on Tuesdays. Three green jackets, one Claret Jug, one Wanamaker Trophy, a record six silver medals in the U.S. Open. Forty-four PGA Tour wins, numerous Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup wins, a record 25 consecutive years in the top 50 in the official world rankings.
“It’s just weird to me how fast everything has flown by,” Mickelson said. “I used to look at guys who were 50 and thinking they were really old and now that’s me and I don’t feel old. I just can’t believe how fast all the time on the PGA Tour has blown by. When I go to tournaments now, I realize I have played certain events 20-plus times and I can’t get over that.
“Every time I go to Augusta National I still feel like a kid and I’ve played there almost 30 times. It’s amazing. And I look back and think about all the fun that we’ve had. I think about winning my first major in 2004 at the Masters and I can’t believe it’s been 16 years. It just doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. And I feel the same way about winning there in 2006 – that’s 14 years ago. Winning in 2010 – that’s 10 years ago. I just can’t believe that.”
As he looks ahead, his itinerary, for now, does not include any travel to the PGA Tour Champions. Mickelson is eligible to play the senior circuit starting with the Ally Challenge July 31 in Michigan.
Earlier this year, he said he wouldn’t head to the PGA Tour Champions until he stopped “hitting bombs. But I’m hitting some crazy bombs right now.”
But Mickelson, who has won six of his 44 Tour titles after turning 40, knows just seven players have won on the PGA Tour after turning 50. When he won in Mexico at 47, he boasted he would win 50 titles on the PGA Tour. When he won at Pebble Beach at 48, he backtracked a bit.
And this year he’s missed five cuts in seven starts, including in last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge as the PGA Tour resumed its season.
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“I believe I can still play golf at the highest level but I’m going to see how this summer goes,” Mickelson said. “I’ve worked hard. I feel like my body and my game are in good shape to play and compete at the highest level but I want to see how it goes. I want to be honest with myself and after two third-place finishes earlier this year I haven’t played the way I feel like I should be playing and I haven’t been getting the results.
“So I want to see if I can do what I think I can do. I have to be fair to myself and honest with myself and see if I’m able to compete at the highest level. I know I feel I can compete and win on the PGA Tour, but I want to see if the results say as much as I think they will.”
The competitive fires continues to burn within, his work ethic has not withered, and he’s as fit and strong as he’s been in decades since losing nearly 40 pounds after a fast and a change in his diet last summer. And his passion for the game hasn’t waned, so he’ll be trying to him bombs somewhere for a long time.
“The game of golf gives me a positive outlet that allows me to focus my non-stop mind. It’s all consuming,” Mickelson said. “And I love how it plays such a positive role in my life. If it wasn’t for my desire to play and compete on the PGA Tour, I wouldn’t be out there working out four to five days a week trying to stay in shape and playing as much golf as I do.
“I’m giving myself a fair chance to compete. If it wasn’t for golf to consume my thoughts at night, thinking about how I want to attack a golf course or what club I might come up with in this situation or that situation to give me an advantage, or what practice session I want to do the next day to get better and so forth, it would be easy for me to consume my thoughts with negative areas.
“So golf has been such a big, positive part of my life that I’m so appreciative that it has done to keep me mentally healthy as well as how it has given me and my family so much throughout my life. And it will continue to do so.”
Billy Andrade needs to visit a barber and could put the razor to good use. His gin game is on the up-and-up, he’s conquered three jigsaw puzzles for the first time in his life, his sleeping habits have changed, and he’s recently rekindled his …
Billy Andrade needs to visit a barber and could put the razor to good use.
His gin game is on the up-and-up, he’s conquered three jigsaw puzzles for the first time in his life, his sleeping habits have changed, and he’s recently rekindled his profession by practicing and playing golf ahead of a hopeful return to his job.
Such is quarantine life in his home in Atlanta during a global pandemic.
The four-time winner on the PGA Tour winner and three-time victor on the PGA Tour Champions hasn’t played competitively since March 8 when he closed with a 67 in the Hoag Classic in California to finish 47th. Now he’s counting down the days until the PGA Tour Champions is scheduled to resume July 23 in the Ally Challenge in Michigan.
“I’m going crazy. This is nuts,” Andrade, 56, said in a chat with Golfweek. “Thank god we can play golf again. I didn’t play for a couple months, didn’t pick up a club. Last week, week and a half, I’ve played four times, hits balls a few times.
“It’s groundhog day, seems like every day. You wake up, you do the same thing, and you go to bed and you wake up and do the same thing again.”
But Andrade’s spirits remain high – a tribute to his glass-half-full approach to when the sun comes up. Still, he so misses the game he loves and has afforded him a grand lifestyle and led him and his top-notch mate, Brad Faxon, to donate millions to charity. On the flip side, however, he said it’s been a blessing to be able to spend so much quality time with his two children and wife.
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In a lively exchange – there is no other kind with Andrade – he touched on shelter-at-home life, golf’s anticipated return, his time spent battling Tiger Woods at his apex and then Bernhard Langer at his PGA Tour Champions zenith.
And he misses being out on the road, the camaraderie and chasing a trophy.
“That’s what we all love the most – being in the mix, being nervous and playing golf and trying to win tournaments,” he said. “You miss listening to your name on the first tee and being a little nervous.”
For now, he’ll keep staying up till 2 a.m. and thinking about days gone by. Good days. Days when he went up against the guy in the red shirt.
“In the year 2000, Tiger and I got paired together in the first two rounds six or seven times. I had a front-row seat to this greatness,” he said. “He was all business. I’ve never seen a player so focused. He wasn’t chatty-chatty on the golf course. He didn’t want to get really close to the top players; he just wanted to beat them all.
“I saw that stinger for the first time, on the fourth hole in the Bay Hill Invitational. It went about three feet in the air, straight down the fairway. I was in awe. And I had a tap on my shoulder and it was my caddie, and my caddie said, ‘Hey, you’re up. You have to hit.’ I was blown away. I had never seen a shot like that.
“He had no weakness. He hit it high, he hit it low, he putted as well as anybody I’ve ever seen. His short game was fantastic when he missed greens.”
And then Andrade had to face the Tiger of the PGA Tour Champions – Langer, the two-time Masters champion who won 42 European Tour events and then 41 PGA Tour Champions titles, including 11 majors.
“You talk about a player with no weakness,” he said. “He is an absolute machine and so dedicated. And he’s such a good guy.”
Andrade can’t wait to see that guy again. He hopes it’s not a long wait.
“Everyone wants to get back to normal, but normal’s gone,” he said. “It’s all a new normal. We on the Champions Tour are going to see how the PGA Tour handles the next two months, before we go back out.
“No. 1 for me is safety. If we can be safe and we can do this, that would be fantastic. But that’s asking a lot. I hope it all works out. I would love to play a tournament starting tomorrow. I think everybody would. But we want to keep our families safe, we want to be safe. Hopefully, all the sports can get back but I still think it’s a long shot.”
The senior tour has lost nearly a third of its 2020 season events due to the coronavirus, but has made plans to amend the next two seasons.
Nearly 10 weeks have passed since the last PGA Tour Champions event, the Hoag Classic played at Newport Beach (California) Country Club. Since that time, coronavirus precautions have caused eight events on the 27-event senior tour schedule not to be played, including the U.S. Senior Open. Many other events have been postponed to later in 2020.
The tour announced on Thursday that it will blend this shortened 2020 season with the 2021 season to create one complete season. That means, among other things, that no end-of-year awards will be awarded in 2020 and no qualifying tournament will be conducted either. Players will retain their 2020 eligibility in 2021, except for five players in the Q-School category, who will play their guaranteed events.
The next Charles Schwab Cup champion will be crowned in November 2021 at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
“While we won’t have a Charles Schwab Cup champion in 2020, we feel that the combined schedule for 2020-21 is the best solution for everyone associated with PGA TOUR Champions,” said PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady. “The wonderful support from the tournaments, title sponsors, Charles Schwab and the Player Advisory Council has helped us address some of the schedule complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a result we have created solutions that best serve our members and our tournament communities.”
The tour has announced additional measures intended to “uphold the competitive integrity of the Charles Schwab Cup” and offset some of the impact made by the cancellation of tournaments, according to a release issued Thursday. Those adjustments include increasing tournament field sizes from 78 to 81 players for the remaining 2020 events, converting the three 2020 Charles Schwab Cup playoff events to 81-player fields and reducing the Charles Schwab Cup Championship from 72 to 54 holes.
Only five tournaments have been completed so far this season, and 13 tournaments remain on the 2020 calendar. As it stands, the tour is scheduled to return July 31 at the Ally Challenge at Warwick Hills in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
Tour events in 2021 that will go into the combined schedule will be announced later in the year, according to the tour.
The PGA Tour Champions event in Madison, Wisconsin, is now off the schedule but it will return in 2021.
Professional golf in the United States has been the one sport slowly advancing toward normalcy within the coronavirus pandemic, but the American Family Insurance Championship in Madison, Wisconsin, could not find a home in an abbreviated golf season and was formally canceled on Thursday.
Conversations about moving the tournament off its original weekend of June 5-7 at University Ridge Golf Course began during the Players Championship, which was canceled on March 12.
As talks progressed over the last month, the PGA Tour provided alternate dates for the tournament in June, July and August but logistical issues prevented the tournament from finding a date that worked for all parties involved in a reschedule.
American Family Insurance’s corporate initiatives for the rest of 2020, along with golf course availability, sponsor requirements, volunteer availability and operational partners all had to align for a new date to be picked.
“When you take a look at all those factors combined, ultimately there was not one date that ultimately landed because one date ultimately had a conflict of one of those varying factors,” tournament director Nate Pokrass said on a video conference call Thursday afternoon. “When you piece that all together, unfortunately just the options to reschedule weren’t available. As we look for a safe and healthy environment and still have that philanthropic impact, this cancellation allows us to go down that path.”
Ticket or pro-am purchases can be refunded, deferred to 2021 or turned into a donation to tournament charities.
In a video message, tournament host and U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker said, “It was not an easy decision by any means. We know how much this event means to the community, the fans, the volunteers and the sponsors. We all look forward to it. Even the golfers, we look froward to it.
“But given the mandates and the orders to stay at home, the social distancing, we all know what they are, we just felt like it was in the best interest of everybody – and the safety of everybody – to cancel this year’s event.”
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and in collaboration with the @ChampionsTour, we are canceling all 2020 #AmFamChamp activities scheduled for May 30-June 7. Full statement: https://t.co/PrI898Llj6
The tournament announced $2.8 million would be donated to charities, with $1 million to the American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, $800,000 to the local charities from the 2019 event and $1 million to the COVID-19 relief effort in Wisconsin.
Stricker also announced the dates of the 2021 tournament, which will be June 10-13.
Since its inception in 2016, the tournament has gained prestige among players and has won the tour’s President’s Award in back-to-back years for “demonstrating outstanding achievement” for charitable giving, sales, attendance and economic impact.
In 2019, an event won by Madison native Jerry Kelly, 70,000-plus fans filled the golf course. The tournament said its estimated economic impact was about $15 million.
The BoDeans and Little Big Town were slated to play the annual tournament-opening concert June 5. They will be the acts for the 2021 tournament instead.
Earlier on Thursday, the PGA Tour announced its intention to begin its schedule on June 11-14 without fans in attendance at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas. It also released its fall schedule while noting it would address future PGA Tour Champions dates in the coming weeks.
With the cancellation of the AmFam Championship, there are no PGA Tour Champions Tour events on the schedule until the second week of July.
“The tour has been a great partner in this process and they’ve looked at and explored a lot of different options with us and somewhat of our timing (of the cancellation) was done in partnership with the PGA (Tour),” American Family community and social impact officer Jim Buchheim said in the video call. “It did allow them to get through some of their (scheduling) announcements (Thursday) morning. That’s why we’re timed the way that we are today. I think we have a good partnership there and that’s continued throughout this challenging process.”
The coronavirus has delayed much of the 2020 professional golf season. Here’s when the top professional tours get back in action.
Since mid-March, sports events around the United States began to get canceled or postponed due to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
As the weeks have rolled on and numbers of confirmed cases and deaths increased, professional golf tours have had to adjust, pushing tournaments back or knocking them off the schedule altogether, all in an attempt to salvage the rest of the 2020 season.
The British Open has been canceled, while new dates for the Masters Tournament, the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open are scheduled for later in the fall in hopes the coronavirus pandemic has subsided by then. Details on the PGA Tour’s new major dates can be found here.
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Here’s what’s next as of April 13 on the major professional golf tour schedules.
PGA Tour
The next scheduled stops are the Charles Schwab Challenge (May 21-24), Rocket Mortgage Classic (May 28-31) and The Memorial Tournament (June 4-7).
The next events on the LPGA calendar are the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give (June 11-14), the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship (June 19-21) and the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship (June 25-28).
The next stop on the European Tour is scheduled for June 25-28 at the BMW International Open in Munich, Germany, followed by the French Open July 2-5 at Le Golf National in Paris.
The next tournament on the PGA Tour Champions schedule is the American Family Insurance Championship on June 5-7 at University Ridge Golf Club in Madison, Wisconsin. The next two events after that, including the U.S. Senior Open Championship, have been canceled. The July 9-12 Bridgestone Senior Players Championship is the next listed event on the docket.
The next stop on the Korn Ferry Tour is May 21-24 at the Evans Scholars Invitational at the Glen Club in Glenview, Illinois. In all, six KFT tournaments have been canceled and two others postponed so far in 2020.
Depending on whom you ask, CBD – or as it is officially known, cannabidiol – is either a miracle compound or all hype.
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Casey Alexander, who covers the golf industry as senior vice president and research analyst at Compass Point, snapped pictures of 18 CBD companies pitching their products at January’s PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.
“As my son likes to say, 18 is a thing,” Alexander tells The Forecaddie. Turns out he missed one booth, but no matter.
Depending on whom you ask, CBD – or as it is officially known, cannabidiol – is either a miracle compound or all hype. It’s been dubbed the new avocado toast, and one thing is certain: It is the trendiest supplement on the market. Customers are trying CBD products for a range of ailments, including as an aid for inflammation, pain relief, an anxiety reducer and a protector of the nervous system.
Golfers seem to be a perfect fit.
“There are a lot of old farts like me that are breaking down,” said Arthur Viente of Asheville Botanicals, whose company markets products called “Fairway” geared for first-tee jitters and anxiety and “Swing” to prevent inflammation and pain post-round.
The Man Out Front ran out of fingers trying to count all the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions pros that have signed on as CBD product endorsers, a list that includes Bubba Watson, Marc Leishman, Brandt Jobe and Scott McCarron.
Charley Hoffman tees of on the tenth hole during the first round of the 2020 Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. Photo by Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports
On his eighth hole of the first round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Charley Hoffman suffered from back spasms, so he rubbed a topical lotion from Medterra, a THC-free product he endorses, on his back and the relief was almost instantaneous.
“Everyone (on the PGA Tour) has tried it,” Hoffman, 43, said. “It’s real. I’ve talked to people who are older than me, and it’s life-changing.”
In addition to topical products, CBD is consumed in pill form and as gummies, tinctures and chewing gum. After Tiger Woods won the Masters chewing what was rumored to be CBD-laced gum – Tiger has neither confirmed nor denied what it was – Greg Moore, Medterra’s vice president of sales, told CEO Jay Hartenbach they had to develop a CBD gum. It launched in February.
Davis Love III prefers spearmint, while other brands have cinnamon and raspberry flavors. One maker signed a licensing deal to produce a Red Bull version.
TMOF is willing to try something other than Pepto-Bismol to quiet those first-tee butterflies, but for now he’s holding out for someone to perfect a Doritos Cool Ranch flavor.
This story originally appeared in Issue 1 – 2020 of Golfweek magazine.
After a lengthy but winless PGA Tour career, Brett Quigley won in his second start on the senior circuit.
When finally we reach the safe side of this void, there will be losses that are painfully apparent in the world of golf. Lives, most likely. Livelihoods, certainly. Courses, companies, tournaments. Those are the known ones. The unknown losses are frivolous by comparison.
Some golfer will one day slip into a green jacket as the winner of the 84th Masters Tournament, but we’ll never know who would have done so had the event taken place as scheduled two weeks from now. Same goes for May’s aborted PGA Championship. For now at least, dreams of Rory McIlroy’s career grand slam and Brooks Koepka’s three-straight Wanamakers belong on the same beaten docket.
There are no winners because there are no races when the thoroughbreds are confined to their paddocks.
Brett Quigley deployed a racehorse analogy when we spoke a few days ago. “Golf-wise, I’m ready to play. Absolutely chomping at the bit to get back out there,” he said. After a lengthy but winless PGA Tour career — one trammeled with injuries in its last decade — Quigley registered his biggest victory on Feb. 1 at the PGA Tour Champions stop in Morocco. It came in only his second senior start. He contended the next two events as well. Then the season ground to a halt.
Like most professional golfers, Quigley has spent the last couple of weeks eking out a semblance of normalcy at home with his family while hoping the good old days will come again. That’s a familiar experience for him. Before turning 50 last August, he had made just nine PGA Tour starts since 2011 owing to a couple of major injuries, including a stress fracture in his left leg and three fractured vertebrae.
He recently received a text message from an acquaintance. “You’re getting screwed,” it read. “You’re going to lose a year and you don’t have that many years.”
“I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I’ve already hit the lottery,” Quigley said. “I’m playing golf again and I’m competitive. I’m loving it. I don’t look at it that way at all. In some respects I am so ready to play, but I’ve been off for so long I’m okay with being a little more patient. I’ve waited this long, no big deal if I have to wait another three, four, six months.”
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Uncertainty around his next tournament start is second nature by now, so Quigley spends days with his daughters (aged 11 and 12), hitting balls at Medalist in Hobe Sound, Florida (at least until the club is ordered to close) and watching the news. “All these terms that a month ago I had no idea what they meant, now all of a sudden we’re all experts on flattening a curve,” he says with resigned humor.
A competitor in form must find it difficult not to anxiously scan the horizon for an event that survives the cull, I suggested. “I’m trying not to go there,” he replied. “I thought an outside chance was the U.S. Open…” His voice trails off. The U.S. Senior Open is still scheduled for June 25-28 at Newport Country Club in Quigley’s native Rhode Island. The dominoes in line ahead of it on the PGA Tour Champions schedule have been falling: three events canceled, one postponed and the first silver major, the Regions Tradition, shunted from early May to late September.
“If they can play it at all, it wouldn’t matter when they play it,” he said, more with hope than optimism.
Playing a major championship in Rhode Island would be a bonus in this environment. Playing anywhere would be welcome. “I guess if I had to put a date on it I’d say August, but I don’t know. Hopefully we’re playing golf by then,” Quigley said. “Hopefully we won’t lose too many more, but there are bigger issues than golf for sure.”
A historic Donald Ross course will host the tournament as the PGA Tour Champions returns to Jacksonville for the first time in 19 years.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The PGA Tour Champions will return to Jacksonville for the first time in 19 years when the Constellation Furyk and Friends will be played at the historic Timuquana Country Club Oct. 4-10, 2021.
The Tour signed a five-year deal with Constellation and Timuquana for the full-field event, with a $2 million purse. It will be aired on Golf Channel.
Jim Furyk, a 17-time PGA Tour winner and the 2003 U.S. Open champion, will host the tournament. The foundation he runs with his wife Tabitha is the charitable beneficiary and Constellation, which sponsored the Senior Players Championship until 2018, returns to the tour as a title sponsor.
Furyk made the announcement on Sunday at the 10th annual Furyk and Friends Concert, at the 17th hole of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course.
“We think it’s a huge opportunity to raise more dollars to help folks and more charitable organizations in Northeast Florida,” Furyk told the Florida Times-Union. “To be able to align ourselves with the PGA Tour and everything about their history of $3 billion in charitable giving is a very big step and something we’re very proud of.”
“It seemed like the right time to make this move to continue that growth,” Tabitha Furyk said. “Bring folks to Jacksonville to see how great our city is but also help us benefit those who need it.”
The last time a PGA Tour Champions event was played in the Jacksonville area was the the Legends of Golf at the Golf Club of Amelia, the Slammer & Squire, and the King & Bear from 1998-2002. The Senior Players was at the Sawgrass Country Club in 1987 and the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley in 1988 and 1989.
Constellation, a Baltimore-based energy company, has pledged $500,000 per year to the foundation beginning in 2021, and will make an initial donation of $100,000 this year. That means over the duration of the first contract, at least $2.6 million will go to charity.
Constellation’s parent company, Exelon, has been one of Furyk’s sponsors in the past.
“This is going to be a home run,” said Constellation president Mark Huston. “What really sold us was the personal interest Jim and Tabitha have in their community. The charity aspect of the tournament is something we’re behind 100 percent.”
Furyk and his wife’s foundation has assisted children and families in need in Northeast Florida for the last decade, such as Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Community PedsCare, Operation Shower and Blessings in a Backpack.
But transitioning that event to a PGA Champions tournament is a game-changer.
“We were a bit limited with the two-day event,” Tabitha Furyk said about the current version of Furyk and Friends. “Now we have an opportunity to grow it. We have already gained momentum, locally and nationally, and this week we needed 100 hotel rooms for the guests. Even with what we’ve been able to do right now, we’re scratching the surface. We know there is an opportunity to do more big things.”
PGA Tour Champions president Miller Brady said that goal of the Furyks is closely aligned with every Champions event.
“It’s going to be a week-long party,” Brady said. “PGA Champions players love the pro-ams, the pairings parties and have a good understanding of the importance of a sponsor and the fans. And Jim is such a great professional on and off the golf course who will give the event great name recognition. They’ve done a great job assisting children and families for the last 10 years and Constellation is committed to make sure that will continue, and to increase the charitable giving.”
Furyk said the pros should enjoy Timuquana, a Donald Ross design that is 97 years old. He and his wife recently became a members.
“I love this golf course … I think it’s going to set up phenomenal for this tournament,” Furyk said.
Furyk will be the second PGA Tour Champions member to host a tournament. Steve Stricker is the host for the American Family Insurance Championship in Madison, Wis., in June.
