As I milled around the interview room at the 2023 US Senior Open, which just wrapped up at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, I heard the same refrain from nearly every player:
“This is a U.S. Open challenge. We’re just putting ‘Senior’ in front of it.”
Brett Quigley, whose final round 66 (-5) vaulted him to a T4, was asked if the 1982 Robert Trent Jones, Jr. course (which has been renovated twice by Jones himself) could host a U.S. Open – ignoring the remote location and lack of local infrastructure. “Definitely. There’s more room behind where we were playing. It’s as good as any U.S. Open course I’ve played.”
Clear evidence for this assertion could be found on Day 2, when the scoring average on every hole was above par. And Day 2 scoring was about a stroke better overall than Day 1.
The cool thing about the U.S. Senior Open is that the fields are so diverse. Fans get to see true legends of the game – World Golf Hall of Famers like Mark O’Meara, Ernie Els, Bernhard Langer, Vijay Singh, and Padraig Harrington – along with worldwide golf icons like Miguel Angel Jiménez, Y.E. Yang, and Darren Clarke. And then about half the field is guys you’ve probably never heard of who qualified, including a handful of amateur graybeards living every older weekend warrior’s dream.
The amazing thing is that even though some of the big names don’t make the cut, a respectable number of the latter categories do, even at a brutish test like SentryWorld. It just goes to show you how dang good these players are.
Take Mike Small, Head Men’s Golf Coach at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His teams have won the Big Ten title 13 of the past 14 years, and qualified for NCAA Team Matchplay several times. His former players can be found on pro tours all around the world, including the PGA Tour. His former college teammate is Wisconsin native and 2023 Ryder Cup Captain Steve Stricker – the two played together at Illinois. Small ended Day 1 on the front page of the leaderboard at -1. A 78 (+7) on Day 2 still left him inside the cut line.
What’s making SentryWorld – one of Wisconsin’s original “destination” daily fee courses – so rough? Well…the rough, for one thing. But that’s not all.
Two-time Masters Champion Bernhard Langer explained on the second day why the scores were so high like this: “Obviously, there’s the rough, but there’s a lot of water in play. Then you have the greens that are quite severe at times too. Four or five of them are really firm. And the undulation. They hide the pins behind knobs and behind bunkers. That’s the U.S. Open … well, every week really. It’s vital to come from the fairway and control your distance and control your spin, and the rough is just extremely tough to play out of.”
Langer’s assessment of the course can be believed: He’s won 45 Champions Tour events, including 12 Senior majors. At 65, he would be the oldest player to win a Senior major by seven years. Although he’s not as long as most out here, he can hit a green with a hybrid as easily as most can with a mid-iron.
At the end of Day 3, there were a grand total of five players under par. Just two were Americans, both from Wisconsin: Jerry Kelly (-4) and Steve Stricker (-3). They both birdied 18 for a nearly storybook end to the round.
“We couldn’t have scripted it any better,” said Kelly. “Well, we both could have been in the final group, I guess.”
So the question was: Would Day 4 turn out to be a Hollywood ending no one would believe if it were a script? Or would it be thwarted by a taciturn German (who really is a nice, engaging guy and a legitimate legend of the sport)? And of course, some other contender might rise to the top in a totally unexpected plot-twist. Twelve players began the day within 8 strokes of the lead, including four PGA Tour major winners.
The sun rose on Day 4 bright and hopeful, the northern air redolent with pine and the thousands of flowers surrounding Robert Trent Jones, Jr.’s “Mona Lisa” – the 16th Hole (a.k.a. The Flower Hole).
In the second group out, Coach Small repeated his respectable Day 1 score with another -1. His caddie said, “He found something out on the course. He pured every shot on the last eight holes. He shot as high as he could have, really.” The caddie of Tom Lehman, Small’s playing partner for the day, agreed. “[Small] nearly rolled in a half-dozen more putts.”
So low scores were out there. Would the leader – or pursuers – find the magic like Small did? Langer seemed to find it right out of the gate, with an easy birdie on Hole 1 and an improbably long birdie putt on Hole 2, while Stricker went par-par, and Kelly par-bogey.
But it was on the par-5 5th hole where Langer all but laid claim to the title. His second shot came up just short, in the mud of the lake fronting the green. He walked up, assessed the ball, and proceeded to remove both shoes, roll up his slacks, and splash his third to about five feet. Of course, he made the birdie, for a five-shot lead over Kelly.
Coming down the stretch, though, the ageless marvel showed a few hints of mortality. Bogeys on 16 and 17, combined with a Stricker birdie on 17, left Langer with a 3-shot lead standing on the 10th tee. Up ahead, Stricker had a putt from the back fringe to put on even more pressure, but his birdie putt came up a little right and short. This half of the home-state hero duo ended up at -5.
The stage was thus set for Langer to take his 13th Senior Major title, along with the all-time Champions Tour win title, for which he’d previously been tied with Hale Irwin. Langer’s approach ended in the right fringe – by design. “18 was a bogey on purpose. No way was I going left, where all the trouble is.” Langer marched up to the elevated 18th green, stopping half-way and waiting for Kelly – a classy move for a tournament winner (it’s usually the vanquished who pay their respects to the victors).
Langer, again, played conservative to secure the win. “I told my caddie I would be leaving the putt from the fringe 20 feet short to two putt from there.” And that’s what he did.
After the round, Kelly was visibly disappointed, with so many friends and his mother on hand watching. But he was sanguine about the third-place finish: “Langer wins. Stricker beats me. What’s new?”
More seriously, Kelly applauded Langer: “It was incredible to have a front row seat to [Langer’s wins number] 45 and 46. And Bernhard’s a really good friend of mine.”
As for his post-victory opinion of the course, Langer said, “It’s one of the best courses I’ve ever played.”
Regarding the win – which gives him more wins than anyone on the Champions Tour and more Senior Majors than anyone, Langer said, “This one is right up there. My two Masters wins probably rank ahead of it. But having more Senior Majors than Nicklaus, or Trevino, or Player – this is very special.”
Special win. Special course. Special week in Wisconsin’s north woods. A “senior moment” worth remembering.
Midwestern Golf 