Golf Solutions | Golf News &amp; Updates

LPGA International golf courses on the market again, this time by auction https://ift.tt/2Nd30fd

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — The company that bought the 36-hole LPGA International Golf Club two years ago year has put the property up for sale. An online auction for the 657-acre property west of Interstate 95 is scheduled to be held April 19-21 on the website ten-x.com.

The bidding will start at $4 million, according to a notice obtained by The Daytona Beach News-Journal, part of the USA Today Network. Notices were sent out to qualified investors.

Virginia-based Fore Golf Partners paid $3.45 million to acquire the one-time city-owned golf courses in October 2019. The city sold the two semi-private golf courses to Daytona Beach-based Consolidated, now known as CTO Realty Growth Inc. in 2017 for $1.5 million as well as 30 acres of land around Municipal Stadium.

The online listing for the golf courses at 1000 Champions Drive, Daytona Beach, describes it as a “premier semi-private golf club situated within The LPGA International residential community on the east coast of central Florida within Daytona Beach. Strong, going-in return without any immediate capital costs required by a buyer; over $860K in capital improvements invested by current owner in 2019/2020. Home course of the LPGA; Rees Jones and Arthur Hills signature golf courses situated on an expansive plus-minus 652-acre site.”

The listing agents for the LPGA International Golf Club property are Keith Cubba and Matt Putnam of Colliers International.

“Fore Golf found LPGA to have great potential — golf course quality and location,” wrote Cubba in an email responding to questions from The Daytona Beach News-Journal. “They thought that by addressing some capital needs and implementing operating practices that have proven successful at their other Florida courses, they could ‘right side’ performance then sell to a longer-term custodian while still leaving plenty of upside for that buyer through area growth and what should be post-pandemic increases in events, outings, and food and beverage.”

Cubba said Fore Golf invested “just under $900,000 worth of capital improvements (in the) last part of 2019 and through 2020. He’s put more capital improvement money in during 2021.”

The LPGA International Golf Club is currently operating at a profit, the commercial Realtor said. “I believe the response from members and public play is that the level of service and course conditions have improved.”

Bryan Collyer, a member of the LPGA International Golf Club, said he is not concerned that Fore Golf has put the courses up for sale.

“I’m not worried about how quick this turnaround is happening,” the Daytona Beach businessman wrote in an email. Collyer is the president of Crunch Construction. “The two courses are (the) best in the area and a new owner will have unlimited opportunities to grow the model.”

When the golf courses were sold in late 2019, “there was a lot of anticipation as to what would become of the LPGA International,” wrote Collyer. “Most of the golfers I have spoken to that either live in the LPGA neighborhood or play frequently believe that the courses need to remain an integral part of Daytona and should be owned/operated by an entity that has (a) vested interest in the area.”

The Arthur Hills Signature Course at LPGA International (Courtesy of LPGA International)

LPGA area developing fast

The golf courses at LPGA International are in the fast-growing area surrounding the I-95/LPGA Boulevard interchange that has seen thousands of new homes and luxury apartments built in recent years as well as the opening of two major shopping centers and distribution centers for both Trader Joe’s and Amazon. LPGA International is also across the street from the new Jimmy Buffett-themed Latitude Margaritaville 55-and-older community that has added more than 1,000 homes since welcoming its first residents in 2018.

A sale of the golf courses and clubhouse at LPGA International would not include the headquarters for the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

Carl Lentz IV, managing director of SVN Alliance Commercial Real Estate Advisors in Ormond Beach, said he saw the online listing for the golf courses at LPGA International go up on Monday.

“I don’t even know what to think about it yet,” he said. “I do know it’s a challenge to keep golf courses profitable these days. But there’s plenty of rooftops (new homes) going up in that area to help make the golf course and clubhouse profitable.”

“It’s one of the premier golf courses in the area that’s open to the general public,” said Lentz of the LPGA courses.

Number of golf courses is shrinking

“The demand is also going up because nobody’s building new golf courses these days and because some in our area are going away like River Bend,” he said, referring to the recent closure of the golf course along Airport Road in Ormond Beach.

Besides River Bend, the Volusia-Flagler area hasn’t been immune to the national trend of golf courses shutting down. Courses that have been shuttered in recent years include Matanzas Woods in Palm Coast (2007); DeLand Country Club (2012); Sandhill Golf Course in DeLand (2017); Indigo Lakes in Daytona Beach (2018); and Tomoka Oaks in Ormond Beach (2018).

The LPGA International Golf Club was previously put under contract earlier in 2019 to the U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese company called C-Bons International Golf Group. C-Bons officials had said their intention was to invest in improvements that could bolster the golf club’s chances of hosting major professional golf tournaments including possibly one by the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

C-Bons rescinded its offer after a number of area residents including Mayor Derrick Henry, who lives in LPGA International, voiced concerns regarding the buyer’s intentions. That’s when Fore Golf Partners stepped in to take over the courses.

“The first group that we had under contract (in 2019) at the LPGA Golf Club was a group that was looking to invest a large amount of capital in the facilities as a longer-term ownership plan and membership focus,” said John Albright, the CEO of CTO Realty Growth. “When (C-Bons) dropped the contract, the second group was more of a fix-the-operations-and-sell type of buyer with a shorter investment hold program.”

Albright said he expected Fore Golf to eventually put LPGA International Golf Club up for sale as opposed to owning it long-term. But even he was surprised that it chose to do it this quickly.

“It could be that they believe the market conditions are right in the Daytona Beach area,” he said. The surge in new homes and commercial development in the LPGA area could have been a factor, he added.

The Jones Course at LPGA International (Courtesy of LPGA International)

Already drawing ‘tremendous interest’

Cubba said marketing for the upcoming online auction of the LPGA International Golf Club has already generated “a tremendous amount of interest.”

“We can gauge interest level based on (the) number of non-disclosure agreements executed and the caliber of investor executing those agreements,” he added.

Cubba said Fore Golf is not in a situation where it needs to sell LPGA International Golf Club if it does not receive a satisfactory offer. The seller “can and would hold on to the property if expectations aren’t met,” he said.

News-Journal sports columnist Ken Willis contributed to this article.

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Haskins Award: Spring watch list for 2020-21 season

Haskins Award: Spring watch list for 2020-21 season https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The COVID-19 pandemic rocked the 2020-21 college golf schedule, with some schools and conferences electing not to compete in the fall.

Play has largely returned across the nation this spring, and just like the weather outside, the race for the Haskins Award is starting to heat up. A handful of players have stood out as front-runners for the Haskins Award, which honors the player of the year in college men’s golf, as selected by college golfers, coaches and members of the college golf media.

The players are listed alphabetically. Players on the Haskins Award Watch List were selected by a panel of Golfweek and Golf Channel writers.

Haskins Award Watch List

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ANNIKA Award: Spring watch list for 2020-21 season

ANNIKA Award: Spring watch list for 2020-21 season https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The COVID-19 pandemic rocked the 2020-21 college golf schedule, with some schools and conferences electing not to compete in the fall.

Play has largely returned across the nation this spring, and just like the weather outside, the race for the ANNIKA Award is starting to heat up. A handful of players have stood out as front-runners for the ANNIKA Award, which honors the player of the year in women’s college golf, as selected by college golfers, coaches and members of the college golf media.

The players are listed alphabetically. Players on the ANNIKA Award Watch List were selected by a panel of Golfweek and Golf Channel writers.

ANNIKA Award Watch List

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Better than Most: 'Are you frickin kidding me?' Phil Mickelson, others recall Tiger Woods' putt

• How Fred Funk’s four-putt led to Tiger’s perfect line.
• A ‘wall of sound’ surrounded the group after Tiger’s putt.)

Better than Most: 'Are you frickin kidding me?' Phil Mickelson, others recall Tiger Woods' putt https://ift.tt/2Oq0xyv

(Editor’s note: All this week, in honor of the 20-year anniversary of Tiger Woods’ “Better than Most” putt, we’ve been looking back at the magical moment at TPC Sawgrass, perhaps the greatest in the history of The Players Championship. Also see:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Adam Scott called the putt heard round the golf world.

Seriously, the Aussie went all Nostradamus well before NBC commentator Gary Koch started saying “better than most” in the 2001 Players Championship.

Scott wasn’t playing in the tournament and to this day has no idea why he was at TPC Sawgrass. But he ended up doing guest commentary for Sky Sports alongside his coach, Butch Harmon, who also was working with Tiger Woods at the time.

During Saturday’s sunlit third round, the two were on a break and standing outside of the Sky Sports compound overlooking the famous 17^th green.

Before them was Woods, surveying a putt from the back fringe of the island green that would need to break twice, slide down a steep ridge and travel 60 feet to reach the front-left pin placement. Up to then, a handful of players had putted from the top of the ridge on the 17^th and every ball zoomed past the hole and off the green and onto the fringe below.

“This is such a hard putt,” Harmon said back then.

“I wouldn’t want it,” Scott said.

“He could putt the ball off the green,” Harmon said.

“Sure could,” Scott said.

“He could four-putt. He could three-putt. It sure as hell isn’t an easy two-putt. And it’s basically impossible to make the putt,” Harmon said.

“Just wait,” Scott said. “Wait until we hear the roar when he makes it.”

Ka-boom.

Woods made the Better Than Most putt, which was Koch’s famous phrase as the putt neared the hole and then disappeared. The Richter Scale went crazy, Woods started fist-pumping and roaring, and Harmon and Scott high-fived each other until their hands hurt.

“When I told Butch Tiger was going to make it, he laughed,” Scott said. “But sure enough, the putter was up in the air and the ball was going in. It just blew the roof off the place. It was unbelievable. If you watch the footage long enough, Tiger points up to Butch with a huge smile.

Tiger Woods points after sinking a 60-foot birdie putt at the 17th hole of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course on March 24, 2001, in the third round of The Players Championship. Woods went on to win the tournament two days later in a Monday finish. [Bob Self/Florida Times-Union]

“That was a pretty good one to be hanging out for as a spectator.”

After the round, Harmon met up with Woods.

“I said, ‘That was some putt you made on 17.’ And all he said was, ‘That was cool, wasn’t it Butchy.’ That’s all he ever said about it to me.”

It was cool, indeed. Well, not for everyone.

On the green with Woods was his caddie, Steve Williams, and Phil Mickelson and his caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay. The titanic pairing of the top 2 players in the world had already stirred up thunderous applause the first 16 holes but Woods’ putt was off the charts.

“I remember when the ball got to the crest of the slope that it had perfect pace,” Mickelson said 20 years later. “And then when it got to about 10 feet out it looked like he was going to make it. Seriously, from where he was, the ball was actually going to go in and I just remember thinking, ‘Are you frickin’ kidding me?’

“I had seen so much of that kind of stuff from him for so long it didn’t unnerve me. The guy certainly didn’t need any help, he was playing such great golf at the time. And then he makes a bomb. When you’re thinking he was going to three-putt and he makes it, it felt like a two-shot swing.

“Well, 20 years later, I still don’t really know what more I can say.”

Mackay said it was the most Tiger thing ever.

“I just remember laughing when it went in. Who else is going to make that putt? Are you kidding me?” Mackay said. “I was fortunate to be with Phil when he did something incredible, and when you see Tiger or someone else do something incredible, you just sort of look down and wait for that tidal wave of sound to hit you. So I saw the ball going toward the hole and you’re waiting that 10^th of a second for the sound explosion and then it came. It was huge.”

Williams heartedly celebrated with his boss on the green.

“Tiger had an uncanny knack of making the impossible possible,” Williams said in an email. “It seemed like the more difficult the shot the more focused he became and he just relished any opportunity that would give a knockout blow to his opponents. Tiger’s imagination on the greens made him one of the greatest putters of all time under pressure.”

Woods shot 66 that day and then won the weather-delayed tournament on Monday. He had won the Arnold Palmer Invitational the week before, and then would win the Masters the following week, completing the Tiger Slam by winning four consecutive major championships.

Rob McNamara, TGR Ventures vice president who also serves as a frequent playing partner for Woods and provides a second set of eyes, was in the clubhouse watching on a small TV when Woods teed up his heroics on the 17^th green.

“That was his first Players win and that meant a lot to him,” McNamara said. “After he won the (career) Grand Slam (in 2000), his record was pretty astonishing, but the focus then shifted to him having not won a Players.

“I remember the criticism that he hadn’t won a Players. People were trying to diminish what Tiger was doing. I think it was very telling that he silenced the critics when he won the Players. Which was a little bit ridiculous.”

Woods really didn’t talk about the Better Than Most putt.

“The only thing Tiger said about the putt was that he started fist-pumping it and started walking pretty early,” McNamara said. “And then it sort of barely jumped into the right side and when he watched the film he realized he started his walk too early. That putt could have missed. But when you’re young and confident that walk is early. But that’s the thing about Tiger. Sometimes he wills those putts in and that was definitely one of them.”

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, a former PGA Tour player who won the 1998 Great Vancouver Open, doesn’t remember where he was when he saw the putt but he hasn’t forgotten one thing that stood out to him.

“If you go back and watch the whole clip, Tiger circles the green and then when he gets over the putt, he does something I had never seen him do. He stood over the putt and made strokes with just his right hand,” Chamblee said. “It was a great example of someone being an artist. He walked around, looked at the putt, saw what the green was, and he stood over the putt and had put all that information into his computer and just tried to feel what the putt was going to do.

“And off it went. That putt just shows you the magic of the guy.”

Koch, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour and a mainstay on NBC telecasts since 1996, sat down with Woods on the 15^th anniversary of the putt. One thing that came out of the conversation sort of startled Koch.

“I asked him, ‘I’m assuming you hit some practice putts from up there? I mean you were the only one that even came close to reading the break properly,’” Koch said. “And he goes, ‘Nope. Never hit a putt from up there. Never did.’”

Turns out he didn’t need to.

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Obit: Longtime USGA tournament relations manager Jim Gaquin dies at 98

Obit: Longtime USGA tournament relations manager Jim Gaquin dies at 98 https://ift.tt/3lgYIzV

Jim Gaquin loved his wife, Lois, his extended family and Boston University athletics. He also, as many know, loved golf.

Golf gripped this amazing man in its palm and helped lead to a life that included the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and every PGA Tour player from the 1950s through 1978, his final year as tournament relations manager for the United States Golf Association.

After 20 years of essentially living out of a suitcase, it was then that Jim and Lois decided that Cape Cod was going to be their final destination.

And, for those of us fortunate enough to know and work with this couple, it was a day that impacted all our lives.

Sadly, 5½ years after losing Lois to cancer, Jim left us bereft of his knowledge, his fierce loyalties and his friendship when he died Saturday at the age of 98.

There will be a celebratory Mass for Jim at 11 a.m. Monday at St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis followed by his burial at the family plot at 2 p.m. at The Gardens of Gethsemane Cemetery in West Roxbury.

It has been over a year since I last visited Jim in person at Mayflower Place Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Yarmouth — not because I didn’t want to, but because COVID-19’s impact on our world prevented me from doing so.

Jim moved there two years ago as his mobility became limited and he could no longer do things physically that he was doing at age 95, such as jogging (not walking) down Buck Island Road as part of his daily routine. His mind was still as sharp as a tack (perhaps sharper) and his thirst for information — especially involving local golf — was unquenchable.

His ability to recall dates, facts, situations to the minutest detail always blew me away. He could recall a specific shot from one of the many tournaments he and Lois worked during their storied career. He had tales that kept you riveted to the conversation and always praise for something someone had accomplished. He asked about family, how the high school golf team I coach was performing, what my kids (now adults) were doing and how my wife, Deborah, was.

Longtime USGA tournament relations manager Jim Gaquin, on his 96th birthday, keeps an eye on the starters at the 2017 Cape Cod Open at the Olde Barnstable Fairgrounds Golf Club in Marstons Mills. Photo by Cape Cod Times

His love of BU athletics also was accompanied with background information including specific players, games and results. When Boston University canceled its (then) Div. 1-AA football program, he was so upset he wrote a letter to the school’s chancellor berating the decision and informing him that Jim would no longer be making contributions to the school.

Jim was as “old-school” as one could get. He believed that the old ways of doing things worked just fine and he was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century (at the time, it was the 20th century). He was more comfortable writing his press releases or tournament stories on an IBM Selectric than using a computer.

For tournaments that Jim and Lois ran, it was mandatory that paper scoring strips be the order of the day as opposed to running scores from a computer onto a picture screen. It took much more time and often pushed reporters to their deadlines, but it was the way it used to be and in the long run, it was fine. I’m sure there are many winners of the Cape Cod Open, Cape Cod Senior Open, The NCAA Women’s Golf Championship and weekly Pro-Ams that have those strips of scores hanging in a trophy area as proof of success on the links.

Fortunately for Jim, Lois was more than willing to grasp the future and as a team they put together such things as the Cape Cod Open, of which Jim was director until he relinquished the post after the 2019 event. They ran the 1984 U.S. Women’s Open at Salem Country Club and teamed up for one of best NCAA Division 1 Women’s Golf Championships in 1985 at the Country Club of New Seabury.

From that event, 36 players ended up competing on the LPGA Tour.

Jim and Lois Gaquin, shown in New Seabury Golf Course in 1995, had the golden touch when it came to salvaging struggling golf events and turning them into something special.
Together they had the golden touch when it came to salvaging struggling golf events and turning them into something special. They also brought the concept of running a tournament as a business to a number of places. They changed the idea to one that, besides running a fun tournament and having the right type of direction and rules, it should be an event that also proved lucrative.

They took over the then-longest-running league in the country in 1985, the Cape Cod Pro-Am Golf League. At that time it was gasping for air and on the edge of extinction. They ran it through 1998. When they took over, the league had 82 members, barely had enough players for each weekly event and it was on the verge of bankruptcy. When they were unceremoniously ushered out the door in 1998, the league had 400 members, a full field each week that was playing for $4,000 in prize money and chits.

The league has since folded and no longer is a part of the golf agenda on Cape Cod.

A major component in the Gaquin business of running golf tournaments was charities. The Cape Cod Open, which started as the Brookside Hospital/Sally Quinlan Pro-Am, has collected in its history over $250,000 for charity. Jim was a contributor to the Ouimet Fund and was one of the many interviewers of potential scholarship winners.

“I feel it’s important for golf to give back to its community,” Jim often said. “Golf has that capability and it’s important that we help all types of people. Golf is blessed to have a lot of folks who are financially stable and it’s important for us to help those who need it most.”

Obituaries will tick off the list of accomplishments of Jim Gaquin: sports reporter for the Waltham News-Tribune, a news reporter for the Worcester Telegram, field secretary for the PGA Tour and then as its tournament manager. He was the executive director of the Royal Canadian Golf Association, tournament relations manager of the USGA, winner of the prestigious Golf Writers Association of America William D. Richardson Award for contributions to the game, tournament manager for the 1980 and 1981 PGA Championships, the 1984 U.S. Women’s Open at Salem Country Club, 1985 NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship at New Seabury, founder of the Cape Cod Open, founder of the Cape Cod Senior Open, and a rules committee member of the Massachusetts Golf Association. One thing that may not show up, but should, is good friend.

After Lois died in 2014, a part of Jim died with her. She was his rock, his partner, his best friend and despite putting on a brave face and marching forward, he missed her.

“We’ve been a team since we married,” Jim said. “I can’t remember what it was like before and I don’t know if I can handle what it is going to be after. I couldn’t boil water because I didn’t know how to. Lois would never let me in the kitchen — for good reason. Now, I have to adjust and try to move on without her.”

Jim entered my life “back in the day.” He was an encyclopedia of golf knowledge and facts. He was a guy who gave me more tips than a waiter could earn in a lifetime.

He was a good guy. He was my friend.

You are missed, Jim.

Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play 2020: Massachusetts

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Viktor Hovland assessed two-shot penalty Thursday at the Players Championship

Viktor Hovland assessed two-shot penalty Thursday at the Players Championship https://ift.tt/3chmPKH

Viktor Hovland took it on the chin on Thursday.

The 23-year-old Norwegian incurred a two-shot penalty after the first round of the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass’ Players Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

Hovland, a two-time winner on Tour, inadvertently played his ball from the wrong spot while on the green at the par-4 15th hole.

According to the Tour: “Viktor Hovland was assessed a two-stroke penalty under Rule 14.7 for playing a ball from the wrong place. Hovland marked his ball on the 15th green, moved it one putter-head length for another player, and then moved it again in the same direction rather than replacing it.”

Players Championship: Leaderboard | Photos

Viktor Hovland was assessed a two-stroke penalty under Rule 14.7 for playing a ball from the wrong place.

Hovland marked his ball on the 15th green, moved it one putter-head length for another player, and then moved it again in the same direction rather than replacing it.

— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) March 11, 2021

“I think he heard about it from someone in his home country,” said Rules official Gary Young. “I think it might have shown up on the feed in Norway. He and his caddie reached out to our committee and asked if we had any video of it, because he had no recollection of doing it.”

“He had left the property,” Young said. “I sent him a clip of the video, and he’s very comfortable with the result, that he’s getting the penalty. He understands the rule. He didn’t know he did it.”

If you’re wondering why Hovland wasn’t disqualified for signing an incorrect card, check out Rule 3.3b(3), which states a player can be retroactively penalized shots for unknowingly violating a rule.

After initially signing for a 2-under 70, Hovland now sits at even par, T-42.

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Billy Horschel's six birdies on Thursday at the Players Championship means $6,000 goes to Feeding Northeast Florida

Billy Horschel's six birdies on Thursday at the Players Championship means $6,000 goes to Feeding Northeast Florida https://ift.tt/3qE2tka

Billy Horschel looked on the bright side of his day.

He made six birdies on Thursday in the first round of The Players Championship, at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, which means $6,000 goes to Feeding Northeast Florida as part of his annual pledge at the Players to donate $1,000 for each red number.

But Horschel also made a triple-bogey 7 at the par-4 sixth hole, which knocked him off the front page of the leaderboard, and had a bogey at the par-3 eighth.

Horschel managed to work in two more birdies, at Nos. 7 and 9, and finished at 1-under 71, his seventh sub-par score at The Players in his last nine rounds.

More: Billy Horschel helping to drive out hunger in Northeast Florida

“Nobody’s running away with this yet,” he said. “Anything under par is a good score.”

The good news about his pledge is that following a birdie with a bogey doesn’t erase the money he donates to the cause that has become his passion.

Horschel said that $6,000 translates into a huge number of meals for food-insecure persons served by Feeding Northeast Florida.

“Six birdies, 6K, which means feeding people 36,000 meals,” Horschel said. “A really good day.”

But the rules of golf require that players give back strokes when they make bogeys or worse, and Horschel accepted the blame for the big number he took on the usually tame sixth home.

He split the fairway but at 152 yards into the green, he said he was between an 8- and a 9-iron.

Players Championship: Leaderboard | Photos

Horschel took the 9-iron, downwind, but the ball got up in the air and didn’t cover the false front on the green, a subtle design ploy by architect Pete Dye.

The ball spilled back off the green and he hit two pitches that didn’t clear the false front. Horschel then over-cooked his fifth shot 40 feet past the hole and two-putted from 26 feet.

“I probably should have hit the 8-iron [into No. 6], put it 30 feet past the hole,” Horschel said. “It’s a little sour because I had a good round going. But I’m happy with how I battled back.”

Horschel birdied No. 7 on a 12-foot putt, bogeyed No. 8 after missing the green short-right, but birdied No. 9 on a 10-foot putt.

He had birdied Nos. 15, 16 and 17 in succession on his front nine to come within one shot of the lead at that point, with putts of 13 feet at No. 15, less than 2 feet at No. 16 and an 18-footer at No. 17.

Horschel took the time to praise TPC Sawgrass director of agronomy Jeff Plotts for the course conditions.

“I texted him [Wednesday night] to let him know what an incredible job he and his staff have done,” Horschel said. “The guys have raved about the course all week.”

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Steve Stricker wakes up 300 miles away, goes to sleep tied for 12th in Players Championship

Steve Stricker wakes up 300 miles away, goes to sleep tied for 12th in Players Championship https://ift.tt/3qE2tka

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Steve Stricker was laying in bed in his home in Naples in southwest Florida at 6:45 a.m. Thursday when the phone rang.

He woke up in a hurry.

Stricker got word he had moved up to first alternate for the Players Championship when Harris English withdrew with a bad back.

“I’m coming,” Stricker told the other end of the phone.

And with that, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain shifted into overdrive. The day before when he moved up to second alternate he talked to a local guy who would allow Stricker to use his plane to fly to the northeast of the Sunshine State.

He was already packed. And then called and asked English’s caddie, Eric Larson, who had carried Stricker’s bag in the past, if he wanted to pick up his bag. The answer was yes.

And out the door Stricker went.

Players Championship: Leaderboard | Photos

“They scrambled the pilots together and I actually got in the air at about 8:30, quarter to 9,” said Stricker, who then got word in the air during the 50-minute flight that he was in the tournament after Justin Rose withdrew with a bad back.

Stricker landed in St. Augustine, with a car waiting for him at the airport. A half hour later he was in the PGA Tour’s testing facility for COVID-19. In less than four hours after waking up, he was on the back range at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass waiting for results of his test.

Negative.

And then, with a new caddie on his bag, he shot 2-under-par 70 on a day full of carnage on Pete Dye’s diabolical track to finish in a tie for 12^th.

And then he had to figure out his accommodations.

“I actually didn’t even play or hit a ball Monday or Tuesday at home or back in Naples. I played Bay Hill last week (in the Arnold Palmer Invitational) and that kind of beat me up a little bit, especially on Sunday,” Stricker said. “I just got some rest, played about 14 holes yesterday, didn’t even hit any balls. I played with my wife and so I came here with not a lot of expectations.

“But excited to be here and I know my game is in decent form, so I was excited to come here to a place that I have played a bunch before. The hard part was just trying to get the speed of the greens, the chip shots, how they’re going to roll out, all that kind of stuff. How you play those shots out of the rough.

“That was the hard and challenging part.”

He figured it out quickly. He birdied four consecutive holes on his first nine to get on the first page of the leaderboard. But he made two bogeys in his last 10 holes and didn’t add to his birdie column but all things considered, he was one happy guy when the round ended.

“I made four birdies in a row and I wasn’t trying to get ahead of myself or anything like that,” Stricker said. “I think I just kind of was running out of gas on the other side, just trying to make pars at that point and get it to the house.”

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Among the wreckage, Sergio Garcia sparkles with a 65 to grab lead at Players Championship