CLEARWATER, Fla. – Peter Jacobsen, seven-time PGA Tour winner turned broadcaster and general golf guy, co-created the World Champions Cup because he felt senior golf needed a team event in the form of the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. In at least one respect, the inaugural tournament, whose second play began Thursday morning here at Feather Sound Country Club, mimics its more popular cousins: top players from the U.S., Europe and the rest of the world playing for their flags in a format that breaks from the drumbeat of traditional stroke-play events. But in much more, this World Champions Cup has its own identity.
We’re kidding, but only kind of. The 18 players who competed in the opening three six-ball sessions on Thursday morning were welcomed into the first game by several hundred fans watching from a half-filled stand – but not to the cheers of the USA or be-be-be or from one foul-mouthed emcee . . . just with good old fashioned applause. Patriotic symbolism was also at a premium, in addition to Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” blaring from the speakers near the tee. There are no fans in the face paint. There are no Viking horns. No Stars-and-Stripes overalls. The pair of Team USA supporters, who had American flags draped over their shoulders, said they were a last-minute impulse buy, snapped while buying throat lozenges at CVS.
However, if the environment lacked electricity, it allowed fluidity. One moment, you might have a front row seat Colin Montgomery polishing balls on the range or Miguel Ángel Jiménez shooting a stogie; Next, you can stand in the wings while top finishers like Stewart Cink, Darren Clarke and Mike Weir take off their discs (and, in Clarke’s case, open) in the opener. Off course, even better tracks were available; whereas in a Ryder Cup, you have to elbow for space and get four or five holes ahead of a group for a good position, in the World Champions Cup, you can get so close to the tees and greens that you can hear the players’ jokes. (Yes, that was Jerry Kelly on the par-5 5th, beating his partner, Steve Flesch, for a rough bathroom date Flesch had on his walk to the tee.)
The format of the World Champions Cup is also a far cry from that of the Ryder or President’s Cups. For starters, there are three teams in the mix, which complicates the outcome; Traditional face-to-face play doesn’t work.
When Jacobsen conceived the event with his co-founder, Intrasport boss Charlie Besser, Jake said the two men “locked themselves in a room with stacks of paper” to devise a rating system. What they settled on was a stroke play format, which is contested in 24 groups of nine holes and includes both team and singles play.
On the first two days of the three-day event, players compete in sixballs (ie the best three-ball score in each group) and Scotch Sixsomes (which is a modified version of the alternate shot). In both of these formats, according to the official rules, “The team with the lowest score on a hole will receive two points. The team with the second lowest score on a hole will receive one point. The team with the highest score will receive no points. Whenever teams finish with the same score on a hole, those teams will receive the same number of points.” On Sunday, the event will conclude with six singles matches with notes following that of the team formats. In total, there are a total of 648 points up for grabs. In the inaugural event, in 2023, the USA won in a nail-biter, collecting a total of 221 points, which, surprisingly, was just two more than the international side’s win.
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“Two years ago, I had a group of players say, ‘I don’t understand the format,'” Jacbosen told me. “All I could tell them was, ‘Once you play the first hole, you’ll get it.’ And then everyone came in and said, ‘Oh, ok, yeah, I get it.'”
If six players and their boxes on a hole sounds like a crowd, it is, especially when they’re huddled together around a tee box or walking a green. Just keeping track of who has the honor can be a chore — unless you were Stewart Cink on Thursday morning. In his six-ball opening match, Cink found himself in the unenviable and “tiring” position of hitting the last shot in ANY hole. “We didn’t win any holes outright,” he told me after he and Jason Caron took 7 points in their match against Darren Clarke and Thomas Bjorn (Europe) and Steven Alker and Mike Weir (International). “So I hit the sixth for nine holes and three hours straight.”
That bit of humiliation aside, Cink said he likes six balls because with so many balls in play, “there’s always going to be some action on every hole, good or bad.”
Jerry Kelly, who won 6 points with Flesch on Thursday morning, seemed less suited to a format that requires the patience of a school teacher. Kelly, who has a reputation for playing fast, said he started dealing with anxiety. . . in the first tee. “After the fifth son,” he told me, “I quickly took it out of you.”
12 a crowd: a six-ball match in the World Champions Cup on Thursday.
Alan Bastable
Kelly said heavy traffic on the green was also a challenge. “It’s hard to step on everybody’s mark, and almost everybody stepped on one,” he said. “It really kind of piles on your mind, and you don’t focus on your game as much as you normally do because you’re always trying to get out of somebody’s way or you’re trying to figure out when it’s your turn to hit. It takes a little bit more out of your game.”
Steve Stricker, who with partner Justin Lenard scored just 5.5 in their morning session before returning to 9.5 in the afternoon, said the key to six-hole golf is giving yourself mental breaks when the game slows down – and that WILL slow down: the nine-hole morning sessions all lasted three-plus hours. “You have to walk away and go into another area for a minute and not pay attention,” Stricker told me.
As the afternoon tees made their way to the final hole, a par-4 with water short and right of the green and a tee box behind it, the crowds were bigger and livelier than they had been at the opening tee shots. Three women in star-studded hats stood near the green to look around a pair of camera operators and photographers, while up in the stands, where bartenders poured drinks, fans gathered a short-lived USA! they sing.
But, really, it was the blue-gold color that deserved the cheers. When Justin Leonard hit the final goal of the day, a 4-footer for the equalizer, Europe had opened up a 4.5-point lead over both of its opponents. Maybe this event isn’t so different from a Ryder Cup after all.
;)
