They are playing the Waste Management Phoenix Open this weekend, an event on the PGA Tour that has been in existence since 1932. The Phoenix Open is the ultimate party tournament and is most noted for the arena-like setting on the par-3 16th hole. Last year Sam Ryder made a hole-in-one on the 16th and the 18,000 fans erupted, throwing cups of beer onto the green. The Phoenix Open historically has 500,000 spectators going through the turnstiles.
The Phoenix Open is one of this year’s PGA Tour “designated” tournaments, meaning that the purse sits at $20 million and the winner’s share is $3.6 million, merely $900,000 more than a touring pro will receive this year for winning one of the game’s four majors. The tour has decided to add to the prize fund in a handful of designated events. Last year Scottie Scheffler pocketed $1.476 million from a total of $8.2 million at the 2022 Phoenix. Such is the advantage of being a designated event. This is the tour’s new push to offset the monies of LIV Golf.
The Phoenix Open has been run for more than 90 years by the Phoenix-area civic group The Thunderbirds. The original tournament director in those earliest days was Bob Goldwater Sr., the father of the famous Arizona U.S. Senator. Speaking of money, 90 years ago Harry Cooper won the Phoenix Open and earned $1,500 for his efforts. Thirty years later Arnold Palmer won the 1963 Phoenix Open and the first-place payout was $35,000. What a difference from today’s multi-million first-place checks. Cooper and Palmer are both World Golf Hall of Famers.
This past Thursday, 132 golfers teed it up at TPC Scottsdale. The field was made up of exempt golfers and five golfers who received sponsor’s exemptions, namely Ricky Barnes, Charley Hoffman, J.B Holmes, Taylor Montgomery and Davis Thompson. Michael Hopper also was in the field. He is the Arizona Section champion. This is the avenue taken by Windsor’s Jason Schmuhl, who has been the NorCal Section champion in the past and has gotten into Pebble Beach and Silverado.The fields this time of year are smaller than the summertime maximum of 156 golfers because of limited daylight in February. Some top-flight golfers among the top 125 exempt didn’t enter this week because of injury issues, namely Will Zalatoris and Adam Scott. To add to the merit-oriented play of the PGA Tour, that means that there were three spots available to golfers who chose to Monday qualify. Monday qualifiers have always been a staple of the PGA Tour and every now and then a Monday qualifier will make the cut or occasionally place high up on the leader board. It’s a dream come true for a journeyman or an unknown.
Because a lot of really good pros live in the Phoenix area and the tournament is a big-money event, the Monday Qualifier was blatantly over-subscribed. The Southwest Section of the PGA of America runs Monday Qualifying at Phoenix and, believe it or not, here is what they decided to do. Except for professionals who have status on the PGA Tour, the Korn Ferry Tour, the Canadian Tour, the LatinoAmerica Tour and the Champions Tour, all other contestants would have to advance through the route of pre-qualifying. Once deadlines were reached, it was determined that there would be eight pre-qualifiers. There would be 78 golfers at each site and the low two golfers and ties would advance to Monday Qualifying.
This sounds like the ultimate crap-shoot. With 78 golfers at eight sites, we’re talking about 624 golfers who are either pros or amateurs with a handicap of 2 or less. Pre-qualifiers were charged $250 to enter, so that means that PGA Tour coffers received $156,000 for the “privilege” of going to Monday Qualifying. A total of 26 golfers from the eight sites were added to the other 92 others who went directly to Monday Qualifying. Bill Ibraham of the Southwest PGA spoke of how tough pre-qualifying was. “There was a guy who shot a bogey-free 64 and didn’t get through. It was insane.” Berk Harvey of San Jose shot a 62 at Aguila Muni and did make it to Monday. Two amateurs made it into that group of 26 and one of them was Joe Neuheisel. I don’t know too much about Joe other than he is the reigning Arizona Amateur champ. His father is named Rick and used to coach at UCLA, Washington and Colorado.
Once Monday dawned, the 26 pre-qualifiers found themselves in a total field of 118 with just three spots available into the Phoenix Open. Joining those 26 were golfers such as Aaron Baddeley, Ben An, Sean O’Hair, Sam Saunders (Arnold Palmer’s grandson who finished in second place at last week’s Korn Ferry Tournament), Robert Garrigus, Bo Van Pelt, Harry Higgs, Kevin Chappell and senior golfers Billy Mayfair and Mac O’Grady. By now you’ve kind of figured out that there is nothing easy about Monday qualifying. On the average, those Monday Qualifier linksters had to pony up another $500 for the opportunity to get to TPC Scottsdale.
When the dust finally settled on Monday evening, Ben Silverman of Florida was in the field as medalist at McCormick Ranch Golf Club after shooting a 6-under-par 66. He normally plays on the Korn Ferry Tour although his most recent claim to fame is that he paired up with Aaron Rodgers this past weekend to win the pro-am portion of the AT&T Pebble Beach. He missed the cut as a pro at Pebble. Jeffrey Kang of Anaheim and Etienne Papineau of Quebec survived a six-golfers-for-two-spots playoff to get into Phoenix after carding rounds of 5-under-par 67. Kang is also a Korn Ferry regular while Papineau plays on the Canadian Tour.
After the 624 pre-qualifiers joined up with the other 92 Monday qualifiers, it meant a total of 716 golfers of note were trying to get one of three open spots at this week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open. That simply gets them a tee time on Thursday and Friday with the hope of advancing into the weekend among the low 65 and ties. They will find themselves in the same field with the likes of Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler, the ever-improving Kurt Kitayama of Chico’s Pleasant Valley High School, James Hahn of Alameda High School, and defending champion and past Masters’ winner Scottie Scheffler.
The PGA Tour is nice work if you can get it. The 125th golfer on the PGA Tour last year pocketed more than $1 million in earnings. Add to that endorsement contracts, golf club deals, courtesy cars and the like, and it seems to be a pretty good life. Yet on the other side of the spectrum are the 713 golfers of note who tried to get into the Phoenix Open and ended up slamming their trunks in frustration following pre-qualifying or Monday Qualifying. Now it’s off to qualifying at next week’s L.A. Open or returning to the mini-tours for a few more weeks.
