ON TO TIBURON: The clubhouse at Tiburon, in Naples, FL, is a welcome site for three pro golf tour events each year. This week the stars on PGA Tour Champions will be there.
Golf-wise it’s Florida where the action is for at least the next month.
First it was the LPGA tour staging its first three tournaments of 2022 in the Sunshine state. They were captivating events, too, with Danielle Kang, Lydia Ko and Leona Maguire winning the titles and Annika Sorenstam drawing bigger galleries than all of them playing against top male athletes from other sports in a celebrity competition.
Now – with the women headed to their next tournament March 3-6 in Singapore– all three men’s tours are either in Florida or headed that way. The PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour kicked off its first tournament of the year in the United States on Thursday with the LECOM Suncoast Classic at Lakewood National, on the outskirts of Sarasota.
On Friday PGA Tour Champions holds its first full-field event of the year, the 35th annual Chubb Classic at Tiburon in Naples. Then there’ll be four straight weeks of PGA Tour events – the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra and the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor.
The Korn Ferry Tour is holding its fourth tournament of the year, with the first three being in the Bahamas, Panama and Colombia. The field includes three Illinois Open champions – Brad Hopfinger, Vince India and Tee-K Kelly.
India, who shot 66 in the first round at Lakewood National, had top-15 finishes in both the Bahamas and Panama before missing the cut in Colombia. Kelly had his best Korn Ferry performance in a tie for seventh last week and Hopfinger tied for 13th in Colombia. Rookie pro Michael Feagles, a mainstay for Illinois’ collegiate powerhouses the last four years, is also in the field.
Lakewood Ranch has two 18-holers, and the Korn Ferry players are using the Commander Course. It opened in 2017 and the winners have gone extremely low — 26-under-par in 2019, 23-under in 2020 and 13-under last year – in previous Korn Ferry stops.
More familiar names will be teeing off on Tiburon’s Black Course on Friday in the 54-hole Chubb Classic. Bernhard Langer heads a field that also includes Jim Furyk, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Sandy Lyle, Colin Montgomerie, Jose Maria Olazabal, Padraig Harrington nd Ian Woosnam. All of them won major titles.
Miguel Angel Jimenez, who won the circuit’s season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship last month in Hawaii, is also competing and former world No. 1 David Duval and Y.E. Kang, winner of a PGA Championship, will be making their debuts in full-field PGA Tour Champions competition.
Tiburon is a special venue, as it’s the only facility to host a PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions and LPGA Tour event in the same calendar year. Tiburon has two courses, both designed by Greg Norman, and the Black Course will be used this week. The other two circuit’s played their events on the Gold Course.
The Chubb Classic is being held for the 35th time and is the longest-standing PGA Tour Champions event held in the same marketplace. The Black Course hosted the event for the first time in 2021 with Steve Stricker winning the title. Stricker, sidelined by a heart ailment in November, won’t defend his title.
The clubhouse at Tiburon is a welcome site for three pro golf tour events.
NAPLES, FL. – The traditional warmup in Hawaii is over. Now PGA Tour Champions is ready to get down to business. With the tournament rounds scheduled for Feb. 18-20, the Chubb Classic Presented by SERVOPRO is the first full-field event of the season for the 50-and-over circuit.
“A great place for it,’’ said Peter Jacobsen, who played in the tournament last year and will be on Golf Channel’s broadcasting crew for this one.
Oh yes, he’s also a member at Tiberon, the host club that first welcomed the Chubb in 2021.
PGA Tour Champions made its traditional season debut at the Mitsubishi Championship, but only winners of tournaments from the previous year can play in that one.
“It’s the crown jewel because everyone wants to play there,’’ said Jacobsen, “but all the players are excited to get out and get their year started. Last year was a weird one with Covid.’’
Indeed it was. Last year’s Chubb was moved to April and was one of the many events on all the golf tours that was played without fans in attendance. The fans will be very evident at Tiberon this year, and not just because the tournament won’t be dealing as much with pandemic issues.
The Chubb is always a special event. It’s become a Florida tradition and this year’s playing marks the tournament’s 35th anniversary. It’s the longest-running Champions Tour event in the same marketplace. The Champions circuit started in 1980, and the Chubb made its debut just eight years later. It’s produced plenty of golf excitement ever since.
So, let’s get down to business. Here’s what golf fans need to know in the waning days before the first tee shot is struck on Tiburon’s Black Course.
Executive director Sandy Diamond (left) and media director Jeremy Friedman give the Chubb a new look.
WHAT’S NEW: The tourney has a new executive director, but this won’t be Sandy Diamond’s first rodeo. He worked at the tournament 20 years ago, then spent a long career with the PGA Tour before hooking on with the First Tee of Metropolitan New York as its chief development officer.
When the Chubb position opened up Diamond was excited to take it and promptly moved to Naples to oversee management of the tournament.
“My background has been more on the development side – sponsorship, marketing – and not on the operational side,’’ said Diamond, but he’s off to a flying start. He’s lined up full fields for morning and afternoon pro-ams on both Wednesday and Thursday of tournament week. There’s a $14,000 fee to get a foursome into the field in those, and Diamond had 56 teams lined up two weeks before the tournament.
“And there’s no freebies,’’ said Diamond.
There may also be another pro-am on Tiberon’s sister Gold Course on Tuesday of tournament week, based on demand.
The Gold Course at Tiburon hosts the LPGA and PGA tours, but not the Champions.
WHAT ABOUT TIBURON? It’s the only facility to host events on the PGA and LPGA tours as well as PGA Tour Champions in a one-year period. The club has taken on that demanding task in a four-month period. The LPGA’s CME Championship, which included the 2021 season, was held in November and was the biggest money event in women’s golf. The QBE Shootout, held in December, brought in an array of PGA Tour stars and now it’s PGA Tour Champions’ turn.
The Chubb is the only event of the big three held on Tiburon’s Black Course. The other two were held on the Gold. Both courses were designed by Greg Norman.
WHO’S DEFENDING? Unfortunately, probably nobody. Steve Stricker was a one-stroke winner over Robert Karlsson and Alex Cejka last year. It was the 54-year old’s sixth victory on the Champions circuit, and he followed up with an even more high-profile accomplishment when he captained the U.S. Ryder Cup team to a record 19-9 whomping of Europe at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits course in September.
Unfortunately Stricker was hit with a severe illness – described as an inflammation around his heart — in late November and his participation in the Chubb is doubtful, though reports suggest he has been making big strides in his recovery.
“I don’t think he’ll be here, and that stinks,’’ said Diamond. “It’d take a minor mira
While Greg Norman designed both Tiburon courses, the Gold and Black have their own distinct qualities.
WHO WILL BE HERE? Diamond had only a handful of early commitments, but they were some good ones – Jim Furyk, Colin Montgomerie, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Bernhard Langer. David Duval, a former major champion, is also coming. He made his Champions debut in the Mitsubishi event, finishing in a tie for 34th, and the Chubb will be Duval’s first in a full-field competition. He was the 2001 British Open champion and a former world No. 1.
Later player commitments included Fred Couples, Davis Love III, Sandy Lyle, Jose Maria Olazabal, Ian Woosnam, Billy Andrade, Brad Faxon and Dudley Hart. Sponsor exemptions were awarded to Michael Balliet, head pro at nearby Calusa Pines, and amateur Michael Muehr.
There’ll be 78 players in the field, and Diamond promised “The field will be extremely strong.’’
HISTORICALLY SPEAKING: The first Chubb first champion was Gary Player at The Club at Pelican Bay, the site for the first three years of the tournament. Other Naples area courses took their shot at hosting – Vineyards, Lely, Bay Colony, Pelican Marsh, TwinEagles, Quail Creek, TP Treviso Bay and The Quarry – before Tiburon joined the mix.
When Player won the purse was only $300,000. Now it’s $1.6 million. Lee Trevino was the first back-to-back winner (1990-91) and Mike Hill also accomplished the feat in 1993-94.
Langer is the only three-time winner (2011, 2013 and 2016).
BEST STORY LINES: Langer, who lives just a couple hours away, in Boca Raton, is always a good one. Now 64, this guy can still play and will continue to chase Hale Irwin’s record 45 Champions wins at least for another year. Langer has won 41 Champions titles and captured the Charles Schwab Cup six times, the last win coming last year.
Miguel Angel Jimenez got off to a great start in Hawaii when he won the Mitsubishi event for the third time, this time in a playoff with Steven Alker. Alker was the surprise of last season and will be well-watched if he keeps his success run going.
And who know what to expect from David Duval?
BEST VIEWING HOLES: Jacobsen, who has lived in Naples and been a Tiburon member for 18 years, believes the key holes will be Nos. 2 and 18.
“The second is tight and long, a difficult par,’’ said Jacobsen. “It’s extremely difficult and tests your driving right off the bat. The last hole is a reachable par-5. A player will have the opportunity to make eagle and win the tournament there.’’
“Overall, the Black Course is a good design,’’ said Jacobsen. “It’s not overly difficult or very long (6,949 yards from the tips). Greg Norman did a good job. He designed a course that is good for tour players and resort guests as well.’’
The battle was intense, but Lydia Ko dropped some key putts as Danielle Kang could only watch.
BOCA RATON, FL. – The first full-field event of the Ladies PGA tour’s 2022 season was just a two-player duel between two of the circuit’s most popular stars. One of them not only came away with a vicrtory but also gave herself a big boost for her Hall of Fame aspirations.
Lydia Ko, a 24-year old New Zealander who was an instant sensation when she came on the tour at age 16, took her 17th career LPGA title by holding off 29-year old American Danielle Kang. The good friends were in the spotlight throughout in the $2 million Gainbridge Championship at Boca Rio.
Ko took the first-round lead with a 63 and Kang rallied into a tie for the top spot after 36 holes. They played together in the final two rounds, and Ko regained her two-stroke advantage with a solid even par round in cold windy weather on Saturday.
Kang, the runner-up to Nelly Korda in last year’s Gainbridge event, got back into a tie when Ko got off to a slow start on Sunday. They took turns taking sole possession of the top spot until Ko claimed it for good with birdies at Nos. 15 and 16, and she protected it with stellar bunker shots to save pars on the final two holes.
“The putt on 15 was really the momentum shifter,’’ said Ko. “I kept reading it further and further right, and it turned out the perfect read.’’ Kang had the same problem with the read from seven feet and agreed. But she missed hers.
The winner of last week’s season-opening Tournament of Champions at Lake Nona, in the Orlando area where Ko now resides, Kang missed a 15-foot birdie putt on the final green to end her hopes of sending the seesaw competition to a playoff. Ko finished at 14-under-par 274 for the regulation 72 holes, one swing better than Kang.
In addition to claiming the $300,000 winner’s check Ko boosted her chances of making it into the LPGA Hall of Fame. Selection is determined on a performance-based point total. She has 21 points and needs 27.
“Sometimes I try to be too much of a perfectionist,’’ she said. “The Hall of Fame would be huge, but I just try to play my best golf.’’
She became the youngest-ever player-of-the-year in professional golf history — male or female — to be named rookie-of-the-year when she started her LPGA career. Ko won two major championships among her victories early in her career and medals in two Olympics after that, but wins have been hard to come by – until Sunday. It was the first of her LPGA victories claimed in the month of Januaryafter failing to win on the LPGA tour in 2021.
Ko is taking this week’s final of three straights stop of the LPGA’s Florida swing off. This week’s event is the Drive On Championship in Ft. Myers.
Lydia Ko had her driver working, and she wound up with the Gainsbridge trophy.
Last week’s cold weather hampered Nelly Korda (right) in the LPGA’s Tournament of Champions but warmer temperatures are expected this week at Boca Rio.
BOCA RATON, FL. — The first full field event of the LPGA’s 2022 season tees off on Thursday at Boca Rio Golf Club. It’ll have 120 players, but not Annika Sorenstam.
Sorenstam, who won 72 tournaments on the LPGA tour before taking 13 years off from golf competition, is still tinkering with a comeback but her next tournament won’t be for a while. She was a big reason why the LPGA’s season-opening Tournament of Champions was a big hit.
Despite cold, sometimes rainy, weather the gallery turned out in bigger than usual numbers to see Sorenstam compete at Lake Nona, her home course. She did well, but is taking a break now.
“I won’t play next week. It’s the PGA (Merchandise) Show (in Orlando), and we have a fun week coming up,’’ she said. “We have a busy week with meetings with sponsors.’’
“Next week’’ is also the Gainbridge Championship. Sorenstam will leave that one up to Danielle Kang, who took a three-shot victory in the LPGA portion of the Tournament of Champions on Sunday, and her main rivals of the previous four days – Mexico’s Gaby Lopez, Canadian Brooke Henderson and the Korda sisters – Nelly and Jessica.
Nelly is the defending champion in the Gainbridge, having won last year when the event was played at Lake Nona. Kang won the T of C, finishing at 16-under-par for 72 holes and earned $225,000.
“I shot 4-under on a cold day and 3-under (in the third round) – probably the best I’ve ever played in the cold,’’ she said. Last year Kang lost the Tournament of Champions title to Korda’s sister Jessica in a playoff at Tranquilo, another course in the Orlando area.
Kang, a 29-year old Californian, won for the sixth time on the LPGA tour but her biggest win was her first. She won the 2017 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, one of the circuit’s majors, at Olympia Fields.
Sorenstam has a couple tournaments coming up, one in February and a senior event in March. She lost a playoff to former major league pitcher Derek Lowe in the celebrity division of the T of C. Lowe got the win by making a 25-foot birdie putt on the first hole of sudden death but Sorenstam took the whole four-day test in stride.
“I’m not sure what I expected, but I’m super pleased with the great pairings I had all week,’’ said Sorenstam. “If this tournament was played at any other course I probably wouldn’t be playing, but this is why I came here in the first place. The support is fantastic, I love this golf course and I’m a proud member for sure.’’
Sweden’s Madelene Sagstrom won the Gainbridge title when the event was played at Boca Rio in 2020, and she’ll also be in the field this week. She finished 17th in the Tournament of Champions.
Nelly Korda led the T of C after 54 holes but shot 75 on Sunday to finish in a tie for fourth.
“I was freezing,’’ she said. “I always get colder than it actually is. That’s why I always stay away from tournaments that are always in the cold.’’
Korda lives in Bradenton, FL., and it’s rarely as cold in the Sunshine State as it was last week. Lexi Thompson, who is from Delray Beach, FL., will make her season debut at Boca Rio. She didn’t qualify for the T of C field. Australian Karrie Webb is also in the field. A former major champion, she will return to the LPGA circuit for the first time in two years. The Gainbridge field includes 16 of the top 25 in the world rankings.
The sponsor exemptions are also interesting. Taylor Collins, a teaching professional at nearby Coral Ridge Country Club in Ft. Lauderdale, was the first woman to win the South Florida PGA Section title in 42 years and Nishtha Madan, a promising player from India, will be making her LPGA debut. She will compete on the Symetra Tour in 2022.
Annika Sorenstam, with husband Mike McGee on the bag, is showing — at age 51 — that she can play with the LPGA’s best players in the circuit’s Tournament of Champions.
LAKE NONA, FL. – The Ladies PGA Tour, like the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions, opens each season with a Tournament of Champions. The women do it a little differently, though. They hold a celebrity event in conjunction with theirs, and Saturday’s third round had an even more unusual twist.
Paired in the final group was the legendary Annika Sorenstam, winner of 72 LPGA titles, and current world No. 1 Nelly Korda. Both could win titles in today’s final round.
The 22-year old Korda, whose older sister Jessica is the defending champion, owns a one-stroke lead over Danielle Kang and Gaby Lopez among the 29 LPGA members. Sorenstam, who had been out of tournament golf for 13 years until making a mini-comeback last year, has a two-point lead in the celebrity division.
Sorenstam, a member of the Lake Nona club that is hosting the tournament, is 51 and the only woman in a 50-player field of celebrities that include former Chicago sports heroes Jeremy Roenick, Brian Urlacher, Jon Lester and A.J. Pierzynski. Because the LPGA players are competing at stroke play and the celebrities are using a Stableford point system, it’s to difficult to compare their performances.
Last year Sorenstam, on a whim, entered an LPGA tournament and made the cut. Then she was a run-away winner of the U.S. Women’s Senior Open. When she headed the field in the Tournament of Champions, limited to players who have won LPGA titles in the last two years, a comeback story seemed in the offing.
Sorenstam didn’t exactly quell those rumors this week.
“I’m thinking how much golf I’m going to play after this event,’’ she said. “I’m not really sure.’’
She is raising a family now, and that’s just one factor.
“There’s really a fine balance, especially when you play with the best,’’ she said. “You see the level of players you’re playing against and you realize you’re not there anymore. My mindset isn’t the way it used to be.’’
She remains a drawing card, however. In previous years the celebrity competitors drew as much attention as the LPGA competitors in the Tournament of Champions. On Saturday, in chilly weather that included some rain, that wasn’t the case. The LPGA regulars and the celebrities were mixed together and the bigger than usual roving galleries supported all the women, but especially Sorenstam and the Korda sisters.
“(Sorenstam) has so much game. It was cool to see,’’ said Nelly Korda. “She shot 1- or 2-under on the back nine. She’s not hitting it as far off the tee, but her woods and iron game is so good.’’
Madelene Sagstrom (left) and the Korda sisters — Nelly (left) and Jessica — will be prime time players when the LPGA opens its season with three tournaments in Florida.
Dismiss the fact that the PGA Tour has played tournaments in Hawaii the last two weeks. The 2022 golf season really starts this week. That’s when the golf spotlight shifts to Florida and will stay there for a while.
The PGA Merchandise Show returns after taking a year off because of pandemic concerns and the LPGA – after concluding 2021 with two stops in the Sunshine State – gets back in action with its first three tournaments of the new year in Florida.
The PGA Tour returns to the mainland with the Farmers Insurance Open in California and PGA Tour Champions has its Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, but those events don’t match the glut of activity the women are planning around the Merchandise Show.
First event is this week’s LPGA’s 2022 debut, the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. In addition to the new title sponsor the tourney has a new venue, Lake Nona on the outskirts of Orlando. It’ll be a four-day 72-hole battle of players who have won on the circuit in the last two years and there’ll be a celebrity competition mixed in. Play begins on Thursday.
As soon as the last putt drops at Lake Nona on Sunday the scene shifts to nearby Orange County National for a scaled down version of the Demo Day that traditionally preceded the big show at the Orange County Convention Center. Most the major club manufacturers won’t be at the show this time, but there’ll be an array of golf-related companies on hand. It won’t be quite the traditional New Year’s celebration when golf diehards gather, but it’ll be as close to a return to normalcy as we can get for now.
It won’t be easy for the LPGA’s tournament offerings to match last year’s, either.
The 2021 season started with Jessica Korda winning the Tournament of Champions and her sister Nelly winning the first regular season event, the Gainbridge Championship then played at Lake Nona. That was only the second time sisters won back-to-back events on the LPGA Tour, the first being in 2000 when Lake Nona member Annika Sorenstam and her sister Charlotta pulled off the feat.
This year’s T of C has a new site and a $1.5 million purse for the 72-hole no-cut tournament. The field includes six of the top 10 in the women’s world rankings and also features Japan’s Nasa Hataoka, who calls Lake Nona “my member course’’ because she practices there throughout the season; and Michelle Wie West.
This year the Gainbridge moves back to Boca Rio, in Boca Raton, with Nelly going in as the defending champion in a 120-player field with $2 million in prize money on the line from Jan. 27-30. She’s coming off a spectacular year and the Gainbridge win started it all. It came in late February of 2021 and was her fourth professional win but the first with her parents, both Florida residents, on hand.
Nelly went on to win four more titles in 2021 including the Olympic gold medal en route to claiming the No. 1 world ranking. Her sister will be the defending champion at the Tournament of Champions.
Though Nelly is the defender at Boca Rio, Sweden’s Madelene Sagstrom feels like one, too. She won the 2020 Gainbridge tournament there. It was her first win as a pro.
“I’m biased about this place,’’ said Sagstrom, who now lives in Orlando and will also be in the field at Lake Nona. “On Friday (of her win in 2020) I shot 62 – my lowest round by three shots.’’
Adding to that, she did it with the father of her boyfriend working as an emergency caddie when her usual bag-toter couldn’t get to the tournament on time. Her game slipped a bit after the tour shut down play a month later.
“Before the pandemic I was on a role, but then we were out for five months and I lost my rhythm for a while,’’ she said, “but I did finish second in a major (T2 at British Open) and got it back.’’
The Gainbridge field also includes Delray Beach resident Lexi Thompson, who will be making her 2022 debut. She didn’t qualify for the Tournament of Champions. The field also includes Brooke Henderson, the popular Canadian player; New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and Korea’s Inbee Park, who is coming off a lengthy layoff from competition.
After that the LPGA concludes its run of Florida tourney to start the season at the Feb. 3-5 Drive On Championship at the Crown Colony course Ft. Myers.
No doubt about it: Korea’s Jin Young Ko is the best player on the LPGA tour in 2021.
NAPLES, FL. – The PGA and LPGA tours concluded their 2021 seasons on Sunday, and the women went out with a bigger bang than the men.
The PGA Tour reached its high point a couple months ago with the staging of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Ryder Cup. Those were tough acts for the remaining tournaments to follow. On the other hand, the LPGA took the more traditional route. The biggest event was the last one.
Korea’s Jin Young Ko won that big event for the second straight year, but her win was much different than the one in 2020, when the tourney was played without fans because of pandemic concerns.
Ko started the final round in a four-way tie for the lead with American Nelly Korda, Japan’s Nasa Hataoka and France’s Celine Boutier. Ko fired a 63 to edge Hataoka by one stroke. Korda, the other member of the final threesome, wound up in a tie for fifth place. Boutier, who played in the next-to-the-last threesome, tied for third.
A left wrist injury bothered Ko since May and she considered withdrawing in the days leading into the tournament, but she was awesome in the last event of the season. She reached the green in regulation in her last 63 holes.
“I didn’t practice much,’’ said Ko, “but I played really well. The whole week was amazing.’’
“She made everything,’’ said Korda. “I just stood back and watched her all day.’’
In addition to winning the Race to the CME Globe Ko also overtook Korda for the LPGA’s Rolex Player of the Year Award.The Race to the CME Globe has brought together the LPGA’s top players for that calendar year since 2011. This year’s had 60 players chasing a $5 million purse and Ko received a record $1.5 million.
As a footnote, Winnetka’s Elizabeth Szokol became the first Chicago area golfer to even qualify for the LPGA’s biggest event. She shot her best round of the week — a 69 — on Sunday and tied for 51st place.
In a sense, however, the biggest news of the week came before the first ball was struck at Tiburon Golf Club. Mollie Marcoux Samaan, who replaced Mike Whan as the LPGA commissioner four months ago, had taken a low-key approach to her new role until the CME’s pre-tournament banquet.
Samaan had been athletic director at Princeton when Whan was finishing up his successful 11-year stint with the LPGA. Whan became the executive director of the U.S. Golf Association when Samaan started tackling LPGA issues, and she finally shed some light on where she’ll be taking the women’s circuit. It looks like it’ll be to a better place.
In 2021 the LPGA purses totaled $67.5 million, with the $5 million at the CME event topping the list. Last week’s tournament announcement revealed a season boost in purses to $85.7 million for 2022. Nine of the 34 tournaments boosted their purses, most notably the CME. Its purse will climb to $7 million with the first prize boosted to $2 million.
“This is our time,’’ said Samaan. “Momentum is with us. There’s even more growth to come in so many different areas.’’
For now, though, those who want to watch the pro golf tours will have to endure at least a six-week waiting period. The PGA and LPGA will hold their Tournament of Champions in January. The PGA, as well as PGA Tour Champions, will hold theirs in Hawaii. The PGA version is at Kapalua Jan. 3-9 and the Champions will tee it up at Hualalai Jan. 17-22.
The women’s version will be slightly later and at a new site. It’ll move to Lake Nona, in Florida, with dates of Jan. 20-23. The first three events on the LPGA’s 2022 schedule will be in the Sunshine State.
Korea’s Jin Young Ko is hurting, but can still go on a birdie binge,
NAPLES, FL. — Beware of the injured golfer. Korea’s Jin Young Ko is the defending champion in the biggest money event in women’s golf, and she’s definitely injured.
An injury to her left wrist has troubled her since May and she never takes a full swing in practice. On a scale of 1 to 10 she says her wrist feels like a five. Earlier this week her caddie suggested she consider withdrawing from the CME Globe Tour Championship, which has a $5 million purse with a record $1.5 million going to Sunday’s champion.
Citing the big prize money and the fact that it’s the LPGA’s last tournament of 2021, Ko refused. Injured or not, shenn had a stunning birdie streak in Saturday’s third round and is part of a four-way tie for the lead going into Sunday’s finale.
Ko made seven straight birdies en route to shooting a 66 on Saturday. Her 14-under-par 202 total for 54 holes matches that of Nasa Hataoka, of Japan; American Nelly Korda and France’s Celine Boutier. Hataoka bettered Ko’s birdie streak on Saturday, making eight in a row en route to shooting the day’s low round – an 8-under-par 64. Still, Ko is in the thick of the battle.
“I’m sick right now, but I don’t want to withdraw,’’ said Ko. “I just keep hitting the ball straight, choose the right club and read a break right (on the greens).’’
Her birdie streak came on holes 2-8 on the Gold Course at Tiburon Golf Club. Unfortunately she made bogeys a bogey at No. 9 and had only pars on the back nine.
“I was feeling I could make any putt on the front nine,’’ she said. “I had a lot of good golf, but had a lot of missed shots on the back nine.’’
Ko and Korda have both won four tournaments this year. If either wins on Sunday she’ll be the first to win five in a season since Ariya Jutanugarn in 2016. Korda, winner of last week’s Pelican Championship in Bellaire, FL., earned her share of the lead thanks to an eagle at No. 17 that helped her post a 67. Boutier was the 36-hole leader but was able to maintain a share of the top spot despite shooting a 72
The golf season has a series of climax events these days. The PGA Tour had its season climax in either September, when the FedEx Cup Playoffs concluded, or October, when the Ryder Cup ended. Take your pick.
PGA Tour Champions concluded its season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs last Sunday when Phil Mickelson won the last tournament and Bernhard Langer captured the series title for the sixth time.
That leaves only the last of the “climax’’ events – this week’s CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, FL. With a $5 million purse and $1.5 first-place prize, it’s the biggest money event in the history of women’s golf and Elizabeth Szokol, the Chicago area’s only LPGA player, will be right in the thick of it.
Szokol, 27, qualified for the event for the first time. Created in 2011, it’s limited to the top 60 players and ties in a season-long point race. Szokol, in only her second LPGA season, missed the cut in last week’s regular season finale – the Pelican Championship — but it didn’t keep her out of the big-money wrapup to the season. She was a comfortable 44th in the standings going into Pelican and safely into the Naples shootout that begins on Thursday at Tiburon Golf Club’s Gold Course.
Chicago golfers have found it tough to break into the LPGA over the last three decades. Other than Szokol the only one to do it was Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray, who starred at Northern Illinois before spending a long career on the LPGA and its satellite tour.
Jeray, though still competing on the LPGA’s Legends Tour for senior members, has taken on a heavy teaching load at Mistwood, in Romeoville. Szokol’s road to the LPGA was similar. She was a high school star at New Trier, then spent two seasons at Northwestern before concluding her collegiate career at Virginia.
She turned pro in 2017, won an event in her second year on the LPGA’s Symetra Tour and gained LPGA membership in 2018 with four top-10 finishes in her last five starts. Her rookie LPGA season in 2019 was somewhat of a struggle but she improved in 2020, making seven cuts in 14 starts and earning $110,873.
The improvement was much more dramatic this year when she had three top-10s in 21 starts, the last coming in October – a third-place finish in the $3 million Founders Cup in New Jersey. It earned her a $198,627 paycheck, a big factor in the $515,640 she has earned for the season. That figure could grow in a hurry, given the money on the line this week for the LPGA’s best players.
While Szokol’s missed cut last week was a disappointment, her time spent at Pelican – a Donald Ross design that opened in 1925 – may have played a positive part in her strong 2021 showing. Szokol had her best finish (11th) of 2020 in the Pelican. It was a new event then and was played without spectators because of pandemic concerns. This year she is spending more time at the Pelican club because her swing coach, Justin Sheehan, is the director of golf there.
HERE AND THERE: Michael Feagles, a stalwart on the University of Illinois teams the last four years, is guaranteed 12 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022 thanks to his tie for fifth place finish in the final stage of the circuit’s qualifying competition. The Illinois Open champions of the last two years, Bryce Emory and Tee-K Kelly, aren’t guaranteed any starts but do have conditional status on the circuit for next season because they made it through all three stages of qualifying….The Illinois PGA had three of its members qualify for last week’s PGA Assistants Championship in Florida but only Kevin Flack, of Mauh-Nah-Tee-See in Rockford, qualified for all 72 holes. He tied for 42nd…..All the Chicago area gang – Kevin Streelman, Luke Donald, Doug Ghim, Nick Hardy and Dylan Wu – will play in the last full field PGA Tour event of the year, this week’s RSM Classic in Sea Island, Ga…..Bernhard Langer will have knee surgery in Germany this week and won’t hit aa golf ball for at least six weeks. The 64-year old star still plans to be a full-time player on the Champions Tour in 2022, however.
Nelly Korda has won bigger tournaments, but none as dramatic as this Pelican Championship.
BELLAIRE, FL. – With the biggest money tournament in the history of women’s golf coming up this week it’s easy to think of the two-year old Pelican Championship – the last event of the LPGA’s regular season – as anything more than a warmup event.
It was certainly no ho-hum affair on Sunday, however. It came down to a duel between American stars Nelly Korda and Lexi Thompson, Korda winning on the first hole of a four-player sudden death playoff after Thompson gave away two good chances to win and another to extend the playoff in the final three holes of the day.
Both American-born Florida residents, Korda (Bradenton) and Thompson (Delray Beach) will remain in the Sunshine State for the CME Group Tour Championship. It tees off on Thursday with $5 million in prize money and a $1.5 million winner’s check on the line.
The Pelican purse was only $1.75 million, but it presented Thompson with the chance for a win she badly needed.
Long one of golf’s top women players, Thompson is the youngest to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open (she was 12 when she did it). She turned pro at 15 and won her first major title at 19. Now 27, she has gone over two years without notching her 12th tour title.
Thompson and Korda started the final round in a tie for the lead and still shared the top spot through 70 holes when both were 20-under par and dominating the field. Then Korda took a triple bogey at the 17th, missing a two-foot putt to conclude her nightmare.
Though Thompson three-putted for bogey she still took a two-stroke lead to the final hole of regulation. That didn’t solve her problems, however. Thompson hit her approach over the green at 409-yard par-4 eighteenth – the hardest hole throughout the tournament. Korda hit hers to 20 feet and made the birdie putt.
Thompson, feeling the pressure, putted from off the green to four feet but her par putt to win didn’t touch the cup. That set the stage for the four-way playoff between Thompson, Korda and two faster finishers – New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and South Korea’s Sei-young Kim. All finished at 17-under-par 263. Ko and Kim, hitting their approaches over the green, were out when Korda made another birdie putt from the same spot she had connected from moments earlier.
“I lost face (after the triple bogey),’’ said Korda, “and I was trying to focus on next week, in a sense. I had the same putt twice is a row.’’
Both went in.
Thompson also putted from the same spot she had to win the tournament in the regulation 72 holes, but this one — for birdie to keep the playoff going – also wouldn’t drop.
“It was a great week. I played a lot of good golf and made a lot of good putts,’’ she said, “but it just wasn’t meant for me in the end.’’
Even with its record prize money the CME Group Tour Championship will be hard-pressed to match the drama that unfolded on Sunday.
Korda goes into the LPGA’s season finale with lots of momentum. The reigning Olympic champion and No. 1-ranked player in the Rolex Rankings won her fourth tournament of the season on Sunday, the first American to do that since Stacy Lewis did it in 2012.
The Pelican, meanwhile, wasn’t just unusual for its weird finish. The tourney offered two-year leases for new Lamborghinis to players who made a hole-in-one on the 12th hole. Austin Ernst did it in the tourney’s pro-am and Pavarisa Yoktuan in the second round on Friday. The third, by Su Oh, was especially noteworthy. She started her round at No. 12 and was the first player to tee off on the featured on during the final round. That’s when she holed a 7-iron from 157 yards.
Golf-wise it’s Florida where the action is for at least the next month.
