Golf

    Aside from Scottie Scheffler, who is currently on the sidelines awaiting the January events in Hawaii, repeating in back-to-back tournaments on the PGA Tour is a rarity. Last year, Ludvig Aberg won the RSM Classic at St. Simon's Island; after three rounds over the two Sea Island courses this week, he's posted rounds of 73-64-71-208, 4 under par, and he's tied for 42nd heading into today's finale over the Seaside Course.

    Vince Whaley (67-68-63-198) and Maverick McNealy are deadlocked for the 54-hole lead at 14 under par, two strokes ahead of rejuvenated Seminole Daniel Berger (71-66-63-200), who is tied for third.

    Gator Tyson Alexander's card reads 70-71-71-212, even par, and he's tied for 65th; Camilo Villegas missed the cut with 75-71. The cut came at 1 under, and 67 made it.

    At last week's Butterfield Bermuda Championship, Tyson shot 73-65-68-73-279, 5 under, tying for 47th and grabbing a check for $17,584, same payday as Villegas, who shot 72-68-66-73. Berger's 73-67-70-73-283, 1 under, was good for a check for $15,111.

    The week before, at the World Wide Technology Championship in Cabo San Lucas, Tyson tied for 45th and collected $19,864, Berger tied for 20th and earned $84,960, and Villegas missed the cut. So Camilo is struggling, but as a recent tournament winner, he's safe for now, while Tyson and Berger are slowly padding their bank accounts.     

  Gators Tyson Alexander and Camilo Villegas and Seminole Daniel Berger contested the Black Desert Championship that concluded yesterday in Ivins, Utah, and all three will try again this week at the Shriners Children's Open in Las Vegas. 

    Matt McCarty won Sunday with 72 holes in 23 under par after opening with a 62, and took home a cool $1,350,000. Stephan Jaeger, who took the 36-hole lead with 65-63, held on for second at 20 under, worth $817,500. 

    Daniel Berger shot 72-65-65-70-272, 12 under, and tied for 35th, earning $37,350. Tyson shot 70-67-69-70-276, 8 under, and earned $17,400. Villegas missed the cut of 5 under with 69-74,  1 over.

    Two of the elderly turned up in Utah, 65-year-old Jay Don Blake, in his 500th PGA Tour event, and Mike Weir. Both missed the cut.

    Thee Shriners is played at the par-71 TPC Summerlin, at 7,255 yards. The purse is $7 million.    

    The PGA Tour kicks off its new campaign tomorrow in Jackson, Mississippi with the Sanderson Farms Championship, as a long list of bubble players seek to enhance their positions before Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and the rest of the Tour bigwigs end their vacations while awaiting their 2025 beginnings in Hawaii.

    The Sanderson has a healthy purse of $7.6 million, so the winner and those right behind him get off to a quick start in their bid to enhance their new standing on the FedEx Cup list. Luke List won it last year and cashed a check for $1,476,000, 

    There are two Gators in the field, including Tyson Alexander, who, in 2024, was unable to repeat the solid $1 million performance he turned in the previous season that enabled him to get his first shot at the Tour. The son of former long-time Gator coach Buddy Alexander may have a hard time finding places to play, so the early events are going to be very important to him. The other Gator is veteran Camilo Villegas, whose status is solid as a recent winner. 

    Seminole Daniel Berger, whose play fell off somewhat this past season, is also aboard for the tournament being played at the par-72, 7,461-yard Country Club of Jackson. 

    "The Scottie Scheffler Charity Golf Championship," more commonly known as the Tour Championship, winds up today at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, and unless Scottie slips into the lake, the PGA Tour will hand him a gift of $25 million.

    Not that Scottie needs a handout, he's already earned $29 million in the season that is about to end, which has lifted his career total to nearly $72 million. So the $25 million gift, added to his career bank account, will put him at $97 million or so, and as long as LIV continues to buck the tour, he's a cinch to pass Tiger's record of $120 million in the near future. It ain't right.

    When the gurus of golf in the PGA office decided to make a handicap event of the Tour Championship (and give Scottie 10 birdies extra before the event even began Thursday), it greatly lessened the interest of golf's millions of fans for the tour's finale. 

    Scottie birdied four of the last five holes Saturday and is 16 under par going into today's 18. Add the 10-stroke gift from the tour and he's 26 under. Collin Morikawa is 21 under and realistically the only one with a shot to upset the leader. Sahith Theegala is next at 17 under and he'll be trying to catch Morikawa in search of the $12.5 million second prize. But he'll also be trying to hold off Xander Schauffele for third; Xander's 16 under and $7.5 million isn't a bad payday. 

    Gator Billy Horschel is 28th in the final field of 30 at 1 under, but he's not starving, either. Billy's earned $5 million this season, and $40.2 million since he left Gainesville. 

    What should have been a great finish to the PGA season has turned into a ho-hum, and I'll tune in once in a while between innings of the Yankees game. Unless Morikawa makes a couple of early eagles.  

    It was 15 years ago that Ocala's Ted Potter (pictured on this page) was partnered with Keegan Bradley for the final round of the Ocala Open at Candler Hills. Both were at 7-under 209. Neither won it, that honor went to Danny Ellis of Orlando.

    Here we are, 15 years later, and the same Bradley is atop the leaderboard in the BMW Championship, second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs.

    Bradley shot 6-under-66 in the opening round Thursday at the par-72 Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado, playing at 8,130 yards. He has a one-stroke lead over Hideki Matsuyama, and two strokes over Sungjae Im, Alex Noren, Adam Scott and Corey Connors.

    The field has been cut to the top 50 after Matsuyama's victory at 17 under last week in the FedEx Championship in Memphis, good for a payday of $3.6 million. He's the third-ranked player beginning the BMW.  

    All athletes yearn for an Olympic medal for display somewhere around the house, and that includes the world's best golfers. All the big guns are shooting for one.

    At the halfway point of the Men's Olympic Golf Competition over the par-71, 7,174-yard Le Golf National course in Paris, there's a three-way tie at 11 under among Tommy Fleetwood (67-64-131), Xander Schauffele (65-66-131) and first-round leader Hideki Matsuyama (63-68-131), with Jon Rahm two strokes behind (67-66-133). Thomas Detry (71-63-134) is next at 8 under.

    Matsuyama's 63 was best of the day Thursday, and Detry had the honor on Friday.

    But with the birdies flying, some of the others who aren't too far off could make a strong run and help make for an exciting finish, which seems inevitable with 36 holes to play. They include Scottie Scheffler (67-69-136), Rory McIlroy (68-69-137) and Jason Day (69-68-137).

    Gator Camilo Villegas shot 76-74-150 and is tied for 60th. 

    The Open begins tonight at Royal Troon in Scotland, home of the renowned par 3 called Postage Stamp. Ocala's Louis Oosthuizen will be right at home on the famed hole, he's been playing its replica for the past few years at his home course, Golden Ocala.

    Oostie is coming off a tie for third with Patrick Reed in the Andalucia Open, where both wound up at three under par, two strokes behind playoff winner Sergio Garcia and Anirban Lahiri. Oostie shot 70-71-69-210 on the par-71 course, and collected a cool $900,000.

    There is one Gator in the field playing for the major share ($3.1 million) of the $17 million purse - Billy Horschel - and one Seminole, Brooks Koepka, who tied for 27th at six over par in the Andalucia and earned $167,500. There's also a fella named Tiger, taking another shot at history if his tortured body allows him to get through 72 holes, and Scottie Scheffler, the world's No. 1 who will be looking for his 7th victory of this season if he can keep driving (his car) in the proper lane. 

    The Open airs beginning at 4 a. m. on the USA network.  

    There's a satellite event in the U. S. for those who didn't qualify for The Open, the $4 million Barracuda Championship at the Tahoe Mountain Club in Truckee, California. Gators Tyson Alexander and Camilo Villegas are aboard, as is Seminole Daniel Berger.  

    With such as Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau and a few others opting out of heading to Detroit for the Rocket Mortgage Classic, the $9.2 million event appeared to be a wide-open affair, and the 36-hole standings bear this out.

    Akshay Bhattia (64-67-131) is 13 under par, as is Aaron Rai. Gators Tyson Alexander (73-71) and Camilo Villegas (70-72) missed the cut, which came at 34 under par, as did Seminole Daniel Berger (70-72).

    Three Cams are playing, and two made the cut. Cam Young is 11 under, tied for third with Troy Merritt, Cam Davis is right behind at 10 under, and Can Champ missed the cut (73-71). 

From the Marion County Golf Association website 

    During the last three days, over three different golf courses, Matt Giovannelli played brilliantly to capture his second Marion Masters championship trophy, but it didn’t come easy.

    Giovannelli grabbed the tournament lead after day one with a 5-under-par 67. Round two saw “Gio” shoot a 1-under-par 71 but he found himself just one shot clear of last year’s champion, Martin Musgrave, heading into the final round at the Ocala Golf Club.

    The lead during the last round see-sawed back and forth with Musgrave grabbing it midway through the front nine. A birdie-birdie-birdie finish on the front side by Giovannelli and the lead was up to two shots heading to the back nine. Both golfers played well on the inward nine despite the sudden downpour that popped up. Unfortunately, Musgrave’s 35 was no match for the 33 that Giovannelli put up to claim the crown. Giovannelli finished with a three-day total of 12-under-par 204 (67-71-66) and Musgrave totaled an 8-under-par 208 score on rounds of 68-71-68.

    Finishing in third place was another former MM Champion, Justin Grant. Grant fired rounds of 68-75-68 for a 5-under-par 211 total. Finishing in a tie for fourth place at 3-under-par 213 were Tommy Lowe and Ryan Letterly. Lowe shot rounds of 70-73-70. Letterly shot the low round of the tournament on the final day, a 65, to go with his 73 and 75. In sixth place was three-time former champion Daniel Owen who was also under par for the tournament with a 215 total (70-784-71).

    For all the scores see TOURNAMENT INFO/Results/FINAL SCORES – MARION MASTERS

    CHIP SHOTS – Finishing in a tie for 20th place was Tiana Eldem. The Lake Diamond resident plays golf for the Central Arkansas University golf team and is the fourth female to qualify to play in the championship.

    Everybody has a way of handling dire situations, from 1 to 100 on a scale of 1 to 100. The Scottie Scheffler fiasco has elicited responses from the entire golfing world in every one of the 100 categories.

    My personal way to handle the absurd arrest of the world's No. 1 golfer would be simple. He isn't a murderer, a kidnapper, an embezzler, a rapist, a burglar, a terrorist, an escaped convict, a voyeur . . . you get the picture. He returned from the Kentucky police station, didn't utter a single Donald Trump-like word, made the cut at the PGA Championship, finished 72 holes, and now has to report to the bluegrass again on June 3 to be arraigned. When it's over, if Scottie has a felony on his record, the PGA Tour should immediately announce it will never return to Kentucky for any event, ever.   

    The guy is a saint. The scene at Valhalla after the disastrous accident that killed eight people and hospitalized so many others was utter chaos. Anything was a possibility. And one pig-headed cop has to flex his muscles and make the situation worse. Kentucky horsemen already think they're the cream of the crop, even though so many of their horses leave home and wind up in Ocala to be prepared for the races. 

    Kudos to Scottie for his excellent play at Valhalla after his ordeal, and for continuing it for a second-place check of $809,000 in the Charles Schwab Challenge that ended yesterday in Fort Worth. And without his beard, no less.

    Davis Riley, who had never won a PGA tournament, except for one team event, was a runaway winner at the Colonial CC of Ben Hogan, despite a Sunday even-par 70, and profited to the tune of $1,638,000. Scottie tied for second with Keegan Bradley, five strokes behind, and each left town with $809,000 paydays, which a Louisville cop probably needs 15 years to earn. 

    The only Gator to make the Colonial cut (+2) was Billy Horschel, who wound up 1 under par, tied for 24th, and collected $70,866. Camilo Villegas bowed out with a pair of 72s (4 over) and Tyson Alexander did likewise with 71-73. Seminole Daniel Berger, who won the event in 2020, tied for 45th at plus 2 and banked $27,100. 

    Gators were much more successful at the $3.5 million Kitchen Aid Senior PGA Championship won by Richard Bland (17 under, $630,000). Chris DiMarco finished tied for sixth at 11 under, closing with a 69; Brian Gay tied for 11th at 8 under; Scott Dunlap tied for 21st at 4 under. Mark Calcavecchia withdrew without posting a score.

    Tom Lehman, architect of the Trilogy course on highway 27, missed the cut, and Marco Dawson, one-time touring pro for the defunct Adena Springs course, tied for 32nd at 1 under.