How long will PGA Tour Champions star Steve Stricker keep playing? He has an idea
How long will PGA Tour Champions star Steve Stricker keep playing? He has an idea
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History of the Galleri Classic golf tournament on PGA Tour Champions schedule
The Galleri Classic is a spring event on the PGA Tour Champions golf schedule
Golfers on the PGA Tour Champions are remaining competitive and winning at older ages than they did in the past.
Steve Stricker attributes this trend to golfers taking better care of themselves with diet and exercise.
Bernhard Langer, who is still winning tournaments at 66, is an inspiration to older golfers.
Stricker emphasizes the importance of early cancer detection and enjoys playing in the Galleri Classic for its cause and course familiarity.
For much of its existence, the PGA Tour Champions has had a rhythm for its players.
Golfers transitioning from the regular PGA Tour turn 50 and have great success on the PGA Tour Champions. That success begins to fade a bit after two or three years, and by the time the golfer is in his mid-50s, other new players have come along to have their own success.
But in the last decade or so, that rhythm has been disrupted. Golfers over the age of 50 play better for longer, winning tournaments into their late 50s and even into their 60s. Take, for instance, Steve Stricker.
A 12-time winner on the PGA Tour, Stricker, now 58, has 18 wins on the PGA Tour Champions, including seven PGA Tour Champions majors. In 2023, Stricker won seven events to claim the PGA Tour Champions player of the year award. While he won just once in 2024, he remains a threat to win each time he tees up.
So what changed to make players like Stricker not just competitive but winning into their late 50s? As Stricker prepares to play in the third annual Galleri Classic in Rancho Mirage later this month, he believes golfers just want to stay competitive longer.
'People just taking better care of themselves, being a little more dedicated to that aspect,' Stricker said at the Galleri Classic's media day this week. 'Eating better, working out, stretching, We want to continue playing, most of us do anyway, as long as you possibly can. It's a great game to be able to play into our 50s or potentially like Bernhard (Langer) into our mid-60s.'
Langer, who at 66 remains a winning player on the tour with a tour-record 47 victories, has certainly changed how some golfers look at longevity on the senior tour, Stricker said.
'You see that from Bernhard and you're like, hey, this can happen,' Stricker said. 'So you start to look a little bit longer term. Even for me the next five, six, seven years, and if I want to continue to play, I've got to do certain things so I can. So I think it's just guys that are a little more dedicated and want to continue to play and it is still a great opportunity for us.'
Stricker has finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in his two starts in the Galleri Classic at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club. As he prepares to play in the third Galleri event March 26-30, Stricker admits the battle to stay healthy is tough.
Stricker has been fighting a bad back the last year and a half, even going to New York recently for a treatment where white blood cells are taken out of a person's blood, medicine is added and the blood placed back into the body.
Stricker isn't sure he'll be able to play in the Cologuard Classic in Arizona this week, but he's committed to play in the Galleri Classic. Not only is Stricker an ambassador for Grail, the company that developed the multicancer detection blood test Galleri, but he appreciates the chance for the senior tour to be playing in the Coachella Valley.
More: Past winners Retief Goosen, David Toms lead early commitments for Galleri Classic in Rancho Mirage
'It's just the community, the demographics out there. I would imagine it is a little bit higher age population out there,' Stricker said. 'We grew up you know watching the Dinah Shore (the LPGA major championship played on the course for 51 years) being played out there. It's just the (senior) tour has come here over the years. It's just a great spot.
'The course is very, very good for us,' Stricker added. 'It's just a great setup. It's a lot of fun. We are treated well. The weather is great. And you add all of those things together and it's a good cause. The detection of early cancers is very important. I did it last year, I took the blood test and I'm going to continue to do it. You put all of that together, the players love to come.'
Stricker will be one of 78 PGA Tour Champions players in the Galleri field, including defending champion Retief Goosen and players like 2024 player of the year Steven Alker and major champions like Ernie Els, David Toms, Fred Couples, Colin Montgomerie and newcomer to the event, Stewart Cink.
With the exception of Couples, who lived in the desert for years and played the Shore Course regularly, no one has more knowledge of the Shore Course than Stricker. That's because he comes to the desert each August to caddie for his daughter in LPGA first-stage qualifying on the course.
'It's always good to go around a course as much as you can. I don't know, the greens are so much different that when we play in March,' Stricker said of what he's learned as a caddie on the course. 'They are really slow and it's 100 degrees when we are there in August, and it's quite the opposite when we are there in March. So the green reading I probably don't learn that much. But places to hit it, places to miss it, places where you can take some risks where opportunities may present themselves.'
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