At the Chubb Classic, fiery Stricker looks to answer a hot question: How can he top a monster 2023 campaign?
By Jeff Babineau
NAPLES, Fla. – Steve Stricker is coming off a season so good on the PGA Tour Champions that the numbers around it can make you downright dizzy. In 2023, he finished first on the PGA Tour Champions in victories (six); first in majors won (he collected three); first in birdie average, and one-putt percentage, and birdie-or-better conversion, and scoring ... well, you get the picture.
Stricker teed it up in four senior majors, won three, and was runner-up in a fourth (U.S. Senior Open, played at SentryWorld).
The accolades for Stricker, an elite putter with an elite short game, go on and on. Stricker won last season’s Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs without even needing to compete in them. His father, Bob Stricker, was struggling with health issues back home in Wisconsin, which prevented Stricker from traveling to the Schwab Cup finale in November, where his family had planned to celebrate his great season.
So now there looms a giant question for Stricker to answer as a new season gets rolling: Mainly, how does one who just had the golf year of a lifetime possibly follow it up?
Stricker, who turns 57 later this month, is in Naples this week to compete at the Chubb Classic presented by SERVPRO at Tiburon Golf Club. He always has been known as a gutsy player, and never has lacked fire or desire. So, there is little concern about him being up for his newest challenge.
“You all know him as the nicest guy possible,” said Champions Tour standout Jerry Kelly, who goes back to junior days with Stricker at home in Wisconsin. “Oh, gosh, shy. But you've talked to him in the Ryder Cup situations, and you know how he burns. This game burns in him as hard as anybody, and he's seen the other side where he had those tough years. (Stricker twice won PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year.)
“It put a chip on his shoulder. Hey, I think it's still there because he didn't achieve the major (on the regular tour) that I think he really should have. I still think he should be looked at for Hall of Fame, just the same way he was looked at for the captaincy of the Ryder Cup.”
Stricker, who won 12 times on the PGA Tour, was captain of the winning U.S. Ryder Cup side in the fall of 2021 in his home state. Shortly after, he fell ill, spending two stints in the hospital and losing much of his strength (as well as 25 pounds) as doctors struggled to diagnose the illness. When the Chubb was played in 2022, Stricker, who was the tournament's defending champion, was home, bedridden.
But he rejoined the tour in spring of that year, and he has made up for lost time. In 64 career starts on PGA Tour Champions, Stricker owns 17 victories among the over-50 set. Last year, in addition to winning six times in 16 starts, he was a runner-up five other times. He dominated, seldom failing to finish somewhere around the top. He hates to lose.
“He's basically an animal out there. He really is,” Kelly said. “We are best of friends, like brothers, and you fight hardest against your brother. We want to beat each other so bad.
“But that spurs us because we're truly happy with the other person's success, too. It's a great dynamic. It's really fun. I just wish I had more wins than he did.”
Most Champions Tour players know the sentiment.
As a family, the Strickers, who now spend time in Orlando when those Wisconsin winters grow harsh, are on a nice roll. Nicki, Steve’s wife and frequent caddie, qualified for the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur last fall, and is driven to compete more; oldest daughter Bobbi has embarked on a pro career, playing on the Florida mini-tours; and youngest daughter Izzi is coming off back-to-back high school championships, and soon will play college golf near home at Wisconsin.
Izzi and her dad competed in the PNC Championship in Orlando in December, even playing alongside Tiger and Charlie Woods. One of Stricker’s top highlights in 2023 was winning the KitchenAid PGA Senior in a playoff with Padraig Harrington with Izzi on the bag.
The way Stricker sees it, the way the rest of the family is performing these days, he needs to work hard just to stay up. Stricker didn’t think he’d still be playing this far into his 50s. Yet here he is, and he credits his family for pushing him to do so. He’s enjoying it.
“It’s been a family affair,” Stricker said. “If it wasn’t that way, I don’t know if I’d be out here.”
Stricker headlines a field at Chubb that includes New Zealand’s Steven Alker, the 2022 Player of the Year, who is coming off back-to-back PGA Tour Champions victories – including the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, where Stricker finished third. It includes World Golf Hall of Fame members such as Ernie Els, Fred Couples, Colin Montgomerie and Davis Love III. Love is playing the Chubb for the first time, as is long-hitting John Daly. Harrington is here competing.
A year ago, Bernhard Langer came to Naples in pursuit of history, and he made it when he won the Chubb for the fifth time, tying Hale Irwin’s all-time victory mark (45) among the seniors. (Later in the season, he won No. 46.) At age 66, the timeless Langer was expecting to be gunning for a sixth Chubb victory this week, at a golf course he loves, but tore his Achilles tendon working out, had surgery, and is sidelined indefinitely.
This time, history will have to take a pause; in chasing a sixth victory at the Chubb, Langer again was chasing Irwin, this time trying to tie his mark of six victories in one event. Irwin won at Turtle Bay in Hawaii six times.
Stricker has taken a liking to Tiburon's Black Course in his four previous visits to the Chubb. In addition to winning in 2021, twice he has been a runner-up, including last year.
