Steve Stricker's hot streak, Bernhard Langer's quest part of 2023 PGA Tour Champions stories
Officially, the PGA Tour Champions season began last month with the Mitsubishi Electric Championship in Hawaii, the same week as The American Express PGA Tour tournament was played in La Quinta.
The senior tour hasn’t played since the Hawaiian event, but that changes this week with five tournaments in the next seven weeks, concluding with the PGA Tour Champions return to the Coachella Valley after nearly three decades with the Galleri Classic on March 24-26.
With the 50-and-over tour heading into its first extended stretch of play for 2023, here’s a look at the storylines for the senior tour in the buildup to the Galleri Classic:
Steve Stricker
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After coming back from a mysterious illness that put him flat on his back for months after he led the U.S. team to victory in the 2021 Ryder Cup, Stricker won three tournaments on the 2022 PGA Tour Champions schedule. In Hawaii last month, he fired a second-round 12-under 60 on the way to a six-shot victory, completing 54 holes with just one bogey. The PGA Tour Champions has always thrived on players being dominant for a few years, and the 55-year-old Stricker might just be hitting his dominant stride.
Langer’s quest
With 44 career PGA Tour Champions victories, German star Bernhard Langer is just one shy of the tour’s all-time record for wins set by Hale Irwin. Langer, who played a relatively full schedule with 22 events in 2022, won two of those starts. He’s 65 now and certainly slowing down from his dominant days, but with just one more win he’s part of PGA Tour Champions history and with two victories he’ll have the record to himself. He could do that in the coming weeks.
Steve Alker
With four wins, four second-place finishes and five third-place finishes, it’s no wonder that this former journeyman on the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour was the PGA Tour Champions Charles Schwab Cup champion in 2022. There are two kinds of stories on the senior tour, either the great champions who are still playing into their 50s, or the guys who were never great champions who are getting their second chance at fame on the senior tour. Alker is one of the tour’s best examples of a guy who finds stardom after age 50, not before. One big emotional impact on Alker as he moves forward this year may be that his caddie, Sam Workman, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
An enhanced West Coast swing
The addition of the Galleri Classic at the end of March gives the senior players a solid month without too much travel. March 3-5 will be spent in Tucson at the Cologuard Classic. The tour then takes a week off before hitting Newport Beach for the popular Hoag Classic, with golfers then navigating the Southern California freeway system to come to Rancho Mirage for the $2.2 million Galleri Classic. Considering February has two tournament in two weeks, one in Morocco and one in Florida, March on the West Coast should be a welcome period for the 50-and-over crowd.
The majors
Yes, the PGA Tour Champions plays five majors, and for some people there is no such thing as a senior major, since they are on the senior tour anyway and the only majors that count are the ones on the regular tour. But three of the senior majors are conducted by the USGA, the R and A and the PGA of America, so that makes them important. Between the middle of May and the end of July, all five of the senior majors will be played in the span of eight tournaments. The most intriguing of those majors may be The Senior Open in Wales at Port Porthcawl and the U.S. Senior Open, to be played in Stevens Point, Wis., which just happens to be the home state of Steve Stricker.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: PGA Tour Champions: Steve Stricker's hot streak, Bernhard Langer's quest top storylines
