Golfweek Senior Division National Championship starts April 1

USA Today

29-03-2025

Golfweek Senior Division National Championship starts April 1
Robert Funk is just coming off a nine-day stretch of competition in Northern California, with two runner-up finishes to show for it. The rest period doesn't last long, however, because this week he jumps right back in at the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship.
Funk, 61, of Canyon Lake, California, is not a grind-all-year-long guy. An ordinary week includes one, maybe two rounds at his home course, Bear Creek in Murrieta, California, and one or two range sessions. Despite the balmy weather of his home state, he'll take three to four months off around the holidays. Before he gets it going again in the new year, however, he'll work on his game every day to get it back into shape.
'I just got through doing that before doing that before I went out to San Francisco,' he said. 'For about a month, I probably hit balls five times a week and I was chipping and putting.'
Funk, an electrical contractor, had never before played the San Francisco City Championship, an historic match-play tournament at Lincoln Park and TPC Harding Park, but teed it up this year and won stroke-play qualifying on March 18 to secure the No. 1 seed. He ultimately fell to Steve Johnson in the championship match.
The next day, Funk teed it up in the NCGA Senior Four-Ball Championship at Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach, California, with partner Jason Bittick. They finished second to Randy Haag and Steve Sear. Haag will also be in the field at the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship.
More: Golfweek Senior Nation
Funk is a lifelong amateur, and one who has competed at the pinnacle of the sport – both in terms of field and venue. His list of U.S. Golf Association Championships is long and laden with memories. He has played a dozen U.S. Mid-Amateurs and qualified for the U.S. Senior Open four times. He gained perhaps the most notoriety at the 2017 U.S. Senior Open, where he was the only amateur to make the cut. His family was there to watch, and Funk still has great memories of conversations with legends like Tom Watson and Nick Faldo.
'I was given a medal on TV and when I played the golf course, it seemed very simple and easy to me,' he said of his experience at Salem Country Club in Peabody, Massachusetts. 'I know I was just playing super great and putting really good and it was a really fun experience to have my parents – my dad had never even really seen me hit a golf shot until then.'
Low-amateur honors that week brought a sort of USGA victory lap for Funk and secured him an exemption into, among other events, the 2017 U.S. Amateur played at Riviera and Bel-Air in Los Angeles. That week, Funk, a recovering alcoholic, relayed his journey to sobriety to the Los Angeles Daily News.
Golf has played an important role in Funk's life – teaching him about honesty, integrity and how to be steadfast in his commitment to something.
'Integrity is probably one of the strongest items I think I've taken from golf, and I hold myself and anybody who plays in the game to kind of these standards that I think are upheld by golf tournaments and by golf itself,' Funk said.
Even though Funk dabbled in the game as a teen – trying out for his high school golf team, competing in one match but being kicked off the team when he failed to finish the final hole – he ended up walking away from the game until he was 25. Gradually, in his 30s, he began to play some on the weekends. Then came some city tournaments, the state mid-amateur, and as he approached 40, he 'kind of flowered and became a better golfer.'
Funk has worked on his game with Robert Sherwood, an instructor out of Murrieta Golf Range, the same place where Rickie Fowler also learned the game.
The USGA championships – particularly that 2017 U.S. Senior Open – have no doubt been some of the most visible success stories of his golf life, but Funk names victories near the start of his competitive golf career as being some of the most meaningful, especially when you look at the trajectory of his game over the past 20 years. Notably, he won the 2006 Trans-Miss Amateur and SCGA Mid-Amateur (winning the latter again in 2013).
'Really felt like I could win a golf tournament under a lot of pressure,' he said of the lessons those victories brought.
While it's tempting to put together a competition schedule that moves him up the World Amateur Golf Ranking and puts him in the running for WAGR-based exemptions into events like the U.S. Senior Amateur, that can be a frustrating endeavor. Thus, his priorities have shifted.
'I'm more interested in having fun and being in events that have good guys in them, at courses I enjoy,' he said. 'I've played golf a long time and at this point it's more about the venues and the people and the coordinators.'
The Golfweek Senior Division National Championship, to be played at Desert Willow Golf Resort's Mountain Course in Palm Desert, California, is just over an hour from Funk's home. He has been a regular in the event over the years.
The field list is deep for the championship and includes the top two ranked players in the Golfweek National Senior Amateur Rankings: Kevin VandenBerg and Todd Doss. Mark Strickland, the San Diego resident who finished as the low amateur at the 2023 U.S. Senior Open, will tee it up, too. Strickland won last year's Golfweek Senior Amateur, which will also be played in Palm Desert two days after the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship.
While defending champion Jon Lindstrom is not in the field, 2024 runner-up John Brellenthin will play.
The 54-hole event begins April 1.