Steve Stricker: Why the PGA TOUR Champions is his best bet

Steve Stricker has proven time and again that he’s still capable of playing at a high level in his fifties. While he can be successful on the PGA TOUR, he could be on a completely different level on the PGA TOUR Champions.

Steve Stricker has already had two careers in golf.

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1990, it took him four seasons and a lot of travel to get his PGA Tour card. During that journey, he won in Canada, including the 1994 Canadian PGA, which dates to 1912, four years before our PGA was formed. Later in 1994, he finally got his PGA Tour card.

Stricker had a nice early career, winning the Kemper Open and the Motorola Western Open (now the BMW) in 1996 and the WGC Match Play that was held in Australia in 2001. Then came a slump which resulted in the loss of his PGA Tour card in 2004.

Stricker had to write sponsors and ask for exemptions to tournaments the next season. Making matters worse, he was already 38. That’s often the age golfers lose their ability to continue the battle to stay a professional golfer. Some never recover after entering slump territory. But Stricker was no typical golfer.

His solution was spending winter hitting golf balls from a trailer in Wisconsin. If you’ve ever been to that part of the country at that time of year, you know how cold and unforgiving it can be. It’s certainly not golf weather.

After three tough seasons, he clawed his way back to the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour at the Barclays in 2007. He was 40. That’s when Steve Stricker found his second wind.

He pulled together eight more victories tournaments between 2009 and 2012. By then he was 45, a time when many golfers play a little Korn Ferry Tour golf, when they start missing cuts, when their putting goes. That didn’t happen to Stricker.

Instead, Stricker found himself playing in team events, like the Presidents Cup. He was on five winning teams and well-respected enough to be named captain for the 2017 event. He was on three Ryder Cup teams and recently was named captain for 2020.

For a guy who had once been on the ropes professionally, he was aging up gracefully.

Early in 2017, Stricker turned 50 and became PGA Tour Champions eligible. That season, he played 13 events on the PGA Tour where his best finish was 5th, and he dabbled with the PGA Tour Champions circuit, playing six times, with his worst finish being 13th. He won $1,002,036 on the PGA Tour and $569,250 on the PGA Tour Champions circuit.

In 2018, he played 12 times on the PGA Tour with his best finish a 12th at Valspar. On the PGA Tour Champions, he played just seven tournaments. Amazingly, in that effort, he won three times, had two seconds and a third, and his worst finish was 5th. He won $582,566 on the PGA Tour and $1,196,235 as a PGA Tour Champions golfer.

Now, in 2019, Stricker has played seven PGA Tour tournaments to date. He’s missed three cuts. His best finish was 22nd at The Memorial. On the PGA Tour Champions, though he’s only played eight events, he’s won twice, both of them majors on the senior circuit. His worst finish so far was 41st at the KitchenAid Senior PGA.

To date in 2019, Stricker has collected $135,670 on the PGA Tour, and his FedEx ranking is too low to get him into the Playoffs. However, as a PGA Tour Champions player, he’s won $1,422,327.

From a monetary standpoint, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for Stricker to want to stay on the PGA Tour, other than to play against and with some younger friends. If it’s about winning, he’s already proven that he’s a more prolific winner playing PGA Tour Champions events.

While the sponsorship opportunities are rumored to be significantly less for PGA Tour Champions golfers, Stricker just signed a putter deal with Odyssey but only for the tournaments he plays on PGA Tour Champions. So perhaps he is among the wave of older golfers who will get the good sponsorship deals after going, as the players say, “to the dark side.”

So, where should Steve Stricker play? There’s no contest.

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He’s won more money and gotten an exemption to the 2020 U.S. Open by playing the over-50 tour this year. He has a new sponsorship because of his victory in the 2019 U.S. Senior Open.

While he may want to check on Ryder Cup team hopefuls from time-to-time, it just doesn’t make sense to waste the best years of his PGA Tour Champions career by spending them on the PGA Tour. He should follow the Hale Irwin example and make golf hay while the sun is shining on him.

Historically, most money is made by players between 50 and 55 on PGA Tour Champions. He’s half-way through that time frame. With his propensity for reinventing himself, 55 may be just the start for him. However, he might want to listen to the advice Jack Nicklaus gave to Scott McCarron.

As reported by Morning Read, Nicklaus said to McCarron, “I just want to let you know, I wish I would’ve played more on the PGA Tour Champions. I had so much fun; I loved it. Don’t make the same mistake I did. I wish I would’ve played more.”

Talk about listening to the legend. McCarron is currently leading the PGA Tour Champions in money.

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Now, it would be a tall order for Steve Stricker to pull a Gil Morgan or a Hale Irwin on the over-50 circuit, especially since two-and-a-half seasons are gone. But with two PGA Tour Champions’ majors in the trophy case, he could certainly win the senior career grand slam. And that would be very special indeed.

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