A familiar face made an appearance during Saturday’s WM Phoenix Open, and he was back to his jacket-stealing ways.
Actor Christopher McDonald, also known as pompous golfer Shooter McGavin from the classic comedy Happy Gilmore, briefly reprised the character this weekend at the golf tournament to help promote the film’s upcoming sequel.
McDonald recreated McGavin’s infamous runaway sequence after stealing Adam Sandler/Happy Gilmore’s yellow jacket at the end of the first film, with a bunch of WM Phoenix Open fans chasing after him to get it.
McGavin is returning for the second Happy Gilmore film, so it’s pretty fun that McDonald slipped back into character for such an occasion.
The new film is due out later this year.
SHOOTER MCGAVIN STEALS HAPPY GILMORE'S GOLD JACKET AT THE WM PHOENIX OPEN 16TH HOLE pic.twitter.com/c7whFNbiMj
There’s a great reason why so many fans and golfers are wearing green on Saturday.
The WM Phoenix Open never disappoints when it comes to creativity from the fans at TPC Scottsdale.
Each year, the People’s Open reminds everyone that golf isn’t always uptight and can actually throw one heck of a party. From the stadium on the famed 16th hole to the wacky outfits fans wear, the WM Phoenix Open is an elite spectator event.
On Saturday, tournament sponsor Waste Management is donating $1 for every patron and golfer who wears green to the Working For Tomorrow Fund and many around the course decided to have fun with the theme.
Already we’ve had some amazing moments this week, highlighted by Emiliano Grillo’s slam dunk ace on No. 16.
Let’s see what’s in store this weekend. Hopefully it’s more scenes like these.
They cheer for the good drives, boo the bad, erupt at a hole in one but no one gets the crowd going like the beer vendors at 9am. Have to love the @WMPhoenixOpenpic.twitter.com/twrifxRp8J
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA – FEBRUARY 07: Fans look on during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open 2025 at TPC Scottsdale on February 07, 2025 in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA – FEBRUARY 07: Max Homa of the United States walks off the 16th green during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open 2025 at TPC Scottsdale on February 07, 2025 in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)Golf fans cheer during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open on the 16th hole at TPC in Scottsdale on Feb. 7, 2025.Golf fans react to play during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open on the 16th hole at TPC in Scottsdale on Feb. 7, 2025.Golf fans cheer during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open on the 16th hole at TPC in Scottsdale on Feb. 7, 2025.Fans cheer at the 16th hole during Round 2 of the WM Phoenix Open on Feb. 7, 2025.Wyndham Clark tosses a bag to the fans at the 16th hole during Round 2 of the WM Phoenix Open on Feb. 7, 2025.Fans cheer at the 16th hole during Round 2 of the WM Phoenix Open on Feb. 7, 2025.Spencer Lash sports a saguaro cactus outfit during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open on the 16th hole at TPC in Scottsdale on Feb. 7, 2025.Alejandro Lopez (left) and Russell Prim pose for a photo during round two of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC in Scottsdale on Feb. 7, 2025.Golf fans watch the second round of the WM Phoenix Open from the 18th hole at TPC in Scottsdale on Feb 7, 2025.SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA – FEBRUARY 07: Max Homa of the United States walks the 15th hole during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open 2025 at TPC Scottsdale on February 07, 2025 in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
PHOENIX – Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, hosted a 2025 WM Phoenix Open luncheon Wednesday. The guest speaker was Nick Saban, who played in the pro-am ahead of the 2024 tournament back in February. TPC Scottsdale made such an …
PHOENIX — Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, hosted a 2025 WM Phoenix Open luncheon Wednesday. The guest speaker was Nick Saban, who played in the pro-am ahead of the 2024 tournament back in February.
TPC Scottsdale made such an impression on the seven-time national championship coach that he walked out of the merch tent with “two arms full of Phoenix Open gear that he was taking to his kids and grandkids,” according to 2025 tournament director Matt Mooney.
The 50,000-square-foot merchandise venue will be back once again in 2025 as will many other staples of this tournament. The arena around the 16th hole will be rocking and fans will flock from all over to be seen at the Greenest Show on Grass.
“We always talk about bigger and better,” Mooney said.
And now? “We’ve just said ‘not bigger, just better’ this year.”
‘Outlier individuals who want to have their viral moment’
Social media captured many of the issues from the 2024 event that left a negative impression. Two in particular became viral moments involving Zach Johnson and Billy Horschel. In each, fans armed with cell phones captured the two golfers reacting after provoking them during the course of play.
“We did have conversations with those guys, and frankly a lot of 1-on-1 conversations with many of the players individually,” Mooney said. He and Thunderbirds executive director Chance Cosby “were on a plane to Riviera 36 hours after the tournament ended last year” to meet with players at the Genesis Invitational.
“It’s one of the things that concerns me the most as an avid golfer is that you have these outlier individuals who want to have their viral moment and so we’re also really making an emphasis this year again on our fan code of conduct. Our general admission fans will have to click on a code of conduct acknowledgment and we’re going to have a zero-tolerance policy for people that cross those procedures. Unfortunately, there’s a small segment of our society that wants to create these viral moments and it’s to the detriment of the event, the detriment of the other fans and most importantly the athletes themselves.
“We always have a heavy PD [police department] presence, they’re going to be very visible this year, and if fans cross that line they will get removed from the golf tournament.”
New entrance near 18th tee, new ticketing system
To relieve a major bottleneck on the course, organizers announced a new entrance near the 18th tee box. The main entrance remains the same and fans taking that route will enter the course near the 18th green but this second point of entry will help relieve pressure in the high-traffic areas.
“That’s been discussed for many years and this was just a great year for us to make that change,” Mooney said.
A new digital ticketing system and the elimination of the “good any day” passes will streamline things as well. Having day-specific tickets “allows us to control our crowd exactly to the number each day and then by going digital we know where we’re going to be a lot more efficient at our entrance but also have better data about our end users and more accountability with each end user.”
Footrace to 16th hole is still on
General admission seats are a premium, especially on Saturday, at the 16th hole and over time that has led to the pre-dawn footrace from the main entrance to the arena at 16.
“An iconic Phoenix Open moment,” Mooney called it, who made assurances it’s not going anywhere, especially after recalling what he saw last time around. “Of all of the kind of testaments to people’s commitment to this event, I was out there at 5:30 in the morning. It’s 38 degrees. It’s pouring rain and we had 5 or 6,000 fans lined up, a lot of whom had been there all night and so you know we think that’s an incredible moment.”
Before the sun was even up, fans made a mad dash to get a good spot at the 16th Hole at the Waste Management Phoenix Open on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/Eud55ZASZc
The new entrance “will open most days a little bit after the main entrance, call it 30 minutes, and so yeah that kind of pre-staging in the pre-dawn hours will happen at the main entrance,” he said.
Players still love coming to TPC Scottsdale
After countless chats with Tour players about 2024, “the thing that we came away with was how much they all love this event,” Mooney said. “We were honestly surprised how little they had in terms of recommendations for tweaks to the event. They love the event but the feedback was overwhelmingly, you know, don’t don’t tweak it or make corrections that change the fabric of what makes it the most unique week on the PGA Tour.
“We want to find the right tweaks but there’s a reason this has been the five-time tournament of the year in the last decade and is the biggest event on the PGA Tour and so we’re being really mindful not to change that fabric.”
It’s the end of an era and nowhere will the impact be felt more than in the greater Phoenix area.
It’s the end of an era, and there’s likely nowhere the impact will be felt more than in the greater Phoenix area.
Pre-qualifying registration for the 2025 WM Phoenix Open went live Monday. There will eight locations in five different cities in Arizona in late January holding these events, with them all funneling players into a Monday qualifier on Feb. 3. From there, only the top three finishers will earn a spot on the tee sheet at TPC Scottsdale, Feb. 6-9, for the Greenest Show on Grass.
This time, however, marks the final time in the wake of the PGA Tour instituting a new rule regarding qualifiers.
The Southwest Section PGA, which has run the pre-qualifying and Monday qualifying for years, is urging interested golfers to not delay and sign up now “as all sites will fill up.”
The Phoenix Open qualifier earlier this year drew 104 golfers after more than 600 signed up for one of the eight pre-qualifiers. The max field size for each pre-Q will be 84. Multiply that by the eight locations and that’s possibly 672 golfers with visions of greatness dancing in their heads.
If you’re going to register, the PGA Tour rules say you can only do so at one pre-Q site.
Where are the WM Phoenix Open pre-qualifying sites?
Jan. 28
McCormick Ranch GC, Scottsdale
The 500 Club, Glendale
Jan. 29
The Legend at Arrowhead, Glendale
Dobson Ranch Golf Course, Mesa
Jan. 30
Aguila Golf Course, Laveen
Lone Tree Golf Club, Chandler
McCormick Ranch GC, Scottsdale
Toka Sticks Golf Club, Mesa
Dobson Ranch and Aguila are municipal golf courses.
When is the WM Phoenix Monday qualifier?
The final qualifying stage for the 2025 WM Phoenix Open will be on Feb. 3 at Pinnacle Peak Country Club in Scottsdale.
Five golfers since 1980 have won a PGA Tour event as a Monday qualifier.
Among the many issues brought up in a letter that was shared by the PGA Tour with its players was the potential cancellation of seven Monday qualifiers. This topic will be among those voted on in November by the Board of Directors.
Golfweek was first to report that these changes were in the works in June. The proposal, a copy of which Golfweek has obtained, indicates that maximum field sizes will be reduced. It has become a growing concern that field sizes of 144 and 156 are causing too many occurrences of failing to make a cut on Friday, and shortening fields should rectify that but it also removes playing opportunities for the membership.
Who stands to lose a Monday Q?
Monday qualifiers would no longer be held at the Sony Open, WM Phoenix Open, Mexico Open at Vidanta, Cognizant Classic, Puerto Rico Open, Corales Puntacana Championship and Myrtle Beach Championship.
The Phoenix Open qualifier earlier this year drew 104 golfers after more than 600 signed up for one of the eight pre-qualifiers. Only the top three finishers in that Monday Q advanced to TPC Scottsdale.
The qualifiers at the Valspar Championship, Texas Children’s Houston Open and Valero Texas Open would survive but would be reduced from four spots to two spots available.
Five golfers have won as Monday qualifiers
There have been five golfers since 1980 who won a PGA Tour event after Monday qualifying earlier in the week:
Corey Conners, 2019 Valero Texas Open
Arjun Atwal, 2010 Wyndham Championship
Fred Wadsworth, 1986 Southern Open
Kenny Knox, 1986 The Honda Classic
Jeff Mitchell, 1980 Phoenix Open
The Tour’s Policy Board is scheduled to meet ahead of the RSM Classic on Nov. 18.
This is being added since a crush of foot traffic comes to TPC Scottsdale on the two busiest days of the tournament, Friday and Saturday.
“We believe this new entrance will significantly enhance the flow of fans entering and exiting TPC Scottsdale,” 2025 WM Phoenix Open Tournament Chairman Matt Mooney said in a statement. “It will also provide a shorter walk for fans near the high-demand areas around holes 16, 17, and 18.”
Also new in 2025: an all-digital ticketing experience. Along with that, there will be no more “Good Any Day” passes. All tickets need to be purchased for the specific day that fans want to attend.
Fans cheer from the stands on the 16th hole during the 2024 Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Joe Rondone/The Republic)
One issue in 2024 was when there was heavy rainfall, the grassy hillsides became mudslides, eliminating a place where hundreds of fans normally gather. This forced everyone into chokepoints behind the 18th green, the merchandise tent and the large concessions area. Now, the setup will include expanded walkways. From the media release:
For instance, the path from the 17th fairway to the 11th hole tee area has been doubled in width, offering more space for fans to move comfortably. Food and alcohol vendors will also be strategically relocated to balance foot traffic.
General admission areas near the 7th and 12th holes are being redesigned and expanded and will offer expanded concessions and what’s being called “new fan engagement opportunities.” The idea here is that some of these spaces may draw fans away from the always-crowded 10th green/11th tee area as well as the 16th, 17th and 18th holes.
“With these upgrades, we are enhancing two of the most popular spots on the course,” Mooney said. “Fans can look forward to better viewing, upgraded concessions, and more space to enjoy ‘The People’s Open.’”
The 2025 WM Phoenix Open – the 90th version of the tournament – will once again conclude on Super Bowl weekend, with tournament dates set for Feb. 6-9.
The Thunderbirds, who run the event, pointed out in the news release that despite the issues from a year ago, the 2024 tournament raised a record $17.5 million for charity.
The status quo of 2025 is good news for the West Coast swing of the Tour.
On the surface, the 2025 PGA Tour schedule released this week looks much like the schedule from this year. Oh, there might be a sponsor name change or two for some tournaments, something that is going to be happening more in the coming years, but in general, the schedule remains the same.
The status quo of 2025 is good news for the West Coast swing of the tour, including The American Express event in La Quinta on Jan. 16-19. What has been growing as a part of the PGA Tour over the last decade or so has now established itself as major part of this year and a great way to kick off the new season.
The seven weeks of the West Coast swing will once again begin with two weeks in Hawaii, the Sentry and the Sony Open. The Sentry, formerly the Tournament of Champions, is one of the eight signature events on the tour, including three on the West Coast. The idea of three signature events within seven weeks is one reason many of the top players in the game have started playing more golf on the West Coast swing. There are FedEx Cup points to be had, after all, points that can assure a player a spot in the FedEx Cup playoffs.
The Sony Open should be especially emotional in 2025, since the 2024 winner was Grayson Murray, who took his own life in May, just four months after winning in Hawaii.
After the two Hawaiian weeks, the tour will return to La Quinta for what will be a highly anticipated The American Express tournament. Not only should players like Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele be in the field, but Nick Dunlap will return as the defending champion. The week will stir memories of Dunlap’s victory as an amateur last year, the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since 1991.
Patrick Cantlay reacts to his putt with Xander Schauffele on the 18th green during the final round of The Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club on February 18, 2024, in Pacific Palisades, California. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
The other two signature events on the West Coast are the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles, hosted by Tiger Woods. The change at Pebble Beach to a signature event last February meant a radical change in that tournament, with a limited pro-am and a reduction from three courses to two. Still, the event seemed to work well, even if traditionalists had an issue with the changes.
At the Genesis, nothing significantly changed with the signature designation, mostly because top golfers love to play Riviera Country Club and because Woods remains the host.
If there are issues on the West Coast, it is with the other two tournaments. The Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines Golf Club in San Diego is wedged between The American Express and the Pebble Beach events. Once a bright light on the West Coast swing with golfers like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm loving the South Course, last year’s Farmers Insurance drew a weaker field than normal, perhaps because it was the week before a signature event. Farmers Insurance has already announced it will end its sponsorship in San Diego after 2026.
The Waste Management Phoenix Open is sandwiched between the Pebble Beach event and the Genesis tournament, another problem in scheduling for golfers who like a week off before a big event like a signature tournament. Again, that led to a weaker-than-normal field for Phoenix last year, though that could change in 2025.
Top courses, big names
Of course, the Genesis tournament will draw particular interest since it might be one of only a handful of times golf fans will see Tiger Woods play during the season. Woods has played only the four major championships and the Genesis so far this year.
Toss in some of the best golf courses on the PGA Tour, like the Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West, Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Riviera and the South Course at Torrey Pines, and the West Coast will have some of the best storylines, best players and best courses for a two-month period on the PGA Tour. It is still more than four months away, but fans on the West Coast can start looking ahead now.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
The fans claimed they were barred from entering the tournament.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Nearly 2,500 golf fans have requested ticket refunds from the WM Phoenix Open, claiming they were barred from entering the tournament during the third round after organizers closed the gates in an effort to mitigate the drunken chaos that overwhelmed this year’s event.
The Open ended with a record-high number of arrests, was overly crowded, and became so disorganized that it infuriated professional golfers and longtime fans alike ― some of whom questioned whether they would return next year.
The chaos reached its peak on Saturday, Feb. 10, when, “due to the large inflow of guests” tournament security “made the decision to allow guests into the event without scanning tickets to alleviate pressure at the entrance gates,” according to tournament spokesperson Ryan Woodcock.
Organizers cut off alcohol sales and denied access to individuals who had purchased tournament tickets.
In an email six days after The Arizona Republic asked, Woodcock said in an email that 2,461 fans have requested their money back. None of them have received a refund as of yet, but that refunds were starting to be issued on March 7 for those who bought their ticket on the Phoenix Open website.
Those who bought their ticket on StubHub, Vivid Seats or anywhere else are out of luck, however. Woodcock told The Republic that “we are unable to verify ticket purchases through any other vendor,” so anyone who did not use the Phoenix Open web page to buy their ticket is not eligible for a refund, even if they were barred from entering.
“They really screwed over a lot of a lot of fans,” said John Christensen, who attends the Open every year with his father as a family tradition, but was unable to get into this year’s event and is ineligible for a refund. “We paid for something that we weren’t able to use.”
The Open organizers, who are a nonprofit organization called The Thunderbirds, declined to answer questions about how many fans attended the tournament. They haven’t announced attendance numbers since 2018.
It’s also unclear how many fans who bought tickets were turned away from the Open on that Saturday, let alone how many of them can’t get their money back because they used a third-party ticket service.
Woodcock did not explain why the tournament is unable to verify tickets purchased through other websites, saying only that the refund process involves, “verifying the purchase of a ticket through (our) website and verifying that the ticket was not scanned. Upon verification, we will issue a refund to any and all eligible fans who request a refund.”
Eligible fans have until March 31 to submit a refund request by emailing orders@wmphoenixopen.com.
“We understand the frustrations from those who have submitted refund requests and welcome the feedback and opportunity to improve our systems,” Woodcock wrote to The Republic. “To request a refund or inquire about a pending request, please email orders@wmphoenixopen.com.”
“There’s some major improvements and operational things that we are looking to make.”
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The 2024 WM Phoenix had a fantastic finish with a playoff that ended just before dark Sunday but this year’s version of the People’s Open is being remembered for rain, muddy conditions and the social media videos of fans drinking too much and getting into it with players.
Four days after its conclusion, tournament director George Thimsen told Golfweek there have already been long discussions about how to be better next time around, especially for the third round on Saturday, always the most highly attended day of the week.
“With respect to Saturday, I think we have a lot of things to learn from,” Thimsen said. “I think that we understand that it was a challenging set of circumstances that we had to navigate.”
Using the term “operational audit,” Thimsen said the Thunderbirds, the civic group that runs the WMPO at TPC Scottsdale, will look at the entire week.
“Each year as this tournament continues to grow, the Thunderbirds and all of our partners in law enforcement and first responders, we meet and we do a post-mortem of the event,” he said. “What are some of the key learnings that how can we continue to improve? And obviously this year, there’s some major improvements and operational things that we are looking to make and the Thunderbirds are committed to doing that.
“We’re committed to making this an event that the community is proud of. But, yeah, on that Saturday, the weather that morning and just the sheer number of people that still wanted to come out and enjoy the event, it did create a lot of congestion.”
Days of rain made many of the grassy hillsides unusable for fans. Well, mostly unusable except for the fan caught on viral video sliding shirtless face first in the muck, then getting doused in beer from several of his friends.
Do the Thunderbirds feel like part of the future plan is the discouragement of excessive drinking?
“We’re going to be addressing the distribution channels of alcohol and the alcoholic beverages to our guests and we’re going to make the necessary changes that we need to once we are able to diagnose everything, all elements of it,” Thimsen said.
“You’re hitting me at a very emotional point right now, so if I were to say if I’m gonna come back, I’d probably say no,” Johnson told The Arizona Republic. “But at the same time, I have no idea.”
Things may have come to a head around 2 p.m. on Saturday when the tournament gates were closed, even to fans who purchased tickets. That led to social media outrage. To make it up to those fans, Thimsen said they can send an email to orders@wmphoenixopen.com and after providing an order number, a ticket number or an email associated with the original order, get a full refund.
“We own up to it, we take full responsibility and own that Saturday was not perfect and we want to continue to prove that but the stage was not the normal stage that we have,” he said.
Justin Thomas thanks the crowd after his putt on the 10th green during the second round of the 2024 WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo: The Arizona Republic)
Chance Cozby, executive director of the Thunderbirds, was on Golf Channel Monday and called Saturday a “turning point.” On Tuesday, he and next year’s WM Phoenix Open tournament chairman Matt Mooney visited Pacific Palisades, California, ahead of this week’s Genesis Invitational. The Sports Business Journal reported that the duo met with PGA Tour players throughout the day to get feedback, the most common being that fans didn’t seem to get out of line when uniformed police officers were stationed in highly visible areas.
Tournament organizers stopped announcing attendance figures in 2019. In 2018, the tournament reported a weekly attendance of 719,179 and a Saturday attendance of 216,818, the most ever in a single day on record for the event. That Saturday was also the third year in a row the attendance surpassed the 200,000 mark.
“I think there’s been a lot of speculative numbers out there and we actually don’t have a number that we have officially communicated internally yet so I don’t have a number,” Thimsen said when asked about a 2024 number.
What is still being tracked are public-safety security issues. The numbers show that arrests went from 18 to 54 from 2023 to 2024 and that ejections went from 102 to 211.
Security issues
2022
2023
2024
Calls for service
440
558
653
Arrests
0
18
54
Ejections
90
102
211
Trespass
14
41
73
Source: Arizona Department of Liquor License and Control
If last Saturday’s attendance was close to the 2018 mark of more than 200,000, then the 211 fans tossed out represents 0.1 percent and the 54 fans arrested is 0.03 percent of all the fans who attended.
Still, seeing those numbers double and triple, respectively, is a trend moving in the wrong direction.
The full operational audit will take time to complete but one distinct possibility is that fewer tickets will be sold on the popular days of Friday and Saturday in future years.
“I think that one thing you can definitely count on is that we’re going to make improvements and diagnose through our operational audit what makes the most sense for our tournament,” Thimsen said. “But if I were a betting man, I would say that likely there will be less people on a Friday and a Saturday at our event and that we would focus on quality over quantity.
“You know, we’re proud of the uniqueness and energy of the WMPOs. It is the People’s Open but we do understand that we need to make changes and not necessarily, you know, always bigger, but definitely always to get better.”
The Phoenix Open donated more than $14 million to charities after the 2023 event, bringing the lifetime total to close to $110 million.
“We’re hoping to be able to get to announce a number very similar because people are out there partying with a purpose,” Thimsen said. “I think that that’s really the main focus, that I hope people can rally around, which is, yes, there are some things out there that are fun to see on video and kind of scroll through when you’re on your social media but at the end of the day, we’re making a really big impact for our community here and that’s why we do what we do.”
It pays to play well on the PGA Tour. Just ask this week’s winner, Nick Taylor.
The 35-year-old Canadian won the 2024 WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale in Arizona after making clutch putt after clutch putt to take down Charley Hoffman in a two-hole playoff on Sunday. For his efforts, Taylor will take home the top prize of $1,584,000. Hoffman earned a hefty consolation prize of $959,200. Best friends and Ryder Cup partners Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns finished T-3 and each earned $519,200.
With $8.8 million up for grabs, check out how much money each PGA Tour player earned this week at the 2024 WM Phoenix Open.
@12News pic.twitter.com/hGD4fDqrMd
A SLAM DUNK ACE!!! 
