The final stage of the 2023 PGA Tour Champions Qualifying Tournament is this week at TPC Scottsdale.
The Champions course will host 78 players in four rounds concluding on Friday. The field includes a major champion and an NCAA champion.
In all, five players will earn their 2023 tour cards and be fully exempt into the 16 open, full-field PGA Tour Champions events (which do not include the majors).
Those who finish in spots six through 30 and ties are eligible to apply for PGA Tour Champions Associate Membership, which allows them the chance to enter 2023 event qualifiers.
There are 78 different stories in Scottsdale this week. Here are a few of the interesting ones.
Brandel Chamblee
Chamblee, 60, has one PGA Tour win on his resume, the 1998 Greater Vancouver Open. The Golf Channel analyst made 188 cuts in 370 PGA Tour outings, with his last event being the 2008 Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He made $4,018,410 in his Tour career. Chamblee has played in six PGA Tour Champions events but none since 2019.
Todd Demsey
Todd Demsey, who turned 50 last summer, was a two-time First Team All-American at Arizona State and won the 1993 individual NCAA championship. A teammate of Phil Mickelson, Demsey was a PGA Tour rookie in 1997. In 1998, he won three state opens (Arizona, Utah, California) but got bit by the injury bug in 2001. He competed on the then-Buy.com Tour in 2002. In 2003, he had a pair of surgeries to remove parts of a brain tumor.
Jonathan Kaye
Jonathan Kaye, 52, was a two-time winner on the PGA Tour (2003 Buick Open, 2004 FBR Open) and won more than $10.5 million in on-course earnings. The former CU Buffalo has played five times on the Champions tour since becoming eligible.
Bob May
Bob May is perhaps best known for pushing Tiger Woods to the brink at the 2000 PGA Championship. None other than Ken Venturi and Jim Nantz dubbed it one of the best head-to-head duels ever.
May, 53, qualified for the Los Angeles Open when he was 16. Back problems became such an issue, he was off the PGA Tour in 2010. He has one professional victory, the Victor Chandler British Masters in 1999.
He has appeared in nine PGA Tour Champions events, with his best finish a tie for 17th at the 2020 Sanford International.
Shaun Micheel
Shaun Micheel, 53, won his only PGA Tour title at the 2003 PGA Championship at Oak Hill. Nowadays, he’s the golf coach at Butler in Indianapolis.
He played four PGA Tour Champions events in 2022, including two majors. In 24 senior circuit appearances he has two top-10 finishes.
Tim O’Neal
After turning 50 in August, Tim O’Neal received the first-ever exemption for an APGA Tour player into a PGA Tour Champions event at the Ascension Charity Classic at Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis.
O’Neal has played eight PGA Tour events, his most recent at the 2021 Rocket Mortgage Classic. He played two Champions events in 2022, posting a tie for 19th at the Pure Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach.
His biggest achievements have come on the APGA Tour, where he won nine times. O’Neal is the only Black player to have won both the Georgia Amateur and Georgia State Open.
Omar Uresti
Omar Uresti has played in eight Champions events over the last four seasons. The 54-year-old turned pro in 1991 and has made 385 PGA Tour starts and 210 Korn Ferry Tour starts. He has two KFT wins and has three worldwide wins in all, but he never found the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour.
He’s won the PGA Professional Championship twice, victories that earned him a spot in the PGA Championship.
