“I was eagerly looking forward to competing in this event and capping off this season, which has been an incredibly special one for me, but a personal emergency has come up that requires me to stay home,” Stricker said. “My father was admitted to the hospital on Monday afternoon. He is currently receiving care and it is important that I am here for my family during this challenging time.”

With six victories, including three senior major titles, and five runner-up finishes in 16 starts this season on the Champions tour, Stricker has enjoyed one of the most dominating runs in the circuit’s history. He is so far ahead in the Charles Schwab Cup standings that he is guaranteed to capture his first season-long title as a senior player.

As noted by PGA Tour Champions staff, Stricker had a streak of 55 consecutive rounds at par or better, supplanting Tiger Woods’ long-standing record on any tour-sanctioned circuit. Across 16 events, Stricker lost to only 41 players.

Steve Stricker had his own health problems in the fall of 2021 and was hospitalized for weeks with a mysterious illness that included an irregular heartbeat. The player said he lost 25 pounds during that time. Since coming back from the illness, Stricker has won 10 times among the seniors.

Main image: Steve Stricker has won six times on the Champions tour this season. Sam Greenwood

The post With his dad hospitalized, Steve Stricker WDs from Schwab Cup finale appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

I’m hearing that four greens were destroyed overnight at Timuquana CC in Jacksonville. Unclear as to how or why.

Jim Furyk’s Champions Tour event at Timuquana begins tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/79tLgqrt6O

— Casey Bannon (@CaseyFBannon) October 5, 2023

Awful stuff. Furyk and Friends has become one of the most vibrant stops on the senior circuit, bringing celebrities, music, local food and, of course, golf together for truly great weekend. Better yet, all proceeds from the event go to Northeast Florida charities via the Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation. Unfortunately 12 hours before tip some joker went and wrecked the whole thing for everybody. It’s one thing if you don’t like golf. It’s entirely another to take money out of the pockets of the needy because you don’t like golf.

Anyway, here’s hoping the grounds crew can get things patched up in short order and the event can continue as planned, because we’d hate to see one bad apple ruin the orchard for everybody.

I’m hearing that four greens were destroyed overnight at Timuquana CC in Jacksonville. Unclear as to how or why.

Jim Furyk’s Champions Tour event at Timuquana begins tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/79tLgqrt6O

— Casey Bannon (@CaseyFBannon) October 5, 2023

UPDATE: All credit to the grounds crew at Timuquana for working hard to get everything in order ahead of Friday’s first round. “They got right to work on the damage, called in some help from TPC [Sawgrass] and the agronomy team with the PGA Tour, and also from the Cure at Golf, a construction company that did a renovation here at Timuquana,” Furyk said on Thursday afternoon. “So, we’ve got all hands on deck.”

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Vijay Singh hadn’t won a PGA Tour Champions event in nearly five years. But that wasn’t what made the 60-year-old’s Sunday victory at the Ally Challenge a surprise. Rather it’s how he won … or rather how Paul Goydos lost.

Looking for his first senior win in six years, Goydos held a one-stroke lead heading to the par-3 17th hole at Warwick Hills in Grand Blanc, Michigan. But after hitting the green off the tee, Goydos watched his 18-foot birdie try go three feet long. And then it got ugly.

Four putts from 3 feet.

Paul Goydos' 1-shot lead became a 2-shot deficit after a triple bogey on the 17th hole @AllyChallenge. pic.twitter.com/KRRdp97iXo

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) August 27, 2023

Four putts from three feet, and five putts total for a triple-bogey 6 left him now two shots back of Singh, who was in the group in front of Goydos and in the midst of posted a four-under 68 to get to 14-under 202 for the tournament. When he looked at the leaderboard, he realized he was suddenly out front.

“I was 14 (under), Jeff [Maggert] was 13 and no … no Goydos,” Singh said. “I was surprised what he did there.”

That contrasted the incredulous look Goydos had on the 17th hole, wondering how things had slipped away. Not to mention the incredulous voices of the Golf Channel announcers watching what was happening.

John Swantek: “It has become complete unglued for Goydos, who was in command here at 17.”

Lanny Wadkins: “I was thinking all he had to do was tap this short one in and par 18 and it’s his. But not now …”

Goydos would make a par on the 18th hole to finish with a one-under 71 and in a tie for third place.

The win for Singh was his fifth career PGA Tour Champions title but first since the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in November 2018. Interestingly, it was the fourth time he’s won a pro event at Warwick Hills; the course used to host a PGA Tour stop that Singh was the victor in at 1997, 2004 and 2005.

“For some reason, I drive the ball very well here,” Singh said. “I did that this week, and I putted well. Putting has been a mystery for a long time. I found a few things out in the last few weeks and I’ve been putting really well.”

And as for Goydos’ reaction to what happened? Well here was his response on social media, posting this music video with the lyric: “I’m not sick, but I’m not well.”

Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta (Official Music Video) – YouTube https://t.co/dlPbh3GWmU

— Paul Goydos (@PaulGoydosPGA) August 27, 2023

The post WATCH: Gut-wrenching five(!)-putt costs PGA Tour Champions pro first win in six years appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

There is something about Ken Duke that resonates with golf fans. Maybe it’s the Arkansas native’s down-home personality, which sent out an everyman feel as he ground away on mini-tours before finally playing on to the PGA Tour and, since turning 50 in 2019, on the PGA Tour Champions.

As the consummate grinder, Duke’s successes at the elite level have been rare but impressive when they’ve happened. At age 44, he claimed his lone PGA Tour title in 2013 at the Travelers Championship, but it was a seven-under 65 during the third round of the 2016 Players (when the field average was 75.59) that has provided him a cult following of sorts as players bemoaned how PGA Tour officials lost control of the course that day at TPC Sawgrass. Twenty-four pros shot 78 or higher, with just three breaking 70.

“What course was Ken Duke playing today? Can anyone tell me? Was he playing across the road?” asked Jason Day afterward, the Aussie winning the tournament the next day. “I mean it was just … to be able to shoot that score is better … I think that should be the course record. It was just an absolute joke. Sitting there looking at his score is just amazing.”

All this brings us to the fact that when Duke claimed his first senior victory on Sunday in Canada at the Shaw Charity Classic, in his 100th start, it resonated with those who feel a connection to him. On the 18th hole at Calgary’s Canyon Meadows Golf & Country Club, Duke hit an approach to six feet, then rolled in the birdie putt that gave him a one-stroke victory with a final-round 66.

Of course, Duke’s reaction to the win was, well, so very Ken Duke.

It took Ken Duke 10 years to make it to the PGA Tour.
It took him nearly 20 to get his first win on Tour.
His 65 at the Players is still talked about often.
One of the game’s ultimate grinders. Awesome to see him win
pic.twitter.com/yF3rldmEql

— Monday Q Info (@acaseofthegolf1) August 21, 2023

After the round, an elated Duke talked about the final hole and offered up this amazing titbit that links the victory to that lone PGA Tour win at the Travelers a decade ago.

“I had 105 yards [to the hole]. That’s exactly the number I had at Hartford in 2013 when I won in a playoff against Chris Stroud,” Duke said. “All it was was a 52 (-degree) sand wedge, just hitting the range shot and just focus on it and just do that. A great memory of that win, and obviously I hit a good shot here as well.”

Seriously, how crazy is that?!? Well take a look for yourself.

Same shots a decade apart ??@DukePGA had the exact same number into the 18th green from his 2013 @TravelersChamp victory on the @PGATOUR to win @ShawClassic. pic.twitter.com/x0SAliBxrV

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) August 21, 2023

Duke, 54, was grateful to have pulled off the win in Canada, too, given his career connections to the country. During his journeyman days he played on the Canadian Tour from 1996 to 2003.

“This is exciting. I mean, I’ve always dreamed about this,” Duke said. “This is where I started my professional career up here in Canada and I always thought that I’d win up here, and here we are. I mean, 1996 to 2003, so here we are finally doing it.”

Ken Duke at the end of the interview is everything ?@DukePGA @ShawClassic https://t.co/RCSWTFgp7v pic.twitter.com/wiRTXPQqC4

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) August 21, 2023

Whether this win is a springboard for more senior success, who knows. And yet, maybe it doesn’t matter. Ken Duke will always have this memory, and so will his fans.

The post This golf cult hero’s first PGA Tour Champions win has the weirdest connection to his lone PGA Tour win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Steve Stricker insists that he is not quite the player he was in his prime, but on the PGA Tour Champions he is inarguably the prime candidate for player of the year. And it’s not even close.

The amiable Wisconsin native is showing a bit of a streak of avarice these days. On Sunday, he won his third senior major of 2023 and fifth title overall with a three-stroke victory over David Toms in the Kaulig Companies Championship, formerly known as the Senior Players. A steady four-under 66 at Firestone Country Club gave Stricker his second win in three years on the South Course and his seventh senior major title, tied for fourth place with Hale Irwin.

He completed 72 holes in 11-under 269 to join Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Bernhard Langer as players to win three senior majors in one season. The victory earned him an exemption into the 2024 Players Championship after he qualified for next year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., by winning the Senior PGA Championship in late May.

“It’s all icing on the cake,” said Stricker, who earned $525,000 with his 16th career victory on the PGA Tour Champions. “To be 57, 58 years old, whatever I’m going to be next year and to be able to still go out there and play in some of these major championships, it’s pretty cool to be able to have that opportunity still.”

He’s earned that opportunity with a skill set that, overall, appears more solid than during his career on the PGA Tour, where he won 12 times.

The major hat trick ???

Highlights from @stevestricker's win @KauligChamp, his third major championship of the 2023 season. pic.twitter.com/AKLmtz6GnJ

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) July 16, 2023

“I would still probably take my game back then, to be quite honest with you,” Stricker, 56, said. “I think the older we get, you know, everything starts to deteriorate a little bit—your length, your accuracy, up and down with the putting—but mine has seemed to kind of hang in there a little bit longer than some of the other players, probably.

“But that’s the challenge. I try to keep in shape and eat the right things and do all that kind of stuff because I want to continue to play. I want to play like Bernhard when I’m 65, that’s my goal. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Top to bottom, I don’t think he’s ever played better,” said his brother-in-law Mario Tiziani, who caddied for him this week. “Right now, he’s doing everything better than anybody else. It’s not like he’s infallible; he played miserable the second day [with a 73]. But he turned right back around and just moved on. The separator is that he gets it up and down and can score. Nothing really bothers him. He’s just very relaxed, especially coming down the stretch.”

Stricker began the day tied at the top with Harrison Frazar, but he opened with a birdie and never trailed thereafter. He did, however, face a crucial moment at the par-3 15th. Coming off his lone bogey the previous hole, Stricker ran in a 40-footer for the bounce-back birdie to extend his lead to two shots and then added a methodical birdie at the long 16th, wedging to three feet to go three ahead.

Is this some of the best golf @stevestricker has played in his life? ?

An emotional fifth victory this season @KauligChamp. pic.twitter.com/UFO1pid7Io

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) July 16, 2023

“Yeah, those two holes definitely won me the tournament,” he said, “but that’s fun, that’s why we’re playing and that’s what’s exciting for me coming down the stretch, to see if you can handle it. The more times I get in there, the more times I show myself that I can handle it, the more confidence I have in being able to do it.

Toms finished alone in second with a closing 65 and eight-under 272 total, while Frazar missed a four-foot par putt at the last for a 70 that dropped him into a share of third place with Ernie Els and K.J. Choi at 273.

Stricker’s victory extended an uncanny streak at Firestone. He and his best friend, fellow Wisconsin native Jerry Kelly, have now alternated wins the last four years. In March, Kelly set a record when he became the oldest player to make the cut at the Players at age 56. Stricker, who turns 57 in February, is relishing a chance to surpass him.

“I don’t think that would make him very happy,” Stricker said with a mischievous grin. “Definitely I’ve got my sights set on that.”

The post Another week, another major win for Steve Stricker, who collects his third of the year, seventh overall appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

With the pro-am cancelled due to rain that had plagued Southern California for weeks, many of the 78 players set to tee it up in the Hoag Classic had left Newport Beach Country Club long ago. Some had never showed up in the first place. Why bother? As the 19th-century philosopher, Scarlett O’Hara, once noted, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

That wasn’t the case for one of the 78, however. He had no plans of waiting until tomorrow. To him, everyday matters. Every day of getting in the work necessary to be the best he can be. It had been his mindset since the 1970s while growing up in Germany, a country not known for producing world-class golfers. And he wasn’t about to change now at the ripe young age of 65.

So, on this cold Wednesday afternoon, there was Bernhard Langer, hitting one chipshot after another. Getting, as he put it, “the feel of the grass.”

The feel of the grass?

“Every golf course has different grasses,” Langer later explained. “You need to practice the short game because the club goes through the ground a little differently with different grasses and putting on Poa annua greens is different than putting Bermuda greens.”

That attention to detail is essential for Langer. “I don’t want to have any surprises out there,” he said. Who else would put in that kind of work?

Nobody, and that’s one of the reasons he made history on Sunday, passing Hale Irwin with victory No. 46 to become the winningest senior golfer of all time thanks to a dominant performance at the 43rd U.S. Senior Open at SentryWorld in Wisconsin.

No one saw this day coming, and that included Langer. At least not when he turned the big 5-0 back on Aug. 27, 2007 and launched his second career in the game he loves.

“When I first came out, I was hoping to be one of the top five or top 10 on this tour, which was a reasonable goal,” Langer said of his senior aspirations. As for anything more ambitious, Langer admits to seeing Irwin’s remarkable 45 wins (16 more than the next person on the career win list, Lee Trevino) and thinking “this is not going to be broken for a long, long time.”

Only when Langer clicked off senior win No. 40 in the summer of 2019, shortly before turning 62, did the goal truly emerge. “I wasn’t supposed to be winning at this age,” he thought, “but there are always exceptions, and I was one of the dominant players out there every year.”

Langer’s first senior tour victory, the Administaff Small Business Classic, came in October of his rookie season of 2007, which he won by eight strokes. Only nine months earlier Irwin, then 61, claimed his 45th and last senior victory in Hawaii. Talk about a changing of the guard.

Bernhard Langer has presented the winner’s trophy at the 2007 Administaff Small Business Classic, the first of his record 46th senior title. Bob Levey

Langer won three more times in 2008 and another four in 2009. There has not been a year since when the World Golf Hall of Famer hasn’t won at least one event, and the 46 victories include 12 senior major championships, another record he holds, by three over Gary Player and four over Jack Nicklaus.

So then, how did Langer pass Irwin—in his mid-60s, no less?

The conventional wisdom on this circuit has always been to pick up your wins (and paychecks) as early as possible, preferably before turning 55 or 56, when your body truly begins to break down—they call it hitting the wall—and the new “youngsters” come aboard.

Langer, however, won 13 times since turning 60. That’s more wins than all but 24 players have for their entire senior careers. And Langer is the only player to win past age 64, having done it now five times.

Suffice it to say, Langer has kept himself in remarkable shape and has remained relatively healthy, never a guarantee at this stage of a player’s career. Or at any stage, really.

“Put a picture of him at 21 next to a picture of him now at 65,” Peter Jacobsen suggested, “and other than maybe some wrinkles around his eyes and on his face, I don’t see any difference in Bernhard Langer then and Bernhard Langer now.”

His faith in God has been another factor in his favour. A born-again Christian since the mid-1980s, he approaches the game—and his life—with an inner peace others that his peers would no doubt dream of having. “I have played with a greater purpose,” he said. “I knew God would love me whether I missed the cut or won.”

1487807864 Alex Slitz

Beyond these reasons is the intangible quality that all of the greats in sports possess. Call it desire, determination, whatever. You have it or you don’t, and he has it in spades. There is no other way to explain what the man has overcome. More than most members of his profession, that’s for sure.

Take a case of the yips, which Langer has had to conquer on several occasions.

Tony Jacklin was paired with him at one event in the early 1980s when Sam Torrance, the other member of the threesome, asked Langer in the scoring tent afterwards, in reference to a very short putt he had just made, whether he had hit it once or twice.

Langer’s putting was “that shaky,” Jacklin explained, “that Sam had to pose the question.” (Just once, Langer assured Torrance.) Those days, as you might expect, were tough on him. “People didn’t even want to watch me,” Langer said, “and you can’t hide.”

Mind you, this was a player who won 42 times on the European Tour and three times on the PGA Tour, including two Masters victories. Talent was never the question. But staying mentally sharp was.

Of all the putts he missed, one stands out—the six-footer on the final green during his 1991 Ryder Cup singles match on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island against, ironically enough, Irwin, which handed the the US a victory over Europe in the “War by the Shore.” It is hard to imagine any player in the sport ever feeling more pressure than Langer encountered at that moment.

Jacklin was very concerned, and with good reason. “I really thought it was a possible career-changer,” he said. “To a lot of people it would have been a devastating thing.”

It was devastating, alright. So devastating that he won the very next week, on the first playoff hole over Australia’s Rodger Davis at the German Masters. To even get into the playoff, he canned a 10-footer on the last hole in regulation. If that doesn’t tell you what the man is made of, nothing will.

Langer isn’t dominant in any one aspect of the game, which means absolutely nothing. “He’s good enough at everything,” Lee Janzen said. “He drives it straight, his short game is very good, and he’s really good from inside 10 feet.”

Or, as Paul Goydos put it, “Does he do anything better than me? No. He just beats me.”

Goydos said that Langer’s success should make everyone reevaluate assumptions that we’ve had for a long time about athletes and the ageing process. “He doesn’t fit any of those moulds,” Goydos suggested. “Mentally, he’s as sharp as anybody out here. He doesn’t make [mistakes].”

In the end, it comes down to a simple question: How badly do you want it?

When it comes to Langer, the answer is obvious.

Billy Andrade recalled the time he showed up for the 3M Championship just outside Minneapolis in his rookie season of 2014. It was a Tuesday. He was there to pick up his courtesy car when he spotted Langer on the driving range. Just two days earlier, Langer had captured the Senior Open Championship at Royal Porthcawl in Wales … by 13 strokes!

“He was the only one [out there],” Andrade said. “It was mind-blowing. He was already focused on the next tournament.”

Getting the feel of the grass, no doubt.

The post How Bernhard Langer broke a golf record considered unbreakable appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

It was to have evolved into a race against time for Bernhard Langer in his pursuit of Hale Irwin’s PGA Tour Champions record for victories, yet time stood no chance. Langer on Sunday, two months shy of his 66th birthday, posted his record 46th senior victory in a dominating manner, on the senior game’s biggest stage, the US Senior Open.

Players his age are not supposed to win. Irwin was 61 when he produced the last of his 45 senior victories. Until Langer came along, the oldest to win on the senior tour was Scott Hoch, at 63 years and five months. This victory by Langer at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis., advanced that record for the fifth time.

And he did so while having to contend with Wisconsin’s favourite sons, Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly, on their home turf. He carried a two-stroke lead over Kelly, three over Stricker, into the final round, and though he bogeyed his final three holes, he still won by two over Stricker, the runner-up, and three over Kelly.

“It’s been a long time coming, but I’m very, very happy,” Langer said. “Never thought it would happen at a US Senior Open, but I’m very thrilled that the record of 46 wins happened this week. It’s certainly one of the greatest tournaments we ever compete in, and to beat this field, where everybody was here, especially Stricker and Kelly on their home grounds, is a very special feeling. Very grateful.”

It was his record 12th senior major championship, to go with two Masters titles. It was his second US Senior Open victory, 13 years after his first. It also marked his record 11th season with multiple victories, his having won the Chubb Classic earlier this year.

Langer closed with a one-under-par 70 that largely was mistake-free until the closing holes. He completed 72 holes in seven-under 277. Stricker, seeking a third straight major championship this season, shot a two-under 69, while Kelly posted an even-par 71.

At the end of play on Saturday, Langer leading by two, Kelly sensed the task ahead for both Stricker and himself was ominous. “You know he’s going to be tough,” he said. “He’s smelling 46 right now.”

Patrick McDermott

As if on cue, Langer opened with birdie-birdie for the second straight day, added another birdie at six and at one point led by as many as seven. Over four rounds, Langer led the field in fairways hit (49 of 56) and greens in regulation (52 of 72), usually a winning formula in a USGA championship.

“I knew it was going to be a tough day just because Steve Stricker has been in top form,” Langer said. “He’s winning basically every time he tees up or thereabouts. I knew he would want to have his streak going of three majors in a row, and I knew he was going to give it his all.

“The same with Jerry Kelly. He’s one of the best ball-strikers, a very underrated golfer. I knew he would do well because he is one of the straightest hitters. The key this week, I think, was hitting the fairways. If you could keep it out of the cabbage, you had a chance. I think that’s one of the reasons I did so well.”

In the immediate aftermath, he was asked how long he could keep going, and he cited aches and pains that weren’t there a decade ago.

“I’ve got two bad knees, for those of you who don’t know, and it hurts bending down and staying down,” he said. “When I have dinner and I sit for an hour or something and get up, it’s hard to get up. That’s just been that way for a number of years.

“But I’ve got good news. I have my mother that’s going to be 100 on Aug. 4, so I think I have good genes. Hopefully, I’ll be around a few more years.”

The post Bernhard Langer, 65, defying age, wins US Senior Open to surpass Hale Irwin with record 46th Champions victory appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Fifty-four-hole events tend to be a sprint to the finish line anyway, but Padraig Harrington’s furious back-nine kick was an extraordinary display of Sunday pressure golf that propelled him to a one-stroke victory in Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.

Harrington, 51, the defending champion, trailed leader Joe Durant by three at En-Joie Golf Course in Endicott, N.Y., then played a six-hole stretch in seven under par, completing a round of nine-under 63 to record his fifth PGA Tour Champions victory and first of the year.

“It was amazing, it was a bad hole that kicked that. I got and down from 31 yards out of a bunker, holed an eight-footer and it went from feeling like everything was going against you, to, oh, that’s not so bad,” Harrington said. “Obviously I wasn’t thinking about winning at that stage, I was thinking about just trying to make as many birdies.

“When I started making them, then I started thinking about [winning] when I got, I suppose, three or four of them. But it was a bonus obviously to make eagle. And when I had about a six-footer on 17, it’s amazing when you’re holing putts. I could have closed my eyes, turned my back and I would have holed the putts on 17.”

Durant, 59, was in pursuit of his first senior victory in more than three years and seemed in command, playing the first 12 holes in six under par. But he parred out for a final-round six-under 66 that left him one stroke short.

Harrington started his incredible run at the 12th hole. He made four straight birdies, followed by an eagle two at 16 and another birdie at 17 before closing with a par.

On the eve of the tournament, he was cautiously optimistic, coming off two quality starts, a playoff loss to Steve Stricker in the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship and a tie for 27th in the U.S. Open last week at Los Angeles Country Club.

“I feel good about my game,” he said. “Sometimes I try and get better for down the road instead of being focused on the tournament at hand. But that’s the burden I have, I suppose, all the time. I’m always trying to get better and better, which can hold you back in the short term for sure.

“My goal is to try and get my head in the game. I finished my practice now so my head better be in the game now, but even if it’s not quite there tomorrow, as long as it’s there for the last nine holes on Sunday that would be OK.”

It exceeded OK, this seven-under 28 to close. In fact, he played his last 10 holes in eight under par.

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