The PGA Tour Champions Northern California stop, the PURE Insurance Championship, usually finds the fairways and greens of Pebble Beach Golf Links and Poppy Hills Golf Course inhabited by pairings of youth players from First Tee chapters around the country playing with Champions Tour pros, but like everything else in this pandemic year, things have changed. This year the event is playing as a pro-am, with First Tee teens replaced by well-heeled amateurs, and all three rounds are at Pebble Beach. There is still a “youth movement” of sorts underway at the 2020 event, though, as Champions Tour rookies are dominating the leaderboard.
Of course, “rookie” is a relative term in this case, as every player in the field has a wealth of experience behind them, and some are very familiar names, but the first-round leader and two of the three players who were tied for second after 18 holes are 50-year-old rookies on the tour, and the three players who rounded out the rest of the top-five spots are aged 51.
First-round leader Jim Furyk, one of those 50-year-old “rookies”, is a former FedEx Cup champion (2010) and the 2003 U.S. Open champion, and has an additional 16 PGA tour wins on his CV. Another familiar name near the top of the leaderboard is Ernie Els. Probably the second name, after Gary Player, that comes to mind when South African golf is mentioned, Els has two U.S. Open victories to his credit (1994, 1997), two Open Championship titles (2002, 2012), and 15 additional PGA Tour wins—not to mention his 47 international victories.
Less well-known, except perhaps to the deep-knowledge pro golf cognoscenti, is the remaining 50-year-old who was sitting T2 after 18 holes—Cameron Beckman. A three-time winner on the PGA Tour, Beckman turned pro in 1993, played on the Nike Tour (now the Korn Ferry Tour) developmental circuit, Beckman went to the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament 10 times before locking up his card for the 2008 season with a T20 finish at the Children’s Miracle Network Classic.
After 18 holes Furyk, Els, and Beckman were sitting just ahead of another 50-year-old, Stephen Leaney of New Zealand, and a couple of 51-year-olds, Dicky Pride and Gene Sauers. By the end of the second round they had been joined by another 50-year-old, Canadian lefty and 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir; and 60-year-old Fred Couples had snuck into the mix.
In the second round Weir, who has battled elbow problems for many years after an ill-advised change to the “stack-and-tilt” swing method, found a gear that he might not have known he had, and after a 1-over 73 in the first round, ascended the leaderboard at nose-bleed speed, picking up 38 spots on the strength of a clean-card 7-under 65 that included a string of three birdies in a row on holes 14 – 16.
Fred Couples, the only player over 51 years of age to crack the top seven after 36 holes, woke up from something of a trance, it seems, after Friday’s desultory four-birdies, two-bogeys, two-under 70, and knocked together a bogey-free five-under 67 to vault 15 spots up the leaderboard into a five-way tie for third.
The field, including the twelve amateurs who made the pro-am cut, will assemble Sunday starting at 7:35 to decide the issue.
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