There seemed to be a certain finality to the year’s professional golf events what with Tiger’s event over the weekend and the PGA Tour Q-School which ended Monday. Not so. Here are three interesting offerings coming up this week.
LPGA Tour Q-School
The LPGA Tour Q-School starts today at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida with a field of 120 hopefuls playing on two courses, the Champions and the Legends.
It’s five rounds for a Tour card, everyone playing in the first four with a cut to the low-70 players for the final round.
The players are mostly unknown hopefuls, but there are a handful of current Tour members trying to solidify their standing and former participants on the Golf Channel’s The Big Break.
As a result, there’s no television, but you can see the field, tee times and scores here.
Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge
This tournament has been around for nineteen years and is the brainchild of the late Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s. It benefits adoption, a cause that was near and dear to Dave because he was adopted.
It was clearly conceived as a made-for-TV event and pairs 9 top players from the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and Champions Tour against each other for Tour bragging rights. The players are paired in three groups with a player from each tour in each group and playing appropriate tees. And they’re miked so that you can hear the repartee during the course of the round. Here are the players from each tour:
PGA Tour: Dustin Johnson, Boo Weekley, Bubba Watson
LPGA Tour: Natalie Gulbis, Christie Kerr, Suzann Pettersen
Champions Tour: Bernhard Langer, Kenny Perry, Nick Price
The tournament is played at Rio Secco in Henderson, Nevada. The rebroadcast is on the Golf Channel, Thursday, 8:00-11:00 PM (Eastern). It’s a fun event that mixes a let-your-hair-down feel with the natural competitiveness of Tour players.
The Shark Shootout
This is Greg Norman’s baby of 22 years. It pairs 24 PGA Tour, European Tour and Champions Tour players in two-man teams playing alternate shot, better ball and scramble formats. With the ascendency of the European Tour this year, Norman has managed to attract Graeme McDowell, the Tiger killer, together with Ian Poulter and Darren Clarke. He’s also corralled the PGA Tour’s young Turks: Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson. You’ll like the other guys too.
It’s played at Tiburon Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, in Naples, Florida. It’s fun to watch because of the chemistry of the pairings and the fact that the format encourages ridiculously low scores. Have fun.
Friday, the Golf Channel, 3:00-6:00 PM (Eastern)
Saturday, NBC, 4:00-6:00 PM
Sunday, NBC, 3:00-6:00 PM
Dave Thomas,
I do remember him. Great business man, and did give back. I also remember his great ad with the old lady. Where’s the beef ? Andy