While I usually spend my autumn watching football on the weekends, I did have the remote control working full time whenever there was a commercial break so that I could check out the action on the PGA Tour’s Las Vegas stop and the last individual tournament of the year on the LIV Tour coming to you from far away Saudi Arabia. If nothing else, we got to see a lot of colorfully designed hole alongside the sandy desert.
The Shriners Children’s Open is a staple of the PGA Tour’s Fall Finish portion of the schedule, having initially been contested 40 years ago when Fuzzy Zoeller won by four strokes and pocketed the first place check of $135,000. Back then it was called the Panasonic Las Vegas Pro-Celebrity Classic, was contested at four different courses over five rounds of play, and would remain that way through 2003. Stuart Appleby had to play more than 90 holes while defeating Scott McCarron in overtime that year. Appleby received a check for $720,000. Beginning in 2008 the Las Vegas tourney became known as the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. Timberlake took his name off the marquee after 2012 and the tournament name has simply featured Shriners Children’s Open. By the way, the Shriners isn’t necessarily one of the bigger purse events on the tour, and yet its total purse is $8.4 million and the winner’s share is $1.512 million.
For the second year in a row, Korean Tom Kim won in Las Vegas. He catapulted to the top of the leader board with weekend scores of 62 and 66 to get to 20-under par and win by two strokes over Adam Hadwin. The 21 years old had a breakout moment at last year’s Presidents Cup, and has now won for the third time on the PGA Tour. The only other golfers in the 100-plus year history of American professional golf to win three times at a younger age were Gene Sarazen, Horton Smith, and Tiger Woods, all World Golf Hall of Fame members. Pretty heady stuff for a kid who celebrated his win, but chose not to do so on the Las Vegas Strip.
Right now we’re in a one year head scratching mode on the PGA Tour because the golf that is being played now still counts for the 2022-23 season. Yes, Viktor Hovland did win the Fed Ex Cup playoffs as the season concluded last August. However they are still teeing it up on the PGA Tour. If you do look at the entire schedule they did play the Shriners twice, just like they played at the Silverado Resort in Napa twice, and will play in Sea Island, Georgia next month for the second time as well. The real impetus for playing in the fall series is to continue to accumulate enough Fed Ex Cup points to remain among the 125 exempt golfers for 2024 or to have some sort of lightning is a bottle moment to go from the outside the top 125 to the inside of the 125. European Ryder Cup rookie Ludwig Aberg was floundering in 42nd place when he teed it up Sunday in Las Vegas. He shot a career round of 10-under par 62 to move up the leader board and into the top 10. As of now he is ranked 95th in the Fed Ex Cup standings and will pretty much secure a PGA Tour card to go with his fully exempt status on the DP World (European) Tour. Yes, it was a pretty good weekend for a couple of talented 21 year olds.
Meanwhile the LIV Tour was finalizing its 2023 campaign with the playing of its tour championship in Saudi Arabia. Brooks Koepka ended up beating Talor Gooch in a sudden death playoff and made off with $4 million. Gooch did receive somewhat of a consolation prize by finishing atop the season-long standings on the LIV Tour which was good enough for an $18 million bonus, similar to the amount Hovland got from the Fed Ex Cup folks. He won three of the 14 tournaments and sounded like he had just won the Masters when he said ,”Words can’t describe how much it means and just how satisfying it is.” Gooch contended that he is one of the best golfers in the world. He’s definitely one of the wealthiest based on this year alone.
While the 48 regulars on the LIV Tour signed guaranteed contracts to play on the upstart circuit, it seems as if the conclusion of their season does result in some golfers falling outside exempt status. The top 24 are automatically exempt into 2024 and remain on their same four man team. LIV Golf also has a team component. You can end up on a new team if you are someone in the “open zone” between number 25 and 44. After that you’re off the tour and the only way back is to prevail in the LIV Tour’s version of Q School. Chase Koepka, the brother of Brooks, is one of those golfers outside the top 44 as is Jediah Morgan. However if you’re a team captain then you still get to stay on tour, hence the return of Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer, both of whom were north of number 44.
Alan Shipnuck grew up in Monterey County and had a best-selling book earlier this year entitled “Phil,” a no-holds barred biography of Phil Mickelson that exposed the world famous golfer’s penchant for wild gambling. He also writes for the NCGA Magazine. Earlier this week Shipnuck released his latest golf book that goes by the title of “LIV and Let Die: The Inside Story of the War Between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.” I just got my copy and I’m looking forward to reviewing it on these pages in the coming weeks.
The DP World Tour plays a tradition calendar schedule and finds itself hosting the Andalucia Masters in Spain this week. After that it’s off to Qatar, Sun City in South Africa, and finally Dubai in mid-November for its DP World Tour Championship. Right now it looks like a two way battle between Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy and Spain’s Jon Rahm for golfer of the year honors. The DP World goes to a lot of unique places and is truly a world tour.
The LPGA Tour is also in the home stretch of its 2023 season. Like it European counterpart, the LPGA is also a true world tour. This week the top female golfers are at the BMW Championship in South Korea and then they go to Kuala Lampur in Malaysia next week. November rolls around and the LPGA Tour is in Japan and then heads to Florida. The CME Group Tour Championship concludes the tournament year and is their version of the LPGA Tour’s championship. It too is held in Florida at the Tiburon Golf Club in Naples.
Yes, we’re in the heart of the football season and the NBA tips off this coming Tuesday with the World Series on the horizon. Meanwhile some golfers are just trying to stay eligible for another season to play amongst the best. Others are in a quest for season-long honors that will forever etch them in the game’s record books. Yes, there is still some serious golf to be played.
