John Daly opting for Champions major over PGA Championship
John Daly plans to tee it up in a major next week, just not at the PGA Championship .
The biggest quirk of the 2025 schedule is that the Regions Tradition in Birmingham, Alabama — the first of five majors on the PGA Tour Champions — is the same week as the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.
'I can go there and miss the cut and get $6,000,' Daly said of the PGA Championship, which last year paid $4,000 to players who missed the cut. 'But I'm playing Birmingham. I love Regions. They're a great sponsor. But why are they scheduling Regions the same week as the PGA Championship, where I can see Brooks (Koepka) and all the guys?'
May typically is crowded for golf and the Regions Traditions didn't want to take this week because it's tough getting support on Mother's Day. The week after the PGA Championship is the Senior PGA Championship at Congressional.
Going earlier was tough with NASCAR at Talladega on April 27.
Daly also is not in top form after surgery on his left hand in January. He said his biggest issue remains getting through the ball on three-quarter shots — that and his putting. He finished at 27 over par last week at the Insperity Invitational, a tournament he won in 2017 and was runner-up in 2020.
But he's not ready to pack it in from playing on the PGA Tour Champions, even with 16 surgeries and bladder cancer.
'I'm like Lazarus — I keep coming back from the dead,' he said. 'Waking up is a win for me.'
Daly isn't the only former PGA champion missing next week.
Rich Beem, who took down Tiger Woods at Hazeltine in 2002, chose not to play this year after a rough go at Valhalla last year. Beem now works for Sky Sports at the big events and felt he didn't have enough time to prepare this year for a big course. Quail Hollow is 7,262 yards and plays as a par 71.
'I got my (butt) handed to me last year,' he said. 'Even though I had success at Bethpage (2019), you lose 10 yards, you might as well lose 100.'
He said he plans on skipping Aronimink next year but will return to the PGA Championship in 2027 in his home state of Texas, where he hopes dry and firm conditions will help.
Davis Love III (recovering from heart surgery) and Y.E. Yang also are not in the PGA Championship next week.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


NBC Sports
2 hours ago
- NBC Sports
USGA says it's not necessary to test everyone's driver at events
Ahead of the U.S. Open, Fred Perpall, Mike Whan and John Bodenhamer of the USGA address weather concerns, the "dense" rough at Oakmont, why drivers fail testing, the USGA's next media rights deal and more. OAKMONT, Pa. – Driver testing for characteristic time, or CT, became a headline at last month's PGA Championship when Rory McIlroy's driver was deemed nonconforming just days before the year's second major, and it was later learned that world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler's driver also failed the test, which essentially measures the 'springiness' of the driver face. Whether driver testing becomes a talking point again this week remains to be seen, but the USGA is forging ahead with testing at the U.S. Open. According to John Bodenhamer, the USGA's chief championships officer, about a third of the field, a little more than 50 players, were tested this week at Oakmont. The USGA does not publish the results of the testing. 'There's nothing to suggest there are a ton of drivers that are over the limit,' said Thomas Pagel, the association's chief governance officer. 'It's less than a handful.' Following his victory at the PGA Championship, Scheffler said he'd like to see more 'robust' testing and that the current process only goes 'halfway.' Since the PGA Championship, many players have called for an all-or-nothing approach to driver testing and protocols that would either test the entire field at a particular event or no one. 'We test them throughout the year and don't think it's necessary [to test every driver each week],' said Bodenhamer. 'It would be difficult, from a time perspective, to test every driver and we don't want to be too intrusive.' Currently, a player's driver is tested about three times a year at various events on the PGA Tour or at major championships, and logistically it would be a challenge to test the entire field at this week's U.S. Open with 156 players and each test lasting about 15 to 20 minutes. Instead, the USGA, along with the game's other stakeholders, contends more comprehensive testing isn't necessary based on the number of drivers that fail the CT testing. Rex Hoggard, 'We think the testing that we're doing is commensurate with both the degree of failure that we see, which is pretty minimal, and quite frankly, when we see failure, at least currently, we're seeing clubs just literally creep over the line,' said USGA CEO Mike Whan. 'It's a line we draw — we aren't seeing when we're taking drivers off, drivers that are, oh, my gosh, look where that one went [over the limit].' Some players also questioned the testing protocols, pointing out that there is no testing for CT, or creep, at LIV Golf events. The USGA, which administers CT testing at Tour events and the PGA Championship, does not test drivers at LIV events but Pagel said 'any tour, men or women, who reaches out for support, we would support.'


CBS News
3 hours ago
- CBS News
Luzardo returns to form with 10 strikeouts and Philadelphia Phillies bats come alive to end prolonged slumps
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. admired Kyle Schwarber's shot deep into the right-field seats —"that's a bomb!" — and got a thrill when Nick Castellanos came inches away from his own solo homer. Castellanos settled for a triple, showing that in baseball — unlike in Stenhouse's day job in NASCAR — good things happen when a long drive ends with a smack off the wall. Alec Bohm also went deep and teamed with Schwarber and Castellanos to contribute three of the Phillies' five extra-base hits in a win the team can only hope revived an offense that's been punchless this month. Another encouraging sign? Jesús Luzardo put two disastrous starts behind him and struck out 10 in six innings to lead the Phillies past the Chicago Cubs 7-2 on Wednesday. The Phillies had lost nine of 10 games overall headed into the Cubs' series and suffered the double whammy of losing first baseman Bryce Harper to wrist soreness and starter Aaron Nola adding a stress reaction in one of his right ribs. They returned home and split the first two games of the three-game set against the Cubs in underwhelming fashion: Of their 26 hits in two games, 23 were singles. Schwarber hit his 21st homer, a Monster Mile — Stenhouse attended to promote the July 20 NASCAR race at Dover Motor Speedway — and Bohm added four RBIs to help the Phillies win the series. Schwarber is averaging one home run for every 10.94 at-bats during June in his career, which ranks third in MLB history with at least 600 at-bats behind Babe Ruth (10.64 AB/HR) and Mark McGwire (10.80 AB/HR). Luzardo handled the rest. The left-hander was an early season success story in his first season since he was acquired from Miami in what looked like the heist of the winter. He struck out 11 in his Phillies' debut and followed in his second start with seven scoreless innings. Luzardo struck out a combined 20 batters in consecutive starts in late May as the Phillies surged to the lead in the NL. Luzardo's next two starts were somehow about as bad as it gets — he was rocked for 12 runs in 3 1/3 innings that skyrocketed his ERA from 2.15 to 3.58 and he gave up eight runs in 2 1/3 innings in his last outing in Toronto. Luzardo insisted he was healthy and still hit the high 90s with his fastball, forcing him to study game film with a bit of a detective's eye to find out why his season soured. He came to the conclusion that he must have been tipping his pitches. How about a tip of the cap from Phillies fans instead? "There's a lot of things we tinkered with," Luzardo said. "The biggest thing was attention to detail, attention to where we want to go, pitch selection that comes from me." Luzardo fanned two batters in the first inning to get the gem of a start going. He didn't walk a batter in six innings and allowed his only run with the Phillies up 4-0. Luzardo gave up consecutive singles to open the second inning before he struck out the side. "He studies himself and he wants to address what he's doing wrong," Schwarber said. "That's the impressive thing about him. We were all excited to watch him get out there on the mound today and see what was going to happen. Never a third time." Max Lazar worked two innings of relief and Michael Mercado tossed a scoreless ninth for the Phillies. Luzardo recorded his fourth double-digit strikeout game in his 15th start of the season, the first Phillies pitcher with four or more double-digit strikeout games in their first 15 starts with the team since Steve Carlton had five in 1972. Yes, the Hall of Famer with the 10-foot statue outside Citizens Bank Park. Not all stats, of course, are usually measured against Hall of Famers. Luzardo was the first Phillies left-hander with at least 10 strikeouts and no walks in a game since Drew Smyly struck out 10 in 2019 at Washington. Up next, an off day and a home weekend series against a Blue Jays team that outscored the Phillies 11-2 in consecutive losses last weekend. Schwarber was willing to bet the past two weeks were just a blip in a long season for a playoff-tested team rather than the start of a summer swoon. "We know what we have," Schwarber said. "We've been in a little rut and we're finding our way out of it. We know that if we do what we need to do, we're know that we're not going to be losing many games overall."
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Courtney Vandersloot and Wife Allie Quigley Make Major Mother's Day Announcement
There's no doubt Mother's Day this year has been extra tough on Chicago Sky point guard Courtney Vandersloot. Sloot lost her mother, Jan, who passed away last June after a two-year battle with cancer. The loss resulted in Vandersloot briefly stepping away from the New York Liberty last year, and may have contributed to her diminished role in the second half of the season. Advertisement The first Mother's Day after her passing has to be incredibly difficult, but this year it comes with even more emotions for Vandersloot and her wife - three-time WNBA All-Star and two-time Sixth Woman of the Year Allie Quigley - after the pair welcomed their first baby together, as announced on social media via PEOPLE. "We are over the moon to welcome our baby girl to the world," Vandersloot and Quigley, affectionately known as "the VanderQuigs," tell PEOPLE. "We have been dreaming of this moment for a long time, and it's better than we could have ever imagined!" Vandersloot and Quigley have been together nearly ten years, officially tying the knot in December of 2018 - which is also when they first revealed their relationship publicly. Advertisement Vandersloot, 36, is back in Chicago where she spent the first 12 seasons of her WNBA career, leading the Sky to a championship in 2021 alongside Quigley - becoming the first married couple to win a professional sports championship together. The former Gonzaga icon will look to rebound from a tough 2024 season while mentoring the litany of young talented players on the Chicago roster, including rookie guard Hailey Van Lith and second year post players Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. Related: Fever's Lexie Hull Left Impressed by Dream's New Guard