Tag: U.S. Senior Open

JoAnne Carner, 85, shoots her age (again!) at U.S. Senior Women’s Open; Annika Sorenstam trails by 4

There’s an event within the event Carner in the field.

Annika Sorenstam is disappointed. She came into the sixth U.S. Senior Women’s Open feeling good about her game, but left Fox Chapel Golf Club Thursday evening hardly satisfied after an opening even-par 71.

“I really didn’t release the club, and it was just very cautious golf,” she said. “As you know, there’s a fine line of being aggressive, but then also being patient and having a strategy, and I just felt I really didn’t have the courage.”

On the other hand, if a round of even par turns out to be her worst round of the week, she said, this start will be OK. The LPGA icon trails Japan’s Kaori Yamamoto by four in Pittsburgh, where bad weather washed out Tuesday’s practice round.

Sorenstam, who won this event in 2021, is one of five past champions in the field. Leta Lindley, who has finished runner-up in her last two appearances, sits alone in fourth after an opening 69.

Though Sorenstam lives in Orlando, she has spent the past two months at the family’s Lake Tahoe home. She planned to take a cold plunge after the round.

The heat was so brutal in Pittsburgh that a woman fainted while Sorenstam’s group was teeing off. Sorenstam’s son Will rushed over to get the woman a chair and offer assistance.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-JJt9mpTYn/?hl=en

While the top of the leaderboard is always of interest, there’s an event within the event at the Senior Women’s with JoAnne Carner in the field. The eight-time USGA champion is the oldest player to ever compete in a USGA championship, and it’s become tradition to see how many times the legendary player can break her age.

Carner, now 85, managed the feat for the seventh time at this championship, carding a 14-over 85. Carner made it clear, however, at the start of the week that her goal was to make the cut.

She notched one birdie on the par-4 seventh hole and stumbled through three double-bogeys on the back nine.

When she got the 18th tee, she needed a par on the closing hole to break her age. After piping her drive, someone in the gallery said, “You hit a nice one!”

“That’s cause I’m headed to the bar,” Carner replied.

Not surprisingly, Carner was not at all pleased with a bumpy round that included a four-putt. It’s a course, she said, that requires more than one practice round, which is all she got with the weather.

When asked after the round if she was happy to shoot her age, Carner said no, it was terrible.

“I played really bad on the back,” she said. “I didn’t putt well. Then I lost my swing temporarily. I hit a couple shots that I thought were good, but not having played the course but one time, I ended up in trouble, in one of those bunkers, and you just have to hit it out.”

Carner turned professional at age 30 and won 43 times on the LPGA, including two U.S. Women’s Opens in Pennsylvania.

She inspired a young Nancy Lopez, who wanted to be just like her when she grew up.

“She always looked like she was having a good time … never saw her angry,” said Lopez. “She was always very animated.”

Another LPGA Hall of Famer, Beth Daniel, gives Carner credit for improving her wedge play her rookie year.

“When I first came on tour I was a horrible wedge player,” said Daniel. “I’d miss greens with a pitching wedge.”

Carner helped her fix that problem, as she so often came to the aid of fellow players.

Though she’s lost some distance the past couple years, Carner felt she was trending heading into the championship after a recent lesson. She’d like to hit it 220 again, and right now averages between 205 and 210.

Thursday’s test proved to be a tall task.

When asked if an evening of storytelling might lie ahead, Carner said everyone might be too tired.

“At least I am,” she said. “I’ll go back and cool down, take a shower and sit and have a nice cocktail.”

LIV’s Richard Bland outlasts Hiroyuki Fujita in four-hole playoff at U.S. Senior Open

Bland nearly holed a bunker blast on fourth playoff hole to lock it up.

It took a two-hole aggregate playoff then two more holes of sudden death as Richard Bland of England outlasted Hiroyuki Fujita of Japan for the U.S. Senior Open title Monday at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island.

Bland became the 12th player to win his U.S. Senior Open debut and the second golfer from England to win the title.

Playing No. 18 for the third time in the playoff, Bland almost holed his blast from a greenside bunker, the ball striking the flag and finishing inches from the hole. His par knocked out Fujita, who failed to get up and down from 44 yards short of the flag on the long par 4. Fujita’s lengthy par putt missed by an inch.

It was the second senior major title in two tries for Bland, 51, who plays on LIV Golf. In May he won the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at Harbor Shores in Michigan.

“Your first two senior tournaments to be majors, and to come out on top is, I was just hoping going into the PGA that I was good enough to contend. I hadn’t played against these guys,” he said. “I knew, if I played the way I know I can play, it should be good enough to be able to compete. But, yeah, to be (standing) here with two majors is, yeah, I’m at a loss for words at the moment now.”

Both players had gone par-par-bogey in the first three playoff holes. After the playoff started on No. 10, they played the long, par-4 18th three times to settle the playoff.

On the fourth playoff hole, Fujita drove left and just inches off the fairway. But Fujita carries only a 5-wood, and with 259 yards to go, he was unable to reach the green in regulation. His approach ended up some 44 yards short of the flag in good position, and his pitch onto the green finished well short of the hole.

After having banged his drive past a fairway bunker, Bland had a 214-yard approach uphill but hooked his approach into a greenside bunker. From there, his par save locked up the title. The ball bounced once, kissed the flagstick, then looked as if it might fall into the cup before settling just inches away.

Bland closed in 4-under 66 to reach the playoff, while Fujita cooled off Monday and finished in 1-over 71.

Hiroyuki Fujita plays a bunker shot in the fourth round of the U.S. Senior Open on Sunday at Newport Country Club. (Louis Walker III/USA TODAY NETWORK)

On the first hole of the two-hole aggregate playoff, both players missed the fairway to the right on the 455-yard, par-4 10th. Fujita missed the green just short but was able to save his par after Bland missed his birdie putt.

On the second playoff hole, both players hit the fairway on the 466-yard, par-4 18th, their golf balls within steps of each other on the side of a mound. Both players hit the green and two-putted for par, the playoff then returning to the 18th tee for what turned into sudden death.

Both players missed the green on No. 18 on the third playoff hole, Fujita in a greenside bunker to the left and Bland slicing his approach well right. After Bland’s pitch and Fujita’s bunker blast, both players missed lengthy par putts and the playoff went to a fourth hole.

The final round was unable to finish Sunday because of dangerous storms. When play was called Sunday, Fujita had a three-shot lead on Bland and a four-stroke lead on Richard Green.

But Fujita, 55, made three bogeys on the back nine Monday after having just two bogeys in his first 64 holes, opening the door for Bland to catch him at 13-under 267. Fujita missed just one fairway in his first three rounds but wasn’t as sharp after the weather delay.

A par on No. 18 in regulation would have locked up the title for Bland, but he fell into the playoff with a bogey on the closing hole after driving into a bunker. Fujita narrowly missed a long birdie putt on the 72nd hole that would have given him the title.

Bland’s win gets him a spot in the 2025 U.S. Open.

“I know what you guys like to do with U.S. Opens, so just go easy on us olders. Maybe you can stick a tee up maybe for me,” he said. “It was my first ever tournament in America in at Bethpage in ’09, and I was just blown away by it. We’re always kind of like, oh, being from Europe or from the UK, our major is The Open, but I was blown away by the U.S. Open.

“I’ll be looking at flights to Oakmont for next year very, very soon.”

2024 U.S. Senior Open postponed until Monday due to a ‘dangerous weather situation’

The USGA reports that play was postponed until Monday due to a dangerous weather situation.

The 2024 U.S. Senior Open was in a lengthy delay Sunday afternoon when the USGA announced the final round would be postponed until Monday due to a “dangerous weather situation.”

Hiroyuki Fujita is the current leader at 16 under. He is up three shots on Richard Bland and four on Richard Green. Steve Stricker is solo fourth at 10 under. Those are the only four golfers double digits under par through 3 ½ rounds at Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.

Fujita, 55, has just two bogeys through 64 holes so far. Through the first 54 holes, he had only missed one fairway. During his final round Sunday, he broke the record for most consecutive fairways hit (32) at a U.S. Senior Open since 1997.

The third round tee times on Saturday were moved up in an attempt to avoid the weather but Mother Nature was not to be beat on Sunday. The start of play was delayed due to fog. When play was suspended at 3:01 p.m. ET, the USGA reported that it was due to “a dangerous weather situation.”

Golf Channel and Peacock will have live coverage starting at 8 a.m. ET on Monday.

The incredible story of how Bill Harmon’s road to recovery from alcoholism comes full circle at 2024 U.S. Senior Open

No matter how one adds it up, Harmon has made good use of his second chance at life and for that he’s grateful.

As soon as Bill Harmon arrived at Newport Country Club for the 44th U.S. Senior Open, he walked to the green below the famed clubhouse, which overlooks Bailey’s Beach in Newport, Rhode Island, and looked up at the balcony and said to himself, “Wow, what a life. The same guy who showed up with $20 in Orlando, wanted to jump off this building in 1992 will end his caddie relationship right below this balcony 32 years later.”

All those years ago, Harmon, 76, was the head professional of the famed blue-blood club and lived above the 18th green with his wife and newborn son. Yet back then, life didn’t seem so grand to the functioning alcoholic.

“I went out on that balcony and I contemplated doing a swan dive,” Harmon said. “I didn’t have the guts to do it but I felt like I didn’t want to be around anymore.”

Harmon has been clean since not long after that fateful night thanks to three members of the club who staged an intervention, and he returns this week to the grounds that were so pivotal in changing his life to caddie one last time for Jay Haas, his best friend.

This is a story of friendship, recovery and life coming full circle.

Living up to the family name

Harmon is the son of Claude Harmon, the 1948 Masters champion, teacher to four U.S. presidents and one of the most distinguished club pros in the game. For 33 years, he taught at Winged Foot Golf Club outside of Manhattan and his coaching tree of pros who learned under his wing include the likes of major winners Jack Burke Jr. and Dave Marr. Billy is seven years younger than his brother, Butch, who went on to be arguably the most famous golf instructor in the game for teaching Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman. His other brothers, Dick, who is deceased, and Craig also were recognized as among the finest club pros in the game.

For many years, Bill felt like a failure who wasn’t living up to the Harmon family name in the golf world.

Newport Country Club’s clubhouse balcony overlooking the 18th green. (Photo courtesy Bill Harmon)

“He was an unbelievable junior who won about everything you could win,” Butch told Global Golf Post in 2019. “Then he went to San Jose State and lost it when he got wrapped up in alcohol and drugs.”

In 1978, Haas, 24, had just won the Andy Williams San Diego Open, his first of nine career PGA Tour titles, and was looking for a caddie. A mutual friend recommended Harmon. They met in Palm Springs, California, and Haas told him to meet him in Orlando in two weeks at Rio Pinar Country Club, the site of the Citrus Open. Harmon got off the plane with $40 to his name. Cab fare was $20. He got to the course on Monday and bumped into Terry Diehl, a pro he knew from Rochester, New York, who said, “What are you doing here, Billy?”

When Harmon told him he was caddying for Haas, Diehl shot back, “Not this week.”

It turned out Haas had forgotten to register for the tournament. Despite that inauspicious start and Haas’s recollection that he didn’t break par more than once in their first several tournaments together, a bond so strong they each named a son after the other began to form.

“He had a one-way ticket to my funny bone,” said Haas, who is playfully referred to as Harmon brother 5-A. “He was always patting me on the back and always knew the right thing to say.”

But Harmon also had a drinking and drug problem. It never interfered with his ability to do his job but Haas recalled a time in Ft. Worth, Texas, when he was paired with Lee Trevino, who took one sniff of Harmon’s breath and said, “I don’t know what you did last night, but I hope it was worth it.”

Trying to get sober

Harmon, who continues to teach at the Bill Harmon Performance Center at Toscana Golf Club in Indian Wells, California, recalls the first time he ever considered sobriety. He was, as he put it, “high as a kite” snorting cocaine in a hotel in Los Angeles and there was Eric Clapton on Larry King Live on CNN talking about getting clean.

“‘Wow, people are doing that,'” Harmon remembers thinking. “It planted a seed.”

He quit caddying in 1988 initially to help his brother Craig, the head professional at Oak Hill, and when he got married that same year it was time to settle down. When he was hired for the head professional job at Newport CC, he seemed destined to add to the Harmon legacy in the game. Not long after, his first son Zack was born and he was overwhelmed with parental pride.

“I remember looking in the backseat, and feeling such a different type of love. I couldn’t believe how strong it was. And I remember looking out the window and one second later feeling equally self-hatred and self-loathing that this kid’s dad was an alcoholic and drug addict. Those two emotions aren’t a good marriage. I’d love to say I quit that day but I didn’t. I do think that’s where my bottom started. I realized at that very moment I was never going to be able to stay on that emotional balance beam, but I didn’t know which way I was going to fall.”

His intervention would occur 10 weeks later. With Newport CC scheduled to be the host club of the 1995 U.S. Amateur, Harmon and several club officials took a scouting trip to Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio during the U.S. Amateur. During that trip, he offended a club official publicly. Harmon doesn’t divulge exactly what he said that day other than to make the point that it was a fireable offense.

“My dad always told me I had a 30 mile per hour brain and a 90 mile per hour mouth,” Harmon said. “I proved him right that time.”

Two of the club’s board members were recovering alcoholics and decided it was better to help Harmon than punish him. They confronted him along with the club official on Aug. 26, 1992, in the living room of his apartment, which is now the club’s ladies locker room, and one of the members offered to take him to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“My life’s greatest gift,” said Harmon of the intervention and as if further proof is necessary he noted he had dinner with that member who took him to that first AA meeting earlier this week and still attends a daily meeting most mornings at 4:50 a.m.

As part of the 12 steps in the program, Harmon wrote a letter to Haas making amends that Haas still has saved in his desk at home.

“A lot of times I’ll say, ‘Boy, Billy, if you met you, you’d kick your ass,’ ” Haas said of how Harmon has mellowed while living a sober life.

“I remember one time he told me, ‘In my life I’ve never seen anyone change as much as you.’ My inner reply to myself is, ‘Well, you’re the one who helped me do it.’ He’s one of the people who cared for me more than I cared for myself,” Harmon said.

Bill Harmon, caddie to Bill Haas, at the 2011 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne in Australia. (Photo: Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

And so the best of friends are making one more stroll down the fairways at the most fitting course of all. The U.S. Senior Open was scheduled for Newport Country Club in 2020 but was canceled due to COVID-19. Haas wasn’t sure he’d still be exempt in 2024 but he’s in the field, posting 2-under 68 on Thursday and an even-par 70 on Friday to shoot his age or better in consecutive days and make his 18th straight cut in the championship; they’re going to end their player-caddie relationship right below that balcony on Sunday in what could be Haas’s swan song too.

“I may have already passed the finish line and I don’t know it,” he cracked.

Harmon, a cancer survivor who with his wife, Robin, started in 2010 the Harmon Recovery Foundation, a non-profit organization, that works with people fighting their own demons, has one final chapter in his life’s journey he’d like to explore before he reaches his own finish line: giving back through a series of two-day clinics he’s been conducting around the country. He calls the program “Footprints,” after the words of wisdom bestowed by Burke Jr. to his daughter: “We only have two feet but it doesn’t mean you can’t leave more than two footprints.”

On the scorecard of life, Harmon has made good use of his second chance at life and for that he’s grateful.

“I went many years where I didn’t add to the Harmon whatever it is, I subtracted,” he said. “It’s not for me to say that I added to it but I can honestly say I haven’t subtracted from it and that’s enough for me.”

Watch: Roger Maltbie, Gary Koch share special moment during 2024 U.S. Senior Open broadcast

The duo got together for an interview in the first round and it was priceless.

Get the tissues out.

Gary Koch and Roger Maltbie are names familiar to most golf fans who have watched any NBC Sports telecast over the last couple decades. The two haven’t worked full-time for the network since the end of 2022, but they returned in March for the 50th anniversary of the Players Championship, and fans loved seeing their faces on TV and listening to their analysis.

Well, the duo and good friends were together on TV again Thursday, this time in a bit different capacity. Koch qualified for this week’s U.S. Senior Open at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island (the oldest player to ever do so at 71 years and 7 months), and Maltbie was walking around as an on-course reporter.

The duo got together for an interview in the first round, and it was priceless.

How could you not love that?

U.S. Senior Open: People ask Bernhard Langer ‘why don’t you retire?’ His response: ‘I guess I could, but I love the game of golf’

This will be his sixth tournament back as he continues to play through recovery from an Achilles injury.

It’s been a year already since Bernhard Langer won the U.S. Senior Open. More important to the here and now, he’s just shy of five months since tearing his Achilles on Feb. 1.

This will be his sixth tournament back as he continues to play through recovery from the injury. He’ll also be three-for-three in participating in the senior majors in 2024, quite a feat for someone who was told the typical Achilles’ recovery is 12 months.

“It’s getting better, but it’s not there yet. I was told it’s an injury that generally takes 12 months to be at 100 percent, and I’m not even at five months yet,” Langer said Wednesday at Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island. “I feel it. My leg and my ankle is swollen. It’s fatigue. I don’t have the range of motion in my foot.

“So there’s various things that aren’t there yet. My balance is not where I want it to be and my strength. My calf muscle is probably one or two inches smaller than the other leg. I can’t get on my tiptoes. Right foot, I can do that. Just my right foot. I tried it on my left, and nothing.”

While he will get a cart this week, he will also need to prepare for a fourth day of competition, as senior majors have 72 holes, unlike most of the regular-season senior events consisting of 54.

“I’ve got a ways to go and I’m happy to be playing golf. The good thing is I can get carts in tournaments because right now I can’t walk four or five days, 18 holes. It’s impossible,” he said.

Langer says he had a long discussion recently with New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who famously tore his Achilles just four plays into last season.

“We had just talked about the PRP and stem cells, which I haven’t done yet and probably will not do, but I’ve had PRP done, which is your own blood spinning and injecting your own blood into the wound or into the area that needs healing,” Langer said. “It was interesting to hear his thoughts on the rehab, what he did and what I was doing, and it was on very similar lines and similar progress as well.”

After setting PGA Tour Champions records for victories (46), majors (12) and money ($36 million), he says he often gets the same question.

“I’m 66, and a lot of people say, why don’t you retire?” he said. “I guess I could, but I love the game of golf and I love to compete, and I’m still good enough to compete and be up there where I think I can win tournaments. When that changes, when I feel like I’m going to finish in the bottom third of the field every week I compete, then it’s probably time to quit.

“Hopefully I will know when that is.”

Tiger Mania II? In 2 years, the U.S. Senior Open could be must-see TV as Tiger goes for history

The PGA Tour Champions is prepping (and praying) for Tiger.

(Editor’s note: This is the first 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 second part of the series is linked here.)

The U.S. Senior Open is being held at a fantastic venue this week at Newport Country Club in Rhose Island, but two years from now it will take on an entirely different profile at the Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio.

At the course that shaped Jack Nicklaus into an 18-time major winner, Tiger Woods will be eligible for the field for the first time, and he’s strongly hinted that he’d like to win the title and fancies the chance to break a tie of nine USGA national championships with Bobby Jones. Winning at Scioto would make Woods the first player to achieve a Grand Slam of sorts: the U.S. Senior Open, U.S. Junior (3), U.S. Amateur (3) and U.S. Open (3).

“He’d love to win that Grand Slam and get some of the other senior majors on his CV,” Padraig Harrington said. “I saw him at the course (during the PNC Championship) and we were just crossing paths and he laughed at me. I won’t say exactly what he said but the gist of it was he can’t wait to get out and beat me.”

Tiger Mania II could be ready to strike the PGA Tour Champions, and PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady cannot wait. Two years ago, at the American Family Insurance Championship in Madison, Wisconsin, Brady waited out a rain delay in an equipment trailer with tournament host Steve Stricker when Stricker broached the topic of the eligibility age for the senior circuit. Stricker, the leading money winner last season, proposed it was time to revisit whether 50, the age restriction since the creation of the tour in 1980, still made sense as the start of golf’s ultimate mulligan.

“I said, ‘No, we just did this,’ ” recalled Brady of a study the tour conducted in 2021. “He goes, ‘I know, I know.’ I said, ‘Unless Tiger tells me he’d play right now. (If that’s the case), I’ll lower the age tomorrow.’ ”

If ever the age limit was going to be lowered, this seemed to be the time so Stricker whipped out his phone and promptly texted Tiger. Stricker’s message was succinct and to the point: If we lower the age would you play the Champions tour? Stricker remembers nervously staring at three bubbles as the 15-time major winner and 82-time PGA Tour champion, “The Needle,” “The Goat,” – take your pick – responded right away.

“No, I’m not ready,” Woods wrote. “I want to follow in the same footsteps as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Bernhard Langer.”

In short, Tiger doesn’t want a head start before he becomes Champions tour-eligible on Dec. 30, 2025. He wants a level playing field. He wants to chase Langer’s 12 majors and 46 career titles, Nicklaus’s eight majors and Phil Mickelson winning his first two starts (and four of six).

“That’s him, right?” Stricker said. “Tiger’s going to try to erase those records. It gives him something to focus on and try to achieve. If that’s the case, maybe we will get him out more.”

The future of PGA Tour Champions likely hinges on how much Tiger chooses to play after he turns 50 on Dec. 30, 2025. There was a time 15-20 years ago where the idea of Tiger playing the senior tour was unfathomable. He has been hinting for several years now that he wants to play. What started as a joke seems like it could be reality. Asked at the 2021 Hero World Challenge if he looked forward to his upcoming 46th birthday, he smiled and said, “Four more years until I get a cart.”

Left unsaid was the fact the Champions tour allows players to ride in golf carts at most of its events – the majors are an exception. That became all the more relevant after Woods was involved in a single-car crash in February 2022 and required multiple surgeries, including fusing his ankle after he had to withdraw from the 2023 Masters and missed the rest of the season.

During his pre-tournament press conference at that Masters, Woods was asked whether he would consider using a cart in PGA Tour events, something he’s repeatedly declined even though he’d likely be granted use of one via The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) for medical reasons. “I’ve got three more years, where I get the little buggy and be out there with Fred (Couples). But until then no buggy.”

In 2006, the Champions Tour Division Board of the PGA Tour voted to allow players the option to use golf carts during most events on the tour. The circuit’s five major championships and certain other events, including pro-ams, are excluded.

Walking 72 holes has been the biggest hindrance for Woods in his latest comeback and there’s a sense that if he takes one on the senior tour, he could be a force to be reckoned with all over again. “He’ll absolutely kill everybody,” Nicklaus said during the Masters in April in an interview with Golf Channel.

Geoff Ogilvy, who turned 47 on June 11, is counting the days until he too will be eligible. He expects Tiger to play and spark a resurgence in the Champions tour.

“Taking a cart changes everything for him. Interest both from fans and sponsors is going to be through the roof. I think there’s a good chance that Champions Tour ratings can top the PGA Tour when he decides to play. And what else is he going to?” Ogilvy said.

He could delve deeper into golf course architecture or assume a bigger role in the management of the PGA Tour. It’s hard to know what’s really going on in Tiger’s brain. But it could be 1990 all over again when Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino hit the half-century club to join Arnold Palmer and Gary Player and make the senior circuit the biggest game in town. Whenever Nicklaus teed it up, TV ratings for the round bellies topped that of the flat bellies. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, for one, may not be fond of the Champions tour cannibalizing all those eyeballs from the big tour.

Brady got a sneak-peek of what he can expect from Tigermania II in 2021 when Mickelson turned 50 and took the tour by storm. According to sources, ratings for Mickelson’s win at Furyk & Friends in 2021 eclipsed that of the PGA Tour’s Shriners Children’s Hospital Open the same week.

“Will our ratings go up? Absolutely,” Brady said. “Could I see NBC and Golf Channel wanting to put an event on the network? Yeah. Tiger would have to commit early enough for us to make that happen.”

Much can happen in the course of the next 18 months to influence Tiger’s decision to play, but Brady and his team already have begun preparing for various scenarios. In June 2023, he gathered his staff – “anyone who touches the product,” he said – and got the ball rolling.

“We gathered and started a whiteboard of what ifs, the craziest things, whatever it was, you know, come up with it. Because it’s not too early to just think through everything,” Brady said. “We’ve had conversations at the annual meetings with all of our tournaments about it. You know, you hear comments from time to time about how he can’t wait to have a golf cart. He has conversation with Steve Stricker or Ernie Els or some of these other guys. You know, they’ll come back and tell me they’ll say he’s looking forward to it, which is great. What does that mean? I have no illusions that he’s going to come out here and play 15 times. If he plays four times, that would be fantastic, if he plays 10 times that would be even better.”

Tiger likely will continue to focus on the men’s majors but could he ride around in a cart and endure less stress on his body while still getting the competitive juices flowing and knocking off some rust before the Masters, for example? It seems feasible.

“I don’t think anyone envisions him playing 20 events – he didn’t do that when he was healthy – but if he comes out and plays some events it will be a shot in the arm for us,” Jim Furyk said.

That would be an understatement. Furyk has a different view as an owner and operator of a Champions tour event, Furyk & Friends. He lived through Tiger Mania when Woods turned pro in the summer of 1996 and became a sensation.

“I don’t know if you remember how unprepared we were for the attention, the hoopla, the media, the security, the fans, you name it. If we can get ahead of that and gauge his intentions of what he would like to do it would help our tour massively to be ready and prepared,” Furyk said. “The difference of having him at a tournament versus not is months of preparation. As excited as I am about it, I also run an event and understand how that side of an event gets ready; it makes me cautious. I won’t say nervous because the opportunity is great.”

Brady echoed Furyk’s sentiment.

“If he commits on the Friday before a tournament, we’ve had this conversation with tournaments, they won’t be prepared for it: ticket sales, which turns into an issue with your security, your transportation shuttles, concessions, everything. That was part of that white board that we did,” Brady said.

He confirmed that he’s already had a conversation with Tiger’s agent, Mark Steinberg, to educate him on how things work on that tour.

“We had a great conversation about the Champions tour: how many events we have, the markets where we play, majors, some of the courses where we play early, a little bit about our cart policy,” Brady said. “I don’t see Tiger ever wanting to file for ADA otherwise he would have done that already.”

Stricker suggested the tour (and the other governing bodies) should consider amending its cart policy so that Tiger could ride at the majors, too.

“Let’s make sure he can play. You hate to make special rules but if we can get him out here with a cart, let’s do it, you know what I mean,” he said. “We should do everything we can.”

The addition of Els, Furyk, Harrington and Retief Goosen in the last five years have given the senior tour a boost, but TigerMania II could make the circuit the talk of the golf world again.

“I just want Tiger to come out here and play a little bit,” Brady said. “In an ideal situation, Tiger turns 50 and the Mitsubishi Electric (in January 2026) is his first start. Maybe you pair him with Fred Couples and they have a great time.”

Asked whether he’s made his pitch yet to Tiger to play in his own tournament, Furyk joked that it was too soon.

“He’s getting old,” Furyk said. “He might not even remember by the time he turns 50.”

Angel Cabrera granted a visa, set to return to U.S. with plan to play PGA Tour Champions

“He’s dedicated to golf and he wants to come back. He just needs to get comfortable again playing in competition.”

Argentina’s Angel Cabrera’s comeback is officially ready for takeoff as the two-time major winner secured a visa last week.

Charlie Epps, his longtime coach, confidante and friend, confirmed that Cabrera can now travel to the U.S. – and plans to move permanently to Houston – and resume competing on PGA Tour Champions.

Cabrera, 54, served 30 months in prison in Brazil and Argentina for domestic violence and other lesser charges. His visa expired in January and according to Epps, the American Embassy in Buenos Aires made him take a series of psychological tests.

“That was the delay,” Epps said. It prevented him from competing in April in the Masters, where he is eligible as the 2009 champion, but it should pave the way for his return next year.

“Angel certainly is one of our great champions,” Masters chairman Fred Ridley said at a press conference in January. “As we all know, he has been unable to participate in the Masters the last couple of years due to legal issues. Presently we have been in constant contact with Angel’s representatives. He presently is not able to enter the United States. He doesn’t have a visa, and I know that that process is being worked through. We certainly wish him the best of luck with that, and we’ll definitely welcome him back if he’s able to straighten out those legal issues.”

Cabrera has made a few starts here and there since his release from jail but can now begin a full comeback in earnest. Cabrera was reinstated on the PGA Champions Tour and the PGA Tour in December last year. He played in the Trophy Hassan II, a Champions Tour event in Morocco in February, and finished T-27. He missed the cut at the Argentine Open, a Korn Ferry Tour-sanctioned event, in March. Most recently in May, he played in Barbados in a Legends Tour event, formerly known as the European Seniors Tour, and finished T-11. His last competitive tournament in the U.S. was at the Pure Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach in September 2020.

More: After parole from jail, Angel Cabrera dreams of a comeback on PGA Tour Champions — but will he be given a chance?

As a past winner on the PGA Tour, Cabrera is a PGA Tour Champions member, but his entry into a field is dependent upon how the field is filled, according to a spokesperson for PGA Tour Champions. As a major championship winner, he is eligible for both restricted and unrestricted sponsor exemptions, and there is no limit to the number of sponsor exemptions he can receive. He also is exempt to compete in an event qualifier as a past champion on the PGA Tour. An email to his longtime manager Manuel Tagle asking for Cabrera’s future plans wasn’t returned.

Cabrera is entered into the next two senior events, American Family Insurance Championship and Dick’s Open. He’s currently on the alternate list for both. Anything past that would be too far to forecast for player commitments.

“When I talked to him down there, he had really grown up, he understood what life is all about and that he had really made an ass of himself,” Epps said in a phone interview. “He’s dedicated to golf and he wants to come back. He just needs to get comfortable again playing in competition. I want him to win the U.S. Senior Open.”

Like the Masters, that quest will have to wait until next year. The deadline for entry into the U.S. Senior Open was May 1 at 5 p.m. ET and Cabrera failed to file for entry.

The U.S. Senior Open is heading to Ohio in 2026. Could Tiger Woods be participating?

Woods turns 50 on Dec. 30, 2025, enabling him to narrowly meet the minimum age requirement for entry into the U.S. Senior Open.

As the United States Golf Association continues to roll out future tournament venues, the distinct possibility of a huge star in the field for an upcoming U.S. Senior Open is being brought to light.

Officials for the USGA announced that Scioto Country Club, in Columbus, Ohio; Oak Tree National, in Edmond, Okla., and Crooked Stick Golf Club, in Carmel, Indiana, will be the host sites for the U.S. Senior Open Championship in 2026, 2027 and 2028, respectively. Each club has previously hosted the championship. Scioto also will host the 2036 U.S. Amateur Championship.

“The USGA is pleased to be returning to Scioto Country Club, Oak Tree National and Crooked Stick Golf Club as host sites for the U.S. Senior Open,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA chief championships officer. “Each club has a distinguished history of hosting national championships and promoting professional and amateur competition. We know each course will challenge the world’s best players and the communities will be welcoming and supportive.”

Although the dates have yet to be announced, this introduces the possibility of Tiger Woods playing in his first senior major in Ohio.

According to this story from our network partner, the Columbus Dispatch, the course might present a natural fit for Woods to debut in the event.

The Donald Ross-designed course in Upper Arlington also is scheduled to host the 2036 U.S. Amateur, last played at Scioto in 1968, when Bruce Fleischer won by a stroke. Scioto, where Jack Nicklaus learned to play the game, has hosted other significant national tournaments, including the 1926 U.S. Open, won by Bobby Jones, the 1931 Ryder Cup, won by the United States, and the 1950 PGA Championship, won by Chandler Harper.

Woods turns 50 on Dec. 30, 2025, enabling him to narrowly meet the minimum age requirement for entry into the U.S. Senior Open. The 15-time major championship winner has enjoyed great success in central Ohio, having won the Memorial Tournament five times. He has eight victories in events played at Firestone Country Club in Akron. Ohio has been good to him.

Scioto last hosted the Senior Open in 2016, when Gene Sauers defeated Miquel Angel Jimenez and Billy Mayfair by one stroke. Sauers finished the final round with three straight pars to finish 3-under for the tournament. It also hosted the event in 1986, when Dale Douglass defeated Gary Player by one shot.

Sauers’ victory in 2016, his first on the Champions Tour, marked a sentimental comeback story for the then 53-year-old from Georgia. Nearly a decade earlier, he battled Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a rare illness in which the skin on the extremities burns from the inside out. The medical condition nearly killed him, and kept him off the golf course for seven years.

The 2024 U.S. Senior Open will be held at Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island, with the 2025 event to be held at The Broadmoor (East Course) in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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Prestigious Perry and Press Maxwell design in Kansas to host two more USGA Championships

A prestigious heartland course is back in the USGA rotation after it was announced it will host a pair of future championships

An esteemed heartland course that’s hosted several top golf tournaments in the past is back in the USGA rotation after an announcement Tuesday that it will host a pair of future championships.

Prairie Dunes Country Club, in Hutchinson, Kansas, will be the host site for the 2029 U.S. Senior Open and 2032 U.S. Senior Women’s Open, the USGA announced. Hosting high-profile events is nothing new for the course, as these tournaments will mark the ninth and 10th time the Perry Maxwell treasure will host a USGA Championship, although the last came in 2006.

“The USGA is pleased to reunite with Prairie Dunes Country Club and continue what has been a long and mutually beneficial partnership that began nearly 60 years ago,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA chief championships officer. “We know that Prairie Dunes, its surrounding community and the entire state of Kansas will be thoroughly engaged in hosting the best senior players from around the world. In addition, Prairie Dunes remains committed in its support of both amateur and professional competition.”

The private club’s layout dates to a 1937 design by Maxwell, one of the most underappreciated of the Golden Age designers. The native Oklahoman was famous for his inventive greens contours – “Maxwell’s rolls,” as they were called – and for shaping crumpled land into fascinating playing ground that had to be interpreted and negotiated. Prairie Dunes, 55 miles northwest of Wichita and with a very modest membership, originally was only a nine-hole course; its routing was expanded by Perry’s son, J. Press Maxwell, in 1957.

In 1958, Jack Nicklaus made one of his first marks on the national golf scene at Prairie Dunes, winning the Trans Mississippi Men’s Amateur in Hutchinson. Since Nicklaus captured that championship, Prairie Dunes has hosted marquee events regularly. The course’s reputation has grown, and it’s routinely ranked highly. In fact, it was recently ranked the top private golf course in Kansas by Golfweek’s Best state-by-state rankings and it is No. 11 on Golfweek’s Best list of classic courses built before 1960.

Prairie Dunes has hosted five Trans-Mississippi Amateurs. Three times (most recently in 1991) the U.S. Women’s Amateur was played in Hutchinson. Also, Prairie Dunes was the venue for a Curtis Cup, a U.S. Mid-Amateur and a U.S. Senior Amateur.

Juli Simpson Inkster with the trophy after winning the 1980 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kansas. (Copyright unknown/Courtesy USGA Archives)

In 2002, Prairie Dunes landed the 57th U.S. Women’s Open. Hall of Fame golfer Juli Inkster engraved her name on the trophy for a second time that year when she topped the legendary Annika Sorenstam by two strokes. Inkster was no stranger to Prairie Dunes as well. Twenty-two years prior, Inkster captured the 1980 U.S. Women’s Amateur in Hutchinson.

Four years later, the United States Golf Association returned to Hutchinson for the U.S. Senior Open at Prairie Dunes. Allen Doyle snagged his second consecutive championship with a two-stroke win over native Kansan Tom Watson. Doyle also held off the likes of longtime tour staples Bruce Lietzke and Peter Jacobsen.

The Hutchinson club also hosted the NCAA Men’s Championship in 2014, which was won by the Alabama Crimson Tide, and hosted the Big 12 Championship for the 13th time last spring.

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