Tiger Woods won the same stop three times in a row six different times.
Only six golfers have ever done it. It’s only happened 11 times in all on the PGA Tour and Tiger Woods has done it six of those times. On two of those occasions, Woods won the same tournament four years in a row.
We’re talking about winning the same PGA Tour event three years in a row, something that hasn’t happened in 13 years, not since the 2011 John Deere Classic.
The list of PGA Tour golfers who have won the same tournament three consecutive seasons has some big names on it, for sure. Woods, as mentioned. Jack Nicklaus was the first to do it. Many of the game’s greats never pulled off this feat, though. Tom Kim has the chance to do it at the 2024 Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas.
Check out the list of names and tournaments below. Source: pgatour.com.
No one has ever three-peated on the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. Until now.
No one has ever three-peated on both the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. Until now.
Steve Stricker became a notable first Sunday with his third straight victory in the 2024 Sanford International. Coupled with his three straight wins at the John Deere Classic from 2009 to 2011, and he now holds a unique place in the PGA Tour history books.
Stricker started the final round at at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, three shots back of the lead of Michael Wright.
Stricker was up two shots late but he bogeyed the par-4 closing hole and then watched Richard Green birdie the last and so off to a playoff they went.
On the fourth extra hole, Stricker’s approach rolled up and hit the flagstick.
Stricker shot 67-68-67 for the week. The victory was his fourth in the seven-year history of the tournament and his 18th Champions win. He won 12 times on the PGA Tour.
Making a Sunday charge but coming up just short was Bernhard Langer. He shot a Sunday 67 to finish at 7 under. Just a week ago, he lost in a playoff, so this gives him consecutive runner-up finishes. Langer tied for second along with Green. Ernie Els, the leader in the Charles Schwab Cup points, also tied for third at 7 under.
A relationship between golfers and their putters is one of the most integral to sustained success. But when that relationship is on bad terms, making the switch to something new can be a difficult decision. That’s the battle Steve Stricker is …
A relationship between golfers and their putters is one of the most integral to sustained success. But when that relationship is on bad terms, making the switch to something new can be a difficult decision.
That’s the battle Steve Stricker is fighting as he tries to defend his Kaulig Companies Championship title this week at Firestone Country Club.
Putting, more so than any other facet of golf, is about personal feel and what fits an individual’s eye. A driver can be improved with technology and adjusted to fit a player’s swing, and once something comes along that performs better it’s easy to move on and put that new driver in the bag.
Steve Stricker putts on the seventh hole during the Kaulig Companies Championship Pro-Am at Firestone Country Club on Wednesday in Akron.
And while that can be the case with a putter — many players might benefit from a putter matched to their stroke — there is an added element of personal feel that just doesn’t exist to the same degree as a set of irons or a fairway wood. Sometimes, selecting a putter is as much about comfort as anything.
Many players — Tiger Woods included — have used one putter (or one type of putter with small adjustments) for several years. While the other clubs in the bag rotate often, a putter can be a staple for much longer.
Stricker is one of golf’s best putters over the last several decades, often ranking near the top of the leaderboards at each stop on his career path. And for the past couple of decades, he’s mostly used the exact same putter, which has simply had elements of it renewed to extend its lifespan.
But, lately, Stricker’s trusty putter that had been a reliable sidekick for years — an Odyssey White Hot No. 2 blade — hasn’t been finding the same success.
That led to Stricker finally trying something new a few weeks ago — an Odyssey Versa Jailbird 380, which is a totally different style and head (the Jailbird is longer and has a mallet-style head, meaning it’s larger and has more weight). The results were mostly positive, though it’ll take time — even for a long-time pro — to get the feel down and be totally comfortable with it.
This week, Stricker has been on the practice greens working with both. And it sounds like he’s switching back in the name of comfort and familiarity on the greens — maybe, probably.
“I think it’s going to be the old putter for now,” Stricker said at Firestone Country Club Wednesday. “There’s a lot of good things with that new putter I found. … But, yeah, it’s close. It’s a tossup, it really is. I don’t know if one of them are the answer, but I’m going to go with the old one, I think.”
Stricker has won two of the last three PGA Tour Champions events at Firestone (2021, 2023). He was a 12-time winner on the PGA Tour and he’s won 17 times on the Champions Tour. Through almost all of it, deciding which putter to use wasn’t one of the major decisions he had to make on a weekly basis.
For the first time in a long time, that back-and-forth has now become a factor.
“We’re always looking for that little bit of an advantage out here and maybe a feeling that it’s better, and that’s why I’ve got with that new one I putted with a couple weeks ago,” he said. “I felt like my stroke was a little more solid, it flowed a little better, it’s a heavier putter. There were some good things I found from that, but there are also some things that I struggled with it, too.”
Clearing the mind can be advantageous. That, too, is what Stricker has been fighting. Considering he’s one of the favorites, Stricker struggling on the greens might be one of the factors that could open up the tournament.
“It’s trying to get a feel, and that’s kind of what I did with my old putter yesterday,” Stricker said. “My mind’s been racing, I’ve been feeling a little extra pressure trying to make a putt, and that’s not how you make putts. So I’ve been trying to ease my mind, slow down, get my tempo back.”
So the tournament favorite is going back to his long-time putter — for now, at least. It remains to be seen for how long.
“Every record out here started at 50. They should never lower it. That’s what it is and what it should always be”
(Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series examining the PGA Tour Champions and its eligibility age from Golfweek’s PGA Tour senior writer Adam Schupak. The first part of the series, on Tiger Woods and his potential involvement in the PGA Tour Champions, is linked here.)
Carl Pettersson is stuck in what many PGA Tour professionals over the age of 40 refer to as no man’s land.
Pettersson, 46, aka the Swedish Pancake, has made 443 career Tour starts, won five times, reached as high as No. 23 in the world in 2006 and earned more than $22 million on the PGA Tour, but injured a wrist in 2016 and has cashed a check just once since October 2017. He’s made just 10 starts in the last six years since turning 40 and underwent surgery on both hips a year ago – three months apart – to repair torn labrums that had limited his mobility.
“I’m just getting back into the swing of things,” he said during a recent phone interview with Golfweek. “I’d like to make a run on the Champions Tour in a few years.”
That is a common refrain of pro golfers as they approach the half-century mark. In no other profession do workers welcome turning 50 more than PGA Tour pros, who blow out all those candles and instantly become eligible for golf’s great mulligan, PGA Tour Champions, the 50-and-older circuit. But getting to an age that often sets off a mid-life crisis in others and transitioning to a life of (mostly) no cuts and suddenly being one of the longer players again can be tricky business. As the Tour becomes younger and deeper, it’s become harder than ever to keep a card and remain relevant after age 40, demoting some pros to eke out a living on the Korn Ferry Tour, others to become talking heads on TV or, in Pettersson’s case, Uber Dad around town.
Is 50 still the right age for eligibility to PGA Tour Champions? It’s a question that has surfaced every few years since the senior circuit came into fruition in 1980. Opinions are sharp and divided.
“It could possibly help both tours,” Jeff Sluman, 66, said. “Get some more youth in there, more access for the Korn Ferry Tour pros on the PGA Tour.”
“Every record out here started at 50,” Scott McCarron, 58, said. “They should never lower it. That’s what it is and what it should always be.”
When Golfweek asked PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan if he felt age 50 still is the right criteria to become eligible for the PGA Tour Champions and has there been any consideration of lowering that number, he essentially brushed the question aside for another day.
“The only way I would respond to that is that 50 has worked very well, and when you look at the impact you can have by lowering the age level and thinking about who is going to start playing on PGA Tour Champions versus continuing to play here competitively and thinking about those that are on PGA Tour Champions today and the records that are there, it’s complicated,” Monahan said. “But we’re dealing with a lot of complexity, so that’s something that we’ll continue to look at.”
Four years ago, before COVID-19 or LIV Golf emerged to focus their attention, members of the PGA Tour policy board pushed for PGA Tour Champions to evaluate if the time was right to lower the age of eligibility. One suggestion was to staircase the age down one year at a time until it would be lowered to 45 to avoid the shock and make it more palatable for current members of the senior circuit. The reality is there’s no equitable way to do it – someone is going to feel as if he’s been screwed.
Justin Ray, head of content at Twenty-first Group, provided several stats that confirm what seems obvious by now: the PGA Tour is getting younger. From 2000 through the 2012-13 season, 18.2 percent of PGA Tour winners were age 40 or older. Since 2013-14, that number is significantly lower — 8.4 percent.
From 2000 through 2011, there were nine different seasons where 15 percent or more of the wins on Tour went to players age 40 or older. There has not been a single season where 15 percent or more were age 40 or older since.
In the 2021-22 season, there was only one player in his 40s all season to win — Chez Reavie at the Barracuda Championship, and he was 40 years old. Since 1990, there have been four seasons where there were two or fewer winners on the Tour age 40-plus — wait for it — two of them are 2020 (2 wins) and 2022 (1 win) and this season could be headed to a third. Camilo Villegas, 41 at the time, Justin Rose, 42, and Lucas Glover, who won twice at age 43, were the only 40-somethings to lift a trophy last season. Just one player 40 or older has tasted victory so far this season: Brice Garnett, 40, at the Puerto Rico Open, an opposite-field event with a diluted field.
In fact, since Phil Mickelson’s win at the 2021 PGA Championship at age 50, only seven events have been won by players 40 or older – a ratio of just 4.8 percent. Nobody older than 43 has won during that span. Stewart Cink won at 47 (Sept. 2020 and April 2021) and Brian Gay at 48 (Nov. 2020) but they have been the exception to the rule.
This season, there were eight players age 45 or older that were fully exempt on the Tour, including Matt Kuchar (46), Zach Johnson (48) and Scott Gutschewski (47) and only one of them, Charley Hoffman at No. 82, is currently in the top 125. The trend of younger winners and 40-somethings trying to hold on to status for dear life as they count the days to 50 has been hard to ignore and was the impetus for the PGA Tour policy board approaching the Champions Tour policy board to investigate the issue. A study was conducted that found that neither sponsors nor players were in favor of it.
So, the idea of lowering the eligibility age died on the vine.
James Hahn, 42, one of the policy board members at the time, recalled this being the final verdict: “They said, ‘We don’t want PGA Tour rejects. If you’re still competitive on the PGA Tour (in your late 40s) and have status, why would you want to play on the Champions Tour?’ ”
Indeed, the players who do move the needle tend to stay competitive longer and try to delay their transition to the senior circuit as long as possible for a simple reason: Nearly all of the Champions Tour’s regular-season purses are approximately $3 million, or less than first prize at a PGA Tour Signature event. It’s a case of simple economics why a player such as Cink continues to spend the majority of his time on the PGA Tour despite having turned 51. But Hahn, for one, questioned how much the members of the Champions Tour policy board – at the time David Toms, Paul Goydos and Joe Durant, who had each earned more than $7 million since turning 50 – were able to separate their own self-interest with what’s best for the future of the senior circuit.
“We’re in a room full of hypocrites,” Hahn said. “Joe Durant lost his card and then went on the Champions Tour. Now he’s on the board. You don’t want a PGA Tour reject but you were a Tour reject.”
Hahn said he supports seeing the eligibility age reduced to 47 or 48 – calling 45 “too young” – but claimed that Durant, Goydos and Toms didn’t want younger competition fearing they’d have instant success “and take money out of their pockets.”
“They don’t want that to happen,” Hahn said. “They are looking out for themselves and their friends more than for their business. There wasn’t a chance to pass the regulation of lowering the age because the people on their board are irrational and don’t see the benefit, or if they do see the benefit, it’s at the expense of them and their friends and affecting their personal income. After this conversation, it was put quickly on the sideburner because we didn’t want to have conflict between our boards.”
Kevin Kisner, 40, who served on the board at the time and supported lowering the eligibility age, agreed with Hahn’s assessment saying, “It’s dead in the water for now.”
To those on the Champions Tour, the attitude can best be summed up by the expression if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“We looked at it extensively as an organization and we looked at it in concert with the player directors on the regular tour. We were open to it because to be honest with you there’s been some push to lower it,” PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady said. “My response to that after looking at it, the guys that are going to move the needle out here, when they’re 48 the big names are still competitive on the regular tour, and they’re not going to come out here. At 48 I think Jim Furyk was still ranked in the top 10 in the world. I don’t need to lower the age for other journeymen, that doesn’t help us sell our product and it may have pushed out a Tom Kite or Ben Crenshaw. While Kite may not have been competitive anymore, he was fantastic in the pro-am and he’s a Hall of Famer. So I don’t need to bring in a 48-year-old who’s going to push out a big name. Now I may be told I have to do that at some point. But at least right now, everyone appreciates that it’s not something we should do.”
But the problem remains that being sentenced to “no man’s land” is happening a lot earlier for pros than ever before. More and more players are biding time in their 40s.
For Woody Austin, 60, who has banked more than $9 million on the senior circuit, the question is rather simple: “Do you get to collect anything else at any other endeavor at 45? I think not. It doesn’t need to get younger,” he said.
Austin blames equipment and the emphasis on the power game for dumbing down the ability to make a living on the Tour.
“I get that because the game has changed and these guys are better at 20 because the game is so frigging easy now you want to make it easier for the guys who get kicked out at 40, but no. You’re not a senior at 40 or 45,” he said. “Pretty soon the high school kids are going to be professionals if they keep making the game so easy. These guys aren’t any better at 19 than they were back in the day; you don’t have to know golf anymore. All they know is clubhead speed and go hit it. We had to know everything, they have to know nothing. Stop making it so easy and you wouldn’t have so many good 20-year-olds.”
Interestingly enough, Steve Stricker, 57, who led the Champions Tour money list with nearly $4 million in earnings last season and thus with the most to lose with an age change, has been one of the leading proponents of lowering the age. Stricker, who hosts the American Family Insurance Championship in his native Wisconsin, recalled being in the equipment trailer during a rain delay at his event in Madison in 2022 with Brady and discussing lowering the eligibility age.
“Wouldn’t 47 be a great time with Tiger about to turn 47 shortly?” he asked at the time. “It would boost this tour. We’re losing Lee Westwood and some other LIV guys. So I texted Tiger and he responds right away. No chance. When he comes out here he wants to compare his time out here to the greats – to Bernhard Langer and Hale Irwin. That’s him, right? Taking those records and having them in a spot where he can try to erase those records.”
But Stricker remains resolute that lowering the age would only strengthen the senior circuit.
“I still think we can change it to 48,” Stricker continued. “That doesn’t mean Tiger has to start at 48. But let Carl Pettersson come out and play and stay relevant. I support that concept, I really do. A couple years younger, somewhere in that range 45-50, 45 is a little aggressive but I’m thinking the 47-48 age would be a good boost for us. I think it is even more important now with some LIV guys going away. If we lower the age, there will be 10 more Steven Alkers that are 48 and hungry to play.”
That touches on another future concern: Will players be motivated to play into their 50s?
While Alker is the model for the journeyman making good from the fountain of youth — he earned $841,849 for his career on the PGA Tour and more than $8 million and counting since joining the Champions Tour — Hunter Mahan, 42, could be the archetype of the modern star player. He won six times and earned more than $30 million in prize money before walking away from the game in 2021 to spend more time at home with his family and began coaching high school golf.
When he joined the Tour, Kenny Perry, Vijay Singh and Jay Haas experienced some of their best years after 40. Before them, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Raymond Floyd all won majors in their 40s.
“I don’t see that happening again,” Mahan predicted. “The idea of a 40-year-old being the Player of the Year seems impossible. Guys are going to be like ‘I have so much money, do I want to grind at this at 45 and travel all the time?’ Some guys will, but it’s not going to be the game where guys play into their 60s.”
Davis Love III concurred that careers are trending shorter and the eligibility age may need to be lowered down the road.
“You might get to a point where guys have made so much money that they don’t care about playing at 50,” he said. “If someone had my career starting now, they’d make $620 million. If a guy does that by their 40s, why would he want to come out here and play? Our purses are staying the same.”
But that hasn’t stopped Pettersson from counting the days until he’s eligible for one of the two exemptions for players aged 48-49 into Korn Ferry Tour fields every week based on his position on the career money list and likely at least a year of exempt status on PGA Tour Champions when he turns 50. Does Pettersson think 45 is the right age?
“I see both sides, where 45 makes a lot of sense but everyone else has had to wait to 50 so keep it at 50,” he said.
It seems inevitable that the data supporting lowering the age will become so convincing that the powers-that-be will have a hard time sticking their head in the sand for too long. Does being two months away from turning 47 and unlikely to benefit from an age reduction color his opinion? Pettersson chuckled and said …
“I tried some Titleists, I tried some of the new Callaway stuff, and it’s just not the same for me.”
Steve Stricker still remembers the exact moment when he realized his beloved driver was cracked. The Callaway Epic Speed, with which he’d gotten comfortable, wasn’t performing as he’d hoped during the 2024 Players Championship and he noticed a hairline fracture just before missing the cut.
“I was hitting a shot that I hadn’t been hitting for a while,” Stricker said Thursday in advance of the American Family Insurance Championship. “You know, that’s a few models ago, let’s put it that way. I’m kind of one of those guys that finds something and sticks with it.”
And while he played well, finishing eighth, Stricker still felt he could improve a bit.
“I’m a big boy, I should be able to try to hit some of this new stuff,” he said. “I tried some Titleists, I tried some of the new Callaway stuff, and it’s just not the same for me.”
In advance of this week’s PGA Tour Champions event in his native Wisconsin, Stricker set out to find the exact Epic Speed he’d had before, putting in a call to a family shop from Naples, Florida, with whom he’d previously done business. A friend from The Golf Guys scoured inventory and found just what Stricker needed.
“I said, ‘Hey, do you happen to have any used Epic Speed heads, 9-degree triple diamond, all this kind of stuff,’ told him what mine was. He’s like, ‘I’ll get back to you,'” Stricker explained. “Sure enough he had a brand new one still in the wrapper. I’m like ‘How fast can you get that to me?’ Monday morning at 6:30 the Amazon guy dropped it off at my doorstep. Monday morning I was out there hitting it.
“The start lines are much better. I had to do a little finagling with the weights on it and all that kind of stuff.”
Stricker is hoping for improved performance this week at University Ridge, and that’s saying something for the 17-time PGA Tour Champions winner. He’s played seven events on the senior circuit this year and finished inside the top 10 on all but one occasion.
But in case he has a mishap with this driver, he got a little great news this week while preparing for this event.
“I go in the trailer this week and they found me another one,” Stricker said. “All of a sudden, I’ve got two where I didn’t have one before that, so things are looking up.”
Stricker is mostly sticking to the old tried and true, and not getting hung up on the latest and greatest.
Steve Stricker withdrew from the PGA Championship last week to focus on this week’s KitchenAide Senior PGA, an event where he will be the defending champion.
He’ll be among the field of 156 golfers at Harbor Shores Resort, Benton Harbor, Michigan, which is hosting for the sixth time since 2012.
Earlier this year, Stricker, who has seven senior majors among his 17 PGA Tour Champions wins, ran into some equipment issues at TPC Sawgrass.
“I broke my driver at the Players Championship, so that’s been a little bit of a bugaboo,” he said Wednesday ahead of the Senior PGA. “Then I said, you know what? Maybe it’s a good time to change some irons, so I tested some irons, but I went back to, at Regions a couple weeks ago, I went back to the ones that I’ve been playing the last four, five years, so that seemed to be a little bit better.”
While he has the older irons in his bag, he’s sticking with the driver.
“Hitting the driver nice. It’s a new Titleist driver that I am hitting,” he said, later adding that he paired it with his older V2 shaft. “That seems to be going pretty good, so I feel like I finally got my equipment figured out.”
Our defending Champion Steve Stricker shares what happened when he tried it make the putt. pic.twitter.com/f3lkUTYioJ
— KitchenAid Senior PGA Champ (@seniorpgachamp) May 22, 2024
So aside from the new driver head, Stricker is sticking to the old tried and true, and not getting hung up on having the latest and greatest.
“I’ve got a putter that’s 23 or 24 years old, 3-wood that’s 15 years old, you know, and utility club, yeah, I just have never really, once I find something I like and I know that it works, I got confidence in, it’s hard for me to change. It’s kind of a process,” he explained.
“I tried to do it with some irons the last month or so. It’s just hard. You have one idea what the ball should do and then when you put a new club in your bag is does something different. It’s about getting used to, and sometimes I just don’t want to even take the time to get used to it just because I know that what I’ve been playing works and I like the look of it and all that kind of stuff. So it’s been hard for me to change over the years.”
Look and feel clearly have a lot to do with it.
“I put some new stuff in there I’m like, that just doesn’t feel right. Then I put my old stuff in there and I’m like, that’s the way it’s supposed to feel.
“I go back and forth, but typically end up with my old stuff back in my hands again.”
Steven Alker had the best round Sunday but no one was going to catch Barron.
Just before the start of the final round of the 2024 Regions Tradition, the first of five majors in 2024 on the PGA Tour Champions schedule, Steve Stricker withdrew from next week’s PGA Championship, the second major of the PGA Tour campaign. Stricker was in that field by virtue of his win in the 2023 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship.
He’s also the two-time defending champ of the Regions Tradition at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama, but a final-round 69 left him short of an eighth Champions tour major.
Sunday started with Doug Barron and Ernie Els, both chasing their first PGA Tour Champions major title, tied for the lead.
While Els could only spin his wheels, shooting a 1-under 71 to finish 14-under, Barron, who said he woke up at four in the morning but sounded like he didn’t mean to, took control of the event. He followed his third-round 66 – the best round of the day by three shots – with a bogey-free, final-round 68 to finish 17 under and win his first senior major by two shots.
“Today was just a dream come true, beating all these great players,” Barron told Golf Channel on the 18th green minutes after his victory. He was in the final group alongside Els and Padraig Harrington.
At the @RegionsTrad, all champions receive a green bike.
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) May 13, 2024
Barron, 54, earned $390,000 for the win. The total purse for the tournament was $2.6 million. He now has three victories on the senior circuit.
He praised his putting coach for his success on the greens all week.
“I got one of the best putting lessons from my coach back home last week, and I really got my putter going. I felt like I could make an 8-footer again,” he said. “It was huge because I didn’t hit any fairways. I hardly missed a fairway coming into today.”
Steven Alker was solo second after firing a 9-under 63 on Sunday, the best score of the week by two shots.
Stewart Cink finished tied for third with Stricker and Els. Charlie Wi and K.J. Choi tied for sixth. Bernhard Langer, in his second event back after recovering from Achilles surgery, tied for eighth with Kenny Perry. Padraig Harrington, Brian Gay and Stuart Appleby tied for 10th at 9 under. Harrington was in the final group but posted a final-round 74.
“We pulled up the archives and we got some brutal pictures,” Izzi told her dad.
There isn’t much to critique Steve Stricker in his golf game over his career. Twelve-time PGA Tour winner. Seven-time major winner on the PGA Tour Champions. Ryder Cup captain in his home state of Wisconsin. Winner of many prestigious awards for his work on and off the golf course. The list goes on.
But his fashion?
That’s another story.
And his daughter Izzi, who’s spending more time with Dad on the golf course these days, did what any good teenager would do: Roasted him on social media in the most adorable way.
Izzi spent the weekend with Steve, serving as his caddie at the PGA Tour Champions’ The Galleri Classic in Rancho Mirage, California. During the event, she took a break to grade his wardrobe choices over the years. This included his hairstyle back in the day.
“We pulled up the archives and we got some brutal pictures,” Izzi, a Waunakee High School senior and Wisconsin Badgers golf recruit, told him at the beginning of the video.
First up was a picture of Steve sporting a mullet — likely from the 1990s.
“Is that a mullet?” she asked. “If you zoom in, you got a lot of hair back there.”
Apparently, Stricker’s good friend, Tiger Woods, was wondering the same thing.
“Tiger just texted me this last week and asked if I had a mullet,” Steve said.
Izzi likes that look, though.
“He still gels his hair like this in the morning and I think he gets memories of flashbacks,” Izzi said, as they both laughed. “That’s a good hairstyle. Overall, slick back, nice.”
At 57 years old, Steve said, “I wish I had it back there. Not much there.”
The hairstyle must have run in the family during this time. A photo of Steve with his wife, Nicki — who has served as his caddie for years — popped up.
“Now that’s a mullet,” Steve chimed in, as he and his daughter shared a good laugh.
Izzi approved. “Mom looks good,” she said. “She looks different, but she looks good.”
Izzi, who won the WIAA Division 1 high school state golf championship as a junior and senior, rated his shirts on the next two photos. She gave them a “five” and a “two” on a 1-10 scale.
“Oh, God. Oh,” she said about one polo.
“What is that? Looks like a curtain,” Izzi said laughing.
A photo of the family, including a younger Izzi, was next, from a golf tournament. Izzi was in her mom’s arms.
“She was definitely a momma’s girl,” Steve said. “I could never hold her. But now look at us today (as they hugged). But back then, I couldn’t touch Izzi.”
The two are inseparable these days and Izzi has been part of her dad’s biggest moments on the golf course the last two years.
She was there when Steve was an assistant captain of the US’ Presidents Cup victory in 2022 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. She approved of his look at that event as they viewed a photo of the family together.
“You had some good outfits there, I remember,” Izzi said. “That was fun. Ten out of 10.”
Then a photo appeared of the two posing with the huge trophy that Steve won at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship last May, his sixth major championship at the time. Izzi had a role in the win as well. She caddied for Steve for the first time at the tournament.
“We matched that day, too. Remember?” Izzi reminded him.
“Definitely 10 out of 10,” Steve said.
Izzi one-upped him.
“Eleven out of 10,” Izzi said, smiling.
“Great memories of that one,” Steve said.
This past weekend at The Galleri Classic offered more memories for Wisconsin’s first family of golf. Stricker tied for sixth with Izzi on the bag.
The golf conversation continues to be dominated by the PGA Tour-LIV Golf rift.
TUCSON, Ariz. — While player movement at the top level of men’s professional golf usually involves LIV recruiting yet another PGA Tour player, Steve Stricker said he knows that some LIV golfers want to return to the PGA Tour.
“I know that for a fact,” he said Thursday after his pro-am round ahead of the 2024 Cologuard Classic at La Paloma Country Club. “And so it’s kind of a wait and see game.”
With much of the golf conversation dominated by the rift, there doesn’t see to be much oxygen left to talk about the other tours but players on the PGA Tour Champions are paying attention to the goings-on in the world of professional golf.
“Of course I’m very interested in what happens,” said Stewart Cink, who turned 50 last year but still plays on both PGA Tour circuits. “I hope that we can get back together as like one sport in golf, but it’s a complex situation.”
With the PGA Tour holding a big-money signature event at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and LIV Golf playing for a fourth time in 2024 in Hong Kong, the Champions circuit is about to stage the first of three straight West Coast events.
“Ultimately, I hope someday we all can play nice together again and have the best players in the world playing and competing against one another,” said Stricker. “I think that day will come and I think there will be some circumstances, you know, where those guys that left are going to have to do something, I don’t know, a penalty of some sort, I don’t know what that means. I hope some day it all comes back together and the guys are playing all together again.”
Whether the rival tours coexist, merge or simply allow some crossover, many feel that there should be no easy path back to the PGA Tour for those who left.
“I wouldn’t let the LIV guys come right back, I don’t think. I think there needs to be some way of, you know, just another way to say thanks for the guys that didn’t leave and just kind of abandon our standards and rules,” Cink said. “I think there needs to be some form of like delayed, I don’t know if it’s delaying some of their performance bonuses or if it’s some kind of a suspension that maintains itself, I don’t know exactly, but something.”
Big names on the PGA Tour leaving for LIV Golf is having a ripple effect on the Champions tour.
“It’s unfortunate, because when [Phil] Mickelson came out, it was a jolt for our tour and it was great,” David Toms, the defending champion of the Cologuard Classic, said during a media day Monday at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, for the upcoming Galleri Classic.
Mickelson won his first two – and four of his first six – starts on the PGA Tour Champions in 2021 but seven months after rolling in a birdie putt on the 18th hole at Phoenix Country Club to end that season, he was off to London for the first-ever LIV Golf event.
“And so then all of the sudden he’s not a part of us anymore. So that’s unfortunate,” Toms said.
The drain of veteran golfers with name recognition means the Champions circuit also lost out on Lee Westwood, who turned 50 in April of 2023 and it won’t be able to welcome Ian Poulter, who turned 48 in January 2024, nor Henrik Stenson, who turns 48 this April, in the coming years. The PGA Tour losing a bit of name recognition eventually means a weakened Champions tour.
As long as the PGA Tour and LIV exist, perhaps there’s some middle ground that can be found.
“I’m not against, you know, some sort of a transfer back and forth. I played (Mexico Open) there on the PGA Tour a couple weeks ago, and I’m sure they would have loved to have Abraham Ancer play. So I’m not against having a small amount of invites, and that cuts both ways,” said Padraig Harrington, who compared the situation to the rivalry the PGA Tour used to have with the European Tour. “When the European Tour is in Spain this year, we would love to have Jon Rahm play the Spanish Open. I’m not against a small amount of transfer of players playing events and maybe a couple of invites going each direction. Maybe an outside team playing every week in LIV, why not.
“But again, not too sure how they’re going to come together as one tour, so why not have an agreeable two tours where there’s a bit of rivalry.”
So, what if Stricker formally asked Tiger, might he accept?
TUCSON, Ariz. — Tiger Woods has already made it known he’s facing a future of playing a limited schedule of the majors, the Genesis and probably the signature events when he can.
But what about the lone team event on the PGA Tour, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, alongside good buddy Steve Stricker?
Stricker floated the idea on a recent Golf Digest podcast, saying he’s a “huge Tiger fan, and I want to see him playing as much as he can.”
He then floated out an amazing prospect.
“I thought about asking him to see if he wanted to play in New Orleans at the team event,” Stricker said.
Since then, a few days have passed for Stricker to marinate on the idea. In Tucson this week for the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic, he was asked to confirm whether he in fact did ask Tiger to play.
“I haven’t, no,” he said after his pro-am round at La Paloma Country Club.
Was the idea of it just something he’d thought about, not actually considered?
“We had some great times being teammates on some of those [Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup] teams over the years. I guess I blurted it out loud when I was on a podcast with somebody, I said wouldn’t it be cool to get the band together one more time, for him and I to play again,” he said, adding “I don’t think that will happen, he’s got other issues than playing with me, but it would be fun, and it’s fun thinking about it.”
Stricker is coming off a PGA Tour Champions season in which he won six times, including three majors. One of those, the Kaulig Companies Championship (formally the Senior Players), guaranteed him a spot in next week’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
So, what if Stricker formally asked Tiger, might he accept?
“You know, I’ll see him next week at the Players, hopefully he’ll be there and I’ll be there, hopefully play a practice round with him. Yeah, I’ll ask him,” he said.