The World Champions Cup was scheduled for Dec. 5-8, 2024.
One of the newest team events in golf is going to have to wait a bit longer to have its second competition.
The World Champions Cup features players from the PGA Tour Champions and debuted last year at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida. It’s being postponed until 2025, however, with the news coming on the heels of two hurricanes, Helene and Milton, ravaging the Florida gulf coast and other areas of the United States.
“Our goal with the World Champions Cup is to provide a first-class experience for all our partners and fans,” PGA Tour Champions, The Concession Golf Club, Manatee County and Intersport said in a joint statement. “We are pleased that the Bradenton area sustained minimal damage, but given the timing of the tournament in relation to the recent storms, we believe that focusing our efforts on the future is in the best interests of everyone involved.
“Last year, the fourth global team competition renewed decades-old rivalries among many of the world’s best golfers in its inaugural playing, providing drama and entertainment to golf fans. We are excited to welcome back our fans and continue to build the event’s legacy in 2025.”
The World Champions Cup debuted in 2023. It’s a the three-day PGA Tour Champions competition involving three teams: Team USA, Team Europe and Team International.
In January, the event agreed to a multi-year extension to return to The Concession in 2024, 2025, and 2028. Host courses for the 2026 and 2027 tournaments will be announced at a later date.
The World Champions Cup was scheduled for Dec. 5-8, 2024. Team USA won the inaugural competition.
“It’s beaten every expectation I had. It was just incredible.”
BRADENTON, Florida ― After Friday’s second round of the World Champions Cup, which saw Team International clinging to a half-point lead over Team USA, International captain Ernie Els opined that any lead didn’t really mean anything until maybe the last putt.
The inaugural event at The Concession Golf Club didn’t come down to the last putt. But it did the last hole.
Trailing Team International on Sunday by 2.5 points with three holes to play, Team USA got clutch play down the stretch from David Toms and Billy Andrade and overcame the margin to win the inaugural event at The Concession Golf Club.
Team USA finished with 221 points, Team International was second with 219, and Team Europe third with 208. Over the final three holes, the 56-year-old Toms, who won 13 PGA titles from 1992 to 2017, earned 4.5 out of a possible 6 points. One match earlier, Andrade, filling in for injured Team USA captain Jim Furyk, registered 11 points, besting International’s Vijay Singh and Europe’s Miguel Angel Jimenez.
Team USA’s vice captain Bill Andrade, left, watches David Toms drink out of the World Champions Cup trophy to celebrate at The Concession Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
But trailing by half a point after leading for much of Sunday, Team International had a chance to pick up two points and the tournament championship on the par-4 No. 9 closing hole when Toms and Team Europe’s Bernhard Langer bogeyed.
All International’s Retief Goosen had to do was make par to collect the two points and give his team the victory. But Goosen, a winner of two U.S. Opens, hit his approach shot into the penalty area. His double-bogey earned him zero points, while the USA and Europe each earned a half-point.
The format called for three points to be available for each hole. The lowest score earned 2 points, the second lowest 1 point, and the third lowest earned zero. If teams tied with a score, the points were split. If two teams tied with a low score, they each earned 1.5 points, with third place earning nothing.
After the post-match ceremony, each member of Team USA walked into the media interview room draped in an American flag. Later, they poured champagne into the championship trophy and drank from it.
Team International’s Stephen Ames reacts after his birdie putt on the ninth at The Concession Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
Toms’ play over the final three holes keyed the USA’s victory. Before taking the half-point lead heading into the final hole, USA had trailed by as many as six points.
“I think, really, what I really liked about this team,” Furyk said, “and I always talk about the personalities and how easy these guys are to get along with, but this is a feisty group. I think we’ve got a bunch of guys who have good short games, good putters, guys that don’t give up, guys that will grind it out and finish a hole for you.”
Another big contributor to Team USA was Jerry Kelly, who played a bogey-free nine holes to earn 12.5 points, the most of any player during the morning singles. Team International captain Els, who earned 12 points during the bogey-free nine-hole morning singles, felt for Goosin, his teammate.
Team InternationalÕs Retief Goosen chips up to the eighth hole during their morning round at The Concession Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
“I really feel for Retief,” he said. “He had such a tough lie there. To be this close at the end of the day . . . yeah, we lost basically the last couple of matches.”
Even Toms didn’t think his team had a chance, particularly when USA trailed by 6 points.
“On No. 8, I had a putt to win the hole,” he said, “and one of the guys in the crowd said something to the effect that it was a big putt. I was like, at that point, I didn’t even know it would mean anything, honestly, because I didn’t know where we stood. I made the putt, so that was good. Then I got to the 18th tee and I heard “USA! USA!” after Billy (Andrade) made his putt and I was like, man, we have to be in good shape.”
Said Team USA Brett Quigley about the format, “It’s beaten every expectation I had. It was just incredible. It was way more fun than I thought it would be and just so much love. The team aspect of it, because every week we’re doing our own thing and we go home and we go to the next week. This week, to have our families here, our caddies so involved and all the players genuinely pulling for each other made it so special.”
“The U.S. guys kept grinding out the 18th,” Els said. “We just couldn’t make that one putt up the hill. I missed it, K.J. missed it, Vijay (Singh) missed it. Unfortunately, Retief had such a tough lie.
The big-ticket golf events have come and gone but there is still plenty of pro golf to watch in 2023.
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The big-ticket professional golf tour events have all come and gone, but there is still plenty of pro golf for fans to watch before the new year is here.
There is nothing going on this week as we all prepare for the long Thanksgiving weekend but on the horizon are a couple of what many call “silly season” events: a new team competition, a mixed-team event featuring PGA Tour and LPGA stars and the popular family tournament.
But it’s not all fun and games, as there are two Q schools and a promotion event where the stakes are high for those clinging to their professional golf aspirations.
The event will be aired on ABC and ESPN. Peter Jacobsen, a seven-time PGA Tour winner and TV golf analyst will be the chairman.
Jim Furyk will be a match-play captain again, this time against the world.
The PGA Tour Champions announced this week that the inaugural World Champions Cup Dec. 7-10 at the Concession Golf Club in Bradenton will bring together 50 and over players from the U.S., Europe and an International team for three days of match play.
The European captain will be Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland and the International captain Ernie Els of South Africa. Furyk and Clarke are past Ryder Cup captains and Els captained the 2019 International Presidents Cup team. All three will be playing captains.
The event will be aired on ABC and ESPN. Peter Jacobsen, a seven-time PGA Tour winner and TV golf analyst will be the chairman.
“The World Champions Cup is a tremendous addition to the game of golf and the PGA Tour Champions schedule,” said Miller Brady, president of PGA Tour Champions, in a statement. “This competition will give fans a new and unique opportunity to see the game’s greatest stars compete against one another on a global stage. Ernie, Jim and Darren are worldwide ambassadors for golf, and it will be thrilling to watch them and their teammates compete for the chance to win the inaugural World Champions Cup.”
Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland during the first day of The Senior Open Presented by Rolex at Sunningdale Golf Club on July 22, 2021, in Sunningdale, England. (Photo by Stephen Pond/Getty Images)
The format will be doubles and singles lasting nine holes for each match, for a total of 24.
Each of the teams will have five additional players, all active PGA Tour Champions members. Automatic invitations for each team will be extended to the top two point-earners in the WCC’s career-based rankings, with two additional positions going to Chairman’s picks.
The final spots for Team USA, Team Europe and Team International will be play-in positions based on the year-end Charles Schwab Cup standings.
The Concession Golf Club was named for Jack Nicklaus’ famous gesture of conceding the final putt in the 1969 Ryder Cup to Tony Jacklin of England, resulting in the first tie in the event’s history. Nicklaus and Jacklin collaborated on the design of the course, which hosted the PGA Tour’s 2021 World Golf Championships-Workday Championship and the 2015 Men’s and Women’s NCAA Division I championships.
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Furyk, won 17 times on the PGA Tour and has played in seven Presidents Cups and nine Ryder Cups. He was the U.S. Ryder Cup captain in 2018.
“I am honored to lead Team USA onto the global stage that the World Champions Cup represents,” Furyk said in a statement. “It has been such a treat being part of Team USA at different stages throughout my career. I look forward to having the chance to captain Team USA and compete against Ernie and Darren, with whom I walked fairways for more than 20 years.”
The idea of reviving a Ryder Cup-style team event for the graybeards has been kicked around and talked about for years, and now it is set to come to fruition.
Rory McIlroy nailed it during the Ryder Cup when he said team golf is the best.
Do we really have to wait two years for the next Ryder and Solheim cups? Well, the Presidents Cup is less than a year away, but so is a new creation for the golf calendar: the World Champions Cup, which pits three teams of senior-aged golfers. How about these three captains: Jim Furyk for Team USA, Darren Clarke for Europe and Ernie Els for the International squad. Not too shabby at all. All three have been captains within the past five years in international competition and continue to thrive as winners this season on PGA Tour Champions.
“It’s a continuation of long rivalries,” said Peter Jacobsen, who is serving as chairman of the inaugural competition, which is scheduled for November 2022. “These guys are beyond interested in rekindling those competitive flames. For them to be able to do it as seniors is going to be very special.”
Darren Clarke will captain the European Team in the World Champions Cup. (Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post)
As the saying goes, there are no new ideas, and a Ryder Cup style competition for the 50-and-over set previously existed a couple of decades ago. From 2001-04, Arnold Palmer captained a U.S. side in the UBS Cup against Gary Player and once Tony Jacklin. The idea of reviving something like it for the graybeards has been kicked around and talked about for years, Jacobsen said. Intersport, which founded and operates the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, is working on signing a title sponsor and securing a course for a November 2022 date. Originally the plan was to launch the tournament this fall, but COVID had other plans and pushed it back a year.
The format of the three-day competition will be twice daily nine-hole matches featuring both team and single play with points awarded for each hole won in each match. At the conclusion of the matches, the team with the highest point total wins.
“I guess you can call the scoring member-guest-ish,” Jacobsen said.
For the first time, the competitors of the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup will go head-to-head in the same competition, while older rivalries will be renewed.
“The World Champions Cup will give golf fans the opportunity to see the game’s greatest players come together in a team format on the world’s biggest stage,” said PGA Tour Champions president Miller Brady in a press release announcing the competition. “International team events are some of the most significant competitions in our game, and it will be fun to see Ernie, Jim and Darren, along with their teammates, compete for the inaugural World Champions Cup next year.”
