Stricker, Kelly take different approaches
Steve Stricker has dipped his toe in the water on the PGA Tour Champions and found it to be lukewarm. If it wasn’t for the American Family Insurance Championship, the event he hosts starting Friday at University Ridge Golf Course in Madison, he probably wouldn’t be playing much senior golf.
Jerry Kelly, on the other hand, has taken the plunge.
The friends and team event partners, who live just a few miles apart in Madison, have taken different approaches to golf after 50 (both are 51), with Stricker conflicted about which tour he should play and Kelly content to pick on golfers his own age.
“I asked my wife (Carol) if I should use my top-50 exemption and maybe play seven to 10 events on the PGA Tour, because my game is good enough that I can still compete,” Kelly said of the onetime exemption for being among the top 50 career money leaders. “She said, ‘What?’
“She’s traveling with me again and she loves it that we don’t have to battle the things you have to battle on the PGA Tour. I don’t have anything to prove.”
A career grinder on the PGA Tour, where he fought his way to nearly $29 million in earnings and won three times in 617 starts, Kelly has late-bloomed his way to stardom on the Champions tour.
He leads the tour in scoring average (68.93) and top-10 finishes (7), won the Mitsubishi Electric Championship early in the year and is third on the money list with $890,763. In 31 starts since he turned 50, he has 17 top-10 finishes and three victories. He’s one of only 14 players to have won on the Web.com, PGA and Champions tours.
“I want to get back to No. 1 on the season points list,” said Kelly, who occupied the top spot on the Charles Schwab Cup list for four weeks after winning in Hawaii. “It’s the first time I’ve ever gotten to No. 1 on any of those lists.”
Kelly has played through several injuries over the years and said he’s thankful he no longer has to spend eight hours a day at the course, working on his game in order to remain competitive with players half his age.
Except for the majors, Champions tour events are three rounds, with no 36-hole cut. The players are still highly competitive but for the most part they’ve made their mark on the game and treat the PGA Tour Champions as a bonus.
The money and endorsement opportunities aren’t as good as they are on the PGA Tour, but the vibe is decidedly more laid back.
“Guys are much more relaxed off the course,” Kelly said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Stricker hasn’t quite gotten to that place yet. He just finished battling Shinnecock Hills, tying for 20th at the U.S. Open. Incredibly, he sailed through his 40s without missing the cut at the U.S. Open and owns the tour’s longest streak of consecutive cuts made in the major championships (27).
Still, it’s not easy for a 51-year-old man to hang with the Brooks Koepkas and Dustin Johnsons of the world. Stricker does not have a top-10 finish in nine starts on the PGA Tour this year and is 134th on the money list. His goal, he said, was to finish among the top 125 and remain fully exempt for 2019, which would get him into The Players Championship.
When Stricker has teed it up on the Champions tour, he’s been dominant. In five starts this year he has won twice and finished second twice. He is fourth on the money list with $806,235 and would lead Kelly by more than one full stroke in scoring average (67.92) if he’d played enough rounds to qualify.
The Charles Schwab Cup champion gets a $1 million bonus, not to mention player of the year consideration, but it’s not a priority for Stricker.
He said he probably would withdraw from the U.S. Senior Open next week, take a couple weeks off and next play July 12-15 in the John Deere Classic, a PGA Tour event he has won three times.
Don’t mistake Stricker’s ambivalence about the Champions tour for a lackadaisical approach. He has eight topthree finishes in 11 career Champions tour starts and will be among the favorites to win the American Family Insurance Championship. He tied for third in his debut last year, three shots behind winner Fred Couples.
“Steve is playing world-class golf,” Kelly said. “He’s the man to beat whenever he’s in the field.”
One of the men Stricker will have to beat, though, is Kelly.