Champions Tour wins precede return to PGA
The Champions Tour, anxious for an injection of star power and personality, has embraced Fred Couples. And the feeling is mutual.
On Sunday, Couples became the first player in Champions Tour history to win three of his first four starts, shooting a final-round 62 to rally past Corey Pavin and capture the Cap Cana Championship in the Dominican Republic.
But Couples’ domination of the 50-and-over tour will go on hiatus. He will play in the PGA Tour’s Houston Open this week followed by the Masters.
With a win at Redstone, Couples would become the seventh player 50 or older to win on the PGA Tour. With a victory at Augusta, Couples would become the oldest major champion in history. The man who nearly accomplished that feat in July at the British Open, Tom Watson, likes Couples’ chances.
“Winning breeds winning. He’s winning and putting the eyes out of it,” Watson, 60, told the Golf Channel. “It doesn’t matter if you’re putting a 4-footer at the Masters or on the Champions Tour. They’re all the same.”
Couples is tied for second on the Champions Tour in putting (1.62 putts a hole) and ranks 22nd (1.73) on the PGA Tour, where he played two events in February, breaking par in six of eight rounds.
Courses on the Champions circuit bear little resemblance to their longer, tougher, faster counterparts on the PGA Tour. But Couples’ recent play suggests he’s ready for a bigger challenge.
“I had a great stretch of golf in 1992,” Couples said last week at Cap Cana, referring to a two-month span in which he won three tournaments, including the Masters. “But I must say that these four weeks on the Champions Tour, I’m not missing many shots.”
In his first 12 Champions Tour rounds, Couples is 77 under par. His worst 18 was a 4-under 68 at the ACE Group Classic. With another round in the 60s, Couples will match the Champions Tour record of 13 straight by Hale Irwin. If Couples plays enough Champions Tour events, the single-season record of nine titles that Irwin shares with Peter Thomson also is in jeopardy.
“The fact that he’s still playing well and doing well on both tours is pretty amazing,” Irwin said last week at Cap Cana. “Sometimes you get in that kind of a pattern. Sometimes it is short, and other times, like Freddie is in now, it goes for a longer period of time.”
Crossing tour lines and winning is not unprecedented. After capturing two of his first five Champions Tour events, Fred Funk won the PGA Tour’s Mayakoba Classic at age 50 years, 8 months. In 2003, a month after turning 50, Craig Stadler won the Senior Players. The next week he captured the PGA Tour’s B.C. Open.
The Houston Open has long been one of Couples’ favorite tour stops. He played college golf at the University of Houston, and his last PGA Tour victory came in Houston in 2003. Couples finished third in the event last year and fourth in 2008.
“I have confidence around here,” Couples said last year at Houston. “Going to school here, how can you beat that? If you’re shooting 80, they’re rooting for you. If you shoot 68, they’re rooting for you.”
