Smoltz will be vying for one of five cards that will be handed out at TPC Scottsdale.
Baseball Hall of Famer John Smoltz is among the 78 golfers who earned a spot in the final stage of qualifying for the PGA Tour Champions.
Smoltz, 55, will be vying for one of five cards that will be handed out at the end of the week at TPC Scottsdale’s Champions Course.
Smoltz won 213 games over a 21-year career as a pitcher. In three previous attempts at Q school, he hasn’t finished better than tied for 54th in the first stage.
Smoltz won a World Series with the Atlanta Braves in 1995. He won the National League Cy Young award in 1996. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015.
He hasn’t competed on PGA Tour Champions since 2021, but he has played in nine events overall, including the 2018 U.S. Senior Open.
Other notables/hopefuls at TPC Scottsdale this week include:
NBC/Golf Channel reporter Notah Begay III, back at qualifying for a second year in a row
Former Arizona State golfer Todd Demsey, who likes to use persimmon clubs
Shaun Micheel, whose lone PGA Tour win was the 2003 PGA Championship
Ted Purdy, who grew up down the I-10 in Tucson and went to the University of Arizona
54-year-old amateur Bryan Hoops of Scottsdale, who claims 19 holes-in-one, with 15 of them coming in tournaments
Jonathan Kaye, who won two PGA Tour events, including the 2004 FBR Open (now the WM Phoenix Open) at the TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course
72-year-old Dick Mast, who’s played in 360 PGA Tour events and another 191 Champions events without a win. He does have four victories on the Korn Ferry Tour, the most recent in 1999. He got in the field at the last minute after Andrew Marshall withdrew
The first tee times are Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. local (10:30 a.m. ET). Smoltz is playing alongside Daniel Chopra and Jason Bohn at 8:52 a.m. local time off the first tee. The event concludes on Friday. Admission is free for anyone interested in attending.
For decades, the PGA Championship has delivered drama and amazing finishes.
The Masters has Amen Corner, the green jacket and azaleas. The U.S. Open bills itself as the toughest and most democratic golf tournament in the world. The British Open is the oldest of golf’s four majors and the only one played on links courses.
And then there’s the PGA Championship. It’s the only one of golf’s majors with a field comprised only of professionals, including 20 club professionals, but it gets knocked by some fans and pundits for lacking a persona. Its format has changed, going from match play to stroke play in 1958, and its date has changed, recently moving from August, when it was “Glory’s Last Shot,” to May.
But one thing has been a constant at the PGA Championship for decades, it delivers drama and amazing finishes that often involve the biggest stars in the game. Here are the iconic moments and great finishes at PGA Championships since 2000.
There are 78 different stories in Scottsdale this week. Here are a few of the interesting ones.
The final stage of the 2023 PGA Tour Champions Qualifying Tournament is this week at TPC Scottsdale.
The Champions course will host 78 players in four rounds concluding on Friday. The field includes a major champion and an NCAA champion.
In all, five players will earn their 2023 tour cards and be fully exempt into the 16 open, full-field PGA Tour Champions events (which do not include the majors).
Those who finish in spots six through 30 and ties are eligible to apply for PGA Tour Champions Associate Membership, which allows them the chance to enter 2023 event qualifiers.
There are 78 different stories in Scottsdale this week. Here are a few of the interesting ones.
The 2003 PGA Champion is taking on a new challenge.
Colby Huffman was looking for someone who could benefit his golf team in multiple ways.
Before the start of the 2022-23 college season, Huffman, the head men’s coach at Butler, was in need of an assistant. He wanted someone who could help not only with swings and mental approaches, but also playing experience at different levels. He wanted someone who could take his team to another level.
Enter Shaun Micheel. Yes, the major champion who won his only PGA Tour title at the 2003 PGA Championship at Oak Hill.
“I had reached out to some of my coaching buddies and asked for their opinions on some people,” Huffman said. “I eventually called Shaun out of the blue. He was interested to get into coaching.”
Micheel’s playing career isn’t over — he still practices plenty in between attending his daughter’s high school soccer games or visiting his older kids in college at Ole Miss — but he has started looking at what could be next. Huffman’s call, and the friendship the two had built before then, opened a door for Micheel to get into coaching and give it a shot. Now, the Butler men’s golf team has a PGA champion on its side, a major asset that Huffman hoped pay dividends well into the spring season.
A plaque in the rough on the 18th hole commemorates the 7-iron shot that Shaun Micheel struck from 174 yards during the 2003 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York. (Photo: Scott Halleran/Getty Images)
“I’ve given a lot of speeches at clinics where I have offered my advice, and I never really got to see where that advice went,” Micheel said. “When you play in a pro-am and help that person out, you may never see that person again to see whether they got any better or see whether what you told them was a load of garbage.”
Micheel, 53, will now get to see that advice play out over the course of the season.
Huffman said he and Micheel met nearly a decade ago and have stayed in touch since. That’s why it was easy for Micheel to say yes to being an assistant, even though he still lives in Tennessee.
He won’t be at every practice, and he hasn’t been at every tournament for Butler’s fall season. He made his debut in October at the Xavier Invitational in Ohio. Although Micheel may not be as hands-on as Huffman, his impact can’t be understated.
There have been multiple phone calls and messages with players on the team. Everything from ideas on swing thoughts to mental approach, it’s fair to say Butler’s student-athletes are using Micheel and his expertise as an advantage.
And they should. Having a major champion as a college coach is basically unheard of.
“It has been a long time since I’ve been at a golf tournament as a non-participant,” Micheel said. “I didn’t really know what to expect.”
Forget first-tee jitters as a competitor. Micheel admitted he had those as an assistant.
Much as a golfer figures out how a golf course is playing during the round, Micheel was getting a feel of how to be an assistant during his first tournament.
He had to weigh whether to step in and say something to one of the players and how much he should say when they called him over. He tried to sit back and take in as much information as possible while stepping forward and trying to put players in a good position to succeed when they needed help.
“I didn’t want to put myself in a situation that were where a player wanted to hit a certain shot, and I talked him out of it,” Micheel said. “I think that goes back in the professional level with a player-caddie relationship. It’s difficult.”
Micheel said he told Huffman it’s hard to figure out when to speak up. As an assistant, Micheel is reading his players instead of greens. It’s part of the challenge he embraces with this new role, though his playing career isn’t close to over.
Shaun Micheel is an assistant coach for Butler’s men’s golf team. (Photo: Butler men’s golf)
He wants to become exempt on the PGA Tour Champions, and Micheel has final-stage qualifying in Scottsdale next month to try and attain that. Even while chasing Champions status, he plans to get up to Butler’s campus in Indianapolis this winter to meet with some of the athletic department staff and more.
That will also give him another opportunity to connect more with the team heading into the spring.
“Pretty much everyone on the team wants to turn pro, so with Shaun being able to talk with them about everything related to that, that experience is invaluable,” Huffman said. “He can give these guys playing wisdom, life advice and so much more.”
Those lessons have been major, and as Micheel continues to work on his game, there’s a good chance he can learn as much from being an assistant coach at Butler as the players can learn from him.
“I don’t have any aspirations to give up playing golf right now to become a college coach (full-time),” Micheel said. “But I mean, as many injuries as I’ve had, maybe that’s an opportunity that might present itself down the road somewhere. You just never know, but for right now, I’m gonna play and get to some of these events when I can. I’m eager to help out these young men.”
Only five players have won a major championship for their lone PGA Tour win.
Will Zalatoris is one of the many young talents on the PGA Tour. He’s one of the best iron players in the game, has some power off the tee, and understands when to be aggressive and when to lay off.
But, he’s still searching for his first PGA Tour win.
He’s played well in major championships so far in his brief career, including a runner-up finish to Hideki Matsuyama at the 2020 Masters and after a first-round 66, he’s in the hunt at the 2022 PGA Championship.
So, that got us thinking, who are the golfers whose only win came in a major championship?
The answer to the question? Five. Just five players have won a major championship as their lone PGA Tour victory.
