This week, from Thursday to Sunday, the Charles Schwab Cup Championship takes place, which is the grand finale of the PGA Champions Tour, the US circuit for seniors (over 50s). An event where the top 36 players in the season standings compete. Unlike the PGA Tour, whose final format in Atlanta gives all participants a chance to win the title at the TOUR Championship, in this tour only a few arrive with a chance to claim victory in the Order of Merit.
In total, there are eleven players who could be crowned champions this week. Actually ten, because one of them, Steve Stricker, the circuit champion last season, will not play the tournament. Among this list of candidates for the final victory in the Champions Tour 2024, two names stand out, rivals over the past decades who will try to add a new nationality to a list of winners where all, except the German Bernhard Langer and the New Zealander Steven Alker, have been American.
We refer to the current leader of the standings, the South African Ernie Els, and the fourth-placed, the Irishman Pádraig Harrington, two legends of world golf, with more than 100 titles in total in their careers and no less than seven majors, who will seek the final blow against rivals such as the aforementioned Alker, the Canadian Stephen Ames, the South Korean Y.E. Yang, or the New Zealander Richard Green, among others. Two golfers who fought their main battles in the Open Championship.
In the first of Els‘s two victories in the famous British Open, in 2002, Harrington was in the fight until the end, achieving a tied fifth place, just one stroke behind the four golfers who played for the title in the playoff. And in the Irishman’s first victory in the tournament, in 2007, Els finished tied fourth, just two strokes behind Pádraig and Sergio García, who fought for the Claret Jug in the playoff. An Open that crossed the paths of the South African and the Irishman again a few years later, albeit in a different way.
Between 1979 and 2014, an event known as the PGA Grand Slam of Golf was held annually, featuring the winners of the four majors of the season. In the 2012 edition, the winner was Pádraig Harrington, in Bermuda. But interestingly, he wasn’t supposed to be there as he was replacing the golfer who had won the Open Championship at Royal Lytham, which was, indeed, Ernie Els…
Yesterday, Ernie Els was in Portugal designing his first-ever course in Europe. @TheBig_Easy reflects on his season and chance to make history in Phoenix.@SchwabCupFinale pic.twitter.com/dSOdwT2Je5
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) November 5, 2024
Now, both aspire to win the Order of Merit of the Champions Tour, a lesser title compared to what they have achieved throughout their careers (four majors, 15 wins on the PGA Tour and 24 on the European Tour for Els; three majors, three wins on the PGA Tour and 13 on the European Tour for Harrington), but it would undoubtedly be a golden finish to two legendary professional careers of two golfers who have thrilled people like few others.
Both, like Alker, Ames, Yang, and Green, would automatically be champions, regardless of other results, if they win at the Phoenix Country Club in Arizona, the tournament venue. From there, different scenarios arise where, logically, the leader, Ernie Els, is the one with the best chance to win. Because he has reasonable chances being second, third, or fourth, as long as none of the five players following him in the standings win the event.
A legendary imitation, Miguel approves 🤣#HappyHalloween pic.twitter.com/XABowEN9uB
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) October 31, 2024
Alker, second in the Order of Merit, also has chances of victory with a second or third place, provided none of the other five players occupying the top six positions win and Els finishes outside the top five. From there, possibilities open up for names like K.J. Choi, Ricardo González, Paul Broadhurst, and Jerry Kelly. The rest, from 13th to 36th place, no longer have mathematical chances of winning the overall, but they do aim to win the tournament and climb a good number of positions.
Among them is the Spaniard Miguel Ángel Jiménez, who will start from the 23rd position, one below Bernhard Langer, another legend of the tour. The man from Malaga has not had his best year on the Champions Tour, with no victories to date and a third place in March as his best result. But he arrives after achieving a tied seventh place in the Simmons Bank Championship and showing that he is gradually recovering his best golf, so his talent should be considered to enliven a final where, as in the old days, Els and Harrington seek to make their mark.
