NO MORE PUNCHING ABOVE HIS WEIGHT
Weir makes debut on golf’s senior circuit this weekend at Ally Challenge in Michigan
Not much has happened according to schedule in 2020, so consider Mike Weir’s PGA Tour Champions debut this week a belated birthday present.
Weir became eligible for golf ’s 50-and-over circuit in May, but with professional golf shut down because of coronavirus, his first start comes Friday at the Ally Challenge in Michigan.
“I don’t know what to expect or anticipate,” Weir said this week.
“There are a lot of familiar faces. Of course there’s going to be some nervous energy going into any tournament, but I think at this stage of life it’s a different kind of nervous, it’s more excitement.”
It will certainly be a new experience for Weir, who not only hasn’t played in a PGA Tour Champions tournament, but has never seen one in person.
“I’m trying to think if I’ve ever been to one, and I don’t think I have,” he said.
Weir has spent the past few seasons playing sporadically on both the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour, but will have full status for the PGA Tour Champions thanks to the nearly US$28 million he earned on the PGA Tour.
That figure puts him in the top 50 in career earnings.
Although seeing old friends will be a bonus, Weir has never stopped grinding on his golf game and is hopeful it will translate better to the Champions tour than it has to the regular tour in recent years.
“I’m kind of like a middleweight boxer going in against a heavyweight boxer on the PGA Tour,” Weir said. “You’re going to get your jabs in, you might get a few shots in, but at the end of the day, you’re probably not going to win. Now, I think I’m going in against the same weight class, and if I play my game I think I’m one of the top contenders in that weight class.”
The shorter courses should suit his game well and the PGA Tour Champions website has Weir listed as eighth in the power rankings for this week’s restart versus a deep field that includes senior circuit legend Bernhard Langer, a slimmed-down Colin Montgomerie, newcomer Ernie Els and fellow rookies Jim Furyk and K.J. Choi.
“I don’t really pay attention to that, there are lots of great players out there,” Weir said. “I’m not going out thinking that I can play well without putting the work in. But I do feel that, if I put in the work, I’m going to have success.”
Weir has been working on his game at home in Utah, while also trying to enjoy being around friends and family during his first summer at home in years. The daughter of Weir’s girlfriend suffered a serious head injury in March while skateboarding, which consumed much of the couple’s time. He reports she is now doing “very, very well.”
As determined as Weir is to succeed in this second act of his golf career, he’s not interested in doing it alone, and wants to make the most out of these years.
“I’m fully into this, but there’s a different context when you’re 50 compared to when you’re in your early 20s and kind of trying to make your way,” he said. “Hopefully, when this pandemic slows down, I’ll be able to have a bunch of family and friends travel more with me than they did on the regular tour and enjoy life a little bit more along the journey.” With eight PGA Tour victories and a green jacket in the closet, that certainly sounds reasonable, but anyone who knows Weir knows that the work ethic that made him Canada’s most successful male golfer is still alive and well. And he knows it, too.
“Once you get in between the ropes, it will be hard for me to turn off the competitive juices, because it’s who I am.”
The LPGA swings back into action Friday with the inaugural Drive On Championship in Toledo, Ohio, where world No. 2 Nelly Korda headlines the field as the women’s circuit returns from a 166-day hiatus due to COVID-19.
The 54-hole tournament at Inverness Club, the site of next year’s Solheim Cup, is the first of two consecutive spectator-free LPGA events in Ohio, along with next week’s Marathon Classic in nearby Sylvania.
Korda, who is among a field that includes fellow top-10 players Danielle Kang, Lexi Thompson and Australian Minjee Lee, said the break in action allowed her time to reset after a rough start to the year.
“My first three events, I was kind of dealing with club changes, not sure what I wanted to put in the bag. I completely changed my clubs again since then, so I was really kind of tweaking with everything,” said Korda.
“It was kind of a short off-season. I never really got to relax. I maybe took a week and a half off where I completely got to relax, so it was actually really nice to give my mind a reset.”
World No. 1 Ko Jin-young and Park Sung-hyun (No. 3) are among a number of top international players who have decided to sit out the LPGA restart because of COVID-19 concerns and are instead sheltering at home while playing the Korean LPGA Tour.
Those competing at Inverness will get a rare early glimpse of a layout that next year will host the Solheim Cup, where the top players from the U.S. face those of Europe.
“It’s different to be able to have a sneak peek into a golf course that we’ll be playing that big of an event on,” said world No. 9 Thompson. “It gives us some insight of how it might be set up, or things to look for.”
Mexico’s Gaby Lopez, who picked up her second win on the LPGA earlier this year, withdrew from the tournament after testing positive for COVID -19 on Monday.