Stricker seeking Michiana “sweep” when Senior PGA stops at Harbor Shores

Only one golfer has a chance to pull off the Michiana Senior Sweep when the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship makes what could be its last visit to Harbor Shores, Jack Nicklaus’ masterpiece on the shores of Lake Michigan. That would be 57-year-old Steve Stricker, the magic man from Madison, Wis., who in late June of 2019 about 50 miles down the road at Notre Dame’s Warren Golf Course won the U.S. Senior Open with a record score of 19-under 261.

Among the spectators under the Golden Dome was golf’s all-time major winner Nicklaus, who in 2010 opened the par-71, 6,852-yard Club of Harbor Shores where Thursday the Senior PGA will be contested for the sixth and likely final time. The course, which first hosted the Senior PGA in 2012, meanders its way through lowlands, dunelands, highlands and meadowlands by the bisecting Paw Paw River on grounds once ruled by the sponsoring Whirlpool Corporation. Back in February, however, Whirlpool and KitchenAid announced plans to part ways with the Senior PGA.

Stricker, who captained the victorious 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup team at Whistling Straits in northern Wisconsin, took this past week off from the PGA Championship at Valhalla in order to be ready to defend the title he won in Frisco, Texas, in a one-hole playoff with Ireland’s Padraig Harrington, his European team counterpart, after both golfers were tied after four trips around the Fields Ranch East course with 18-under 270 totals.

Last Sunday at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Hoover, Ala., Stricker finished tied for third with Stewart Cink and Ernie Els three strokes behind champion Doug Barron’s 17-under-par runaway effort which win the Regions Tradition by two strokes over New Zealand’s Steven Alker, whose name was scratched from the final entry list released Friday by the PGA. It was Alker who won the 2022 Senior PGA championship at Harbor Shores after Stricker pulled out just prior because of COVID-19 precautions.

Stricker actually decided before his final round of three-under 69 at Greystone that he would skip a trip to Valhalla no matter how he finished on the leaderboard.

“I’m tired. I’m old,” Stricker said prior to his announcement. “You know, I know where my place is. I’m going to assess where I’m at.” Then on Sunday, he made it official, claiming fatigue. “I just can’t play four (times) out of five weeks,” added Stricker, who is the playing host for the second Champions Tour event following the Senior PGA, the 54-hole American Family Insurance Classic at University Ridge in Madison.

Stricker, who has seven senior major titles among his 17 PGA Champions Tour titles, was seeking his third straight Regions Tradition crown when the 54-year-old Barron overcame him with a final-round 68.

“I really thought he would do what he does at this tournament every year,” said Barron, who also had to ignore the final-round 63 shot by the 52-year-old Alker.

Alker’s late withdrawal means the Champions Tour’s leading money winner with just under $1.2 million will not be in the 156-player field. Ironically it was a final-round 63 by Alker that the New Zealand native used two years ago on the final day at Harbor Shores to zoom past Canada’s Stephen Ames by three strokes and Germany’s Bernhard Langer by six to win his first and only senior major.

The 66-year-old Langer, whose two Masters hang nicely next to his 46 Champions Tour victories which include 12 senior titles, will be playing for the third time since he had surgery to repair the torn Achilles tendon in his left ankle. He suffered the injury while playing pickleball at the end of January following his T22 finish at Hualalai. The determined Langer returned on May 5 to play 36 holes (69-74) in the rain-delayed Insperity Invitational at The Woodlands, Texas, that had its final round cancelled. Langer finished T31 behind champion Scott Dunlap.

“I still think I have a lot of good golf in me,” noted Langer, who tied for eighth at the Regions Tradition, shooting 69 on the final day though limping noticeably.

The 60-year-old Ames, a native of Trinidad and Tobago and a Canadian citizen from Vancouver, comes in second on the money list with $956,120 in nine events and won earlier this year at the Chubb Classic (Feb. 5) and the Mitsubishi Electric Classic (April 28). Ames is one spot on the money list ahead of the 58-year-old Broadhurst, an Englishman who won here in 2018 with a 19-under 265 that matched the 2016 winning effort of Rocco Mediate. Broadhurst won at the Invited Celebrity Classic, has four other Top 10 finishes and earned $813,446.

Others who could make their way to the leaderboard this week include South Koreans Y.E. Yang (seventh in earnings) and K.J. Choi (ninth)i; South Africa major winners Els (21st) and Retief Goosen (10th); Stricker’s Madison, Wis., good buddy Jerry Kelly (11th); past KitchenAid winner Alex Cejka (13th) of Germany via Czechoslovakia; Dublin’s Harrington (15th), who won March 24 at the Hoag Classic Newport Beach; Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez (17th); and Cink (24th), a 51-year-old American who finished T3 at the Regions Tradition while playing a mixture of regular and senior tour events.