Kelly eyes strong finish on Champions tour
For a golfer who figured he’d sell insurance if the touring professional thing didn’t work out, Madison’s Jerry Kelly has done pretty well for himself.
The former Nike (now Web.com) Tour player of the year won three times on the PGA Tour and has all but locked up PGA Tour Champions rookie of the year honors going into the season-ending Schwab Cup Championship this week.
He’s earned $1,437,022 this year and more than $28 million in his career.
“Fifty came up on me pretty quick,” said Kelly, who will turn 51 on Nov. 23.
“I always wanted to do a lot more in my career, but this has given me the time to look back and go, ‘Wow.’ I thought I’d be selling insurance in two or three years (after turning pro in 1989).”
Kelly goes into the 36-player Schwab Cup Championship sixth in the point standings, with an outside chance to supplant Bernhard Langer as the tour’s overall champion.
Any of the top five – Langer, Scott McCarron, Kenny Perry, Miguel Angel Jimenez or Kevin Sutherland – would win the Schwab Cup by winning the tournament, which starts Friday and concludes Sunday at Phoenix Country Club.
“So I need to win it and have help from the other guys, which I don’t like thinking about,” Kelly said. “I hope they all play great. I hope I win the tournament. I wouldn’t mind winning and having Bernhard finish second and winning the Schwab Cup, because he deserves it.”
Kelly goes into the tournament on the heels of an impressive stretch. Over the last 21⁄2 months, he’s won twice and finished among the top eight in all six of his starts (excluding a withdrawal).
He also is ranked fifth in scoring average (69.38) and set a Champions tour record with 16 consecutive rounds in the 60s over a torrid fivetournament stretch from Aug. 5 to Oct. 14.
But he’s still bothered by the back and hip issues that forced him to withdraw from the Dominion Energy Classic two weeks ago and is looking forward to the off-season.
“Just been dealing with that,” Kelly said. “I’ll take some time off and work out to try and strengthen the areas that caused this to happen.”
On Tuesday, Kelly attended a news conference in Tucson, Ariz., where it was announced that one of his sponsors, Madison-based Exact Sciences, has signed a threeyear contract to be the title sponsor of the Champions tour’s Cologuard Classic starting in 2018 at Omni Tucson National.
Exact Sciences manufactures Cologuard, a non-invasive colon cancer screening test based on the latest advances in stool DNA technology.