By Tod Leonard
Kirk Triplett was driving with his wife to Phoenix Country Club on Friday morning when the question occurred to hIm: How long had it been since he’d played in a pairing with Phil Mickelson?

“It’s probably at least 15 years ago,” Triplett said. “I’ve been out here 10 years [on the PGA Tour Champions], I hate to say it, and I haven’t played any golf on the regular tour since I came out here.”

Triplett, best recognized for his bucket hat, and Mickelson’s on-course paths rarely crossed, it seems, because the former was among the journeymen who rarely got paired early in the week with the tour’s stars. Triplett, 59, had an impressive run of keeping his card, but he only managed three PGA Tour victories, the last coming in 2006. Mickelson has won 45 times.

Triplett has had much more success among the seniors, with eight victories, and he has a good shot at his first triumph since 2019, holding a two-shot lead over Steven Alker and a three-shot margin over Mickelson and Jim Furyk heading into the weekend of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

Triplett put on a fine display in front of Mickelson on Friday, draining seven birdies in a seven-under round of 64. Mickelson, who hit the ball sharply but didn’t make any putts of consequence, carded a 65.

Kirk Triplett and Phil Mickelson chat during the final round of the 2004 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Scott Halleran

“It was great to play with him, but he’s always been like that,” Triplett said of Mickelson. “He’s great to his fellow pros, very talkative, very chatty, grinding away on every shot, whether it’s going his way or not. He’s got so much firepower when you’re watching him play; it’s just fun to be out with him, with a Hall of Famer.”

Triplett was so appreciative of the experience that he might have even stunned Mickelson as they stood on a tee during their front nine. “I said, ‘Thank you.’” Triplett recalled. “He said, ‘For what?’ I said, ‘Thanks for bringing all these people out.’” We get nice crowds here at Phoenix every year, but we’ve got more people than we usually do and he’s the reason.”

Mickelson, of course, is a draw in every tournament he plays, but he’s especially popular in Phoenix, where he went to college at Arizona State. With three wins already among the seniors, Lefty has brought the tour more attention than it’s had in years.

The pairing with Mickelson came at a time when Triplett is feeling a rush of competitive juices. With five top-10s in 34 starts in this extended Champions Tour season, he was battling for the last few starts to get into the top 36 who are competing this week in the year’s finale.

“I’ve been the guy on the bubble, No. 36, for at least a month,” Triplett said. “I’ve been playing like I’m winning every single week, like every shot matters. I think that probably has something to do with my good play these last two days.”

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Goosen had just hit his approach from a fairway bunker to four feet on the par-4 17th, the third playoff hole. If the 50-year-old World Golf Hall of Famer won the playoff, he would take both prizes. Maggert faced an approach shot in the fairway from 123 yards. All that was on the line for him was the tournament title. And if Maggert beat Goosen to win it, it meant Scott McCarron—watching intently back in the clubhouse—would win the points race and collect the $1 million reward for the winner.

Knowing he needed to hit one tight to keep up with Goosen, Maggert set dead aim on the flag. And, well, this happened:

A playoff hole-out for the win. ?

Jeff Maggert drains his approach for eagle on the third extra hole to win the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.pic.twitter.com/vvIkInzpeW

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) November 11, 2019

Two bounces and then the dunk. It clinched Maggert’s sixth career PGA Tour Champions win but his first since 2015. And it allowed McCarron, who had finished a disappointing 27th in the tournament, to claim the year-long title after leading in the standings for the majority of 2019.

Suffice to say, McCarron is likely to send Maggert a little holiday present in the very near future.

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This is not to shortchange the man who beat him, Kevin Sutherland. By virtue of his victory in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Sunday and the system the tour has in place for the season-long points competition, Sutherland not only won the tournament, but the Charles Schwab Cup and its $1 million bonus, as well.

But here’s the rub. It was Sutherland’s only victory of the year, indeed his only PGA Tour Champions win in four years, while Langer won seven times this year, with two of the seven coming in the three-tournament Schwab Cup playoffs.

Two more points to consider. Langer, 60, would have won his fourth straight Schwab Cup had he reordered his victories in the playoff events. He won the wrong two. And with Langer’s tie for 12th despite closing with a seven-under par 64 at Phoenix Country Club on Sunday, Sutherland could have won the Schwab Cup even had he finished second or third in the tournament on Sunday and gone winless for the season.

“I think it needs adjusting,” Langer said of a system that includes resetting Schwab Cup points after each of the first two playoff events. “I do, personally, because you could have somebody win the whole thing that hasn’t won a tournament all year and I’m not sure that’s ideal. But I was on the [PGA Tour Champions policy] board. We said we’re going to try this out. I’m not sure if it’s perfect. It’s maybe like the FedExCup. They had to adjust it two or three times to make it interesting but also make it a little fair.

“It was never meant to be fair. It was meant to be playoffs. Everybody in the field was given a chance to win. Is it fair? No, it’s not, but that’s how it is right now.”

Chris Condon/Getty Images
The crowds acknowledged Langer’s hugely successful 2017 season as he approached the 18th green in the season finale.

So be it. The rules were the rules and Sutherland won according to them.

“We might revisit it in the future,” Langer said.

Sutherland, to his credit, won for the first time, in 78 senior starts, when it counted most monetarily. His take for the day was $1.44 million, which included $440,000 for his victory in the tournament itself.

“It is amazing,” he said, staring at the Schwab Cup he was holding. “And I know the list of champions on here is incredible, too. I’m the luckiest man in the world. Every time I come out here and play I can’t believe they let me do this.”

They let him do this, of course, because he has a quality golf game, notwithstanding his previous inability to win. He has finished in the top 10 in nearly half his senior starts, 38 in all, including 15 of 23 starts this year.

Victory, one might have reckoned, was imminent.

“I played really well all year and I just couldn’t find a way to get a win,” he said. “So to win this tournament, it’s unbelievable. I’m sure in a couple days it will sink in a little bit, but right now it just seems like I’m not even sure it really happened, I keep pinching myself. It feels good and it’s been a long time since I won a tournament. I haven’t won since 2002 [WGC-Accenture] Match Play, so 15 years. So it feels good.”

Sutherland, with a birdie at the 16th hole, broke from a crowded leader board that at various times included Vijay Singh, Lee Janzen, David Frost, Brandt Jobe and Paul Goydos, but not Langer.

Michael Cohen/Getty Images

He finished with a bogey-free five-under-par 66 that gave him a 54-hole score of 15-under 198, one ahead of Singh and Janzen.

“I hit the ball really well today,” he said. “I played fantastic. I drove it great. I tweaked my driver and hit it great this week.”

As for Langer, he is a cinch to win tour player of the year honors for the seventh time. And even at 60, he isn’t looking for the easy chair, as he noted when asked his goals going forward.

“Just the main goal is to improve myself, to have a better technique or to have better chipping, putting, whatever it is,” he said. “If I can continue to improve, I’m going to have a good chance to win tournaments, to win majors and to be one of the top five or 10 guys out here.”

Keep improving. That’s a worthwhile goal for any player on the senior tour. It, too, ought to be goal No. 1 for those charged with the Charles Schwab Cup points system that let them down on Sunday.

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By John Strege
The indomitable Bernhard Langer was forced to work overtime on Sunday, but still delivered a victory in the PowerShares QQQ Championship, his second straight win and third in his last four starts.

Langer, 60, holed a 30-foot double-breaker from an upper tier on the 18th green on the second playoff hole at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., to defeat Miguel Angel Jimenez.

He has now won the first two Charles Schwab Cup playoff events and will go for a sweep in the season-finale Charles Schwab Cup Championship in two weeks at Phoenix Country Club.

“It puts me at a great mind, at great ease,” he said. “I’m swinging the club fairly well. There were a few irons shots that leaked to the right and I’ll try to figure out why that is so. I think I know. And the rest of the game is pretty solid.”

Indeed, the victory was his seventh of the season, extending his career-high, and the 36th of his PGA Tour Champions career.

Langer nearly won on the last hole of regulation, when his 15-foot birdie putt caught a piece of the hole and did a 360 without falling.

On the first playoff hole, Langer had a similar putt to the one with which he won, but missed it to the right. On his second attempt, it went in dead center.

“The first one almost went straight,” Langer said. “The second one was a little different angle and We read it about a cup out and it broke nicely at the end.”

Langer and Jimenez, who along with David Toms were co-leaders through 36 holes, closed with the best rounds of the day, five-under par 67s, while Toms, a senior rookie still in search of a maiden tour victory, shot a 69 and finished third.

Meanwhile, Langer has to be the favorite to win a fourth straight Charles Schwab Cup and its $1 million bonus and a fifth cup overall. However, a points reset after the PowerShares QQQ Championship allows any one of the top five in the standings to win the cup with a victory in two weeks.

Langer leads the standings and is followed by Scott McCarron, Kenny Perry, Jimenez and Kevin Sutherland.

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