The Champions Tour wraps up its 2014 season with the Charles Schwab Cup Championship that starts on Thursday on the Cochise Course at the Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. The course will be the seventh different course in tournament history, but will be played there the next two year.
The tournament is in its 25th year and last year Fred Couples opened with back-to-back rounds of six-under 65, and put the cruise control from there on to win by six strokes over Bernhard Langer, Mark O'Meara and Peter Senior.
A victim of on-going back problems for years, Couples sat out the past five tournaments on the Champions Tour prior to returning on the AT&T Championship last week, where he finished T25. Despite playing in only 10 Champions events this season, Couples is seventh in the Schwab Cup standings.
He returns to defend his title, but other than who will be the winner, there won’t be a lot of drama or mystery this weekend to decide the final prizes and accolades for the season.
Last week Bernhard Langer sealed the season-long Schwab Cup title thanks to the 74 points he earned for his T6 finished last weekend. That gave him an insurmountable 845-point lead over Colin Montgomerie to become the second player since Hale Irwin in 2002 to clinch the season-long Charles Schwab Cup before the season-ending event. With this he earned a $1 million annuity.
Langer’s season has been remarkable with a tour-high five victories— two of them majors —and 17 Top-10 finishes in 20 starts. He has also wrapped up the season money title with $2,916,189, but will be trying to win the season-ending event for the first time after failing to win it on his previous six tries.
Only one player leading the money list heading into this event has captured the title, and that was Hale Irwin in 1998. Irwin has the record for the most consecutive participations with 13 from 1995-2007.
Only the Top 30 players on the money list are active this weekend, and among them are there are 11 first-timers in the field - Billy Andrade, Woody Austin, Mark Brooks, Marco Dawson, Scott Dunlap, Joe Durant, Doug Garwood, Paul Goydos, Jeff Maggert, Montgomerie and Wes Short Jr.
Although this is the final regular-season event, the Champions Tour continues action November 20-23 with the Champions Tour Q-School, where Short Jr. was the medalist last year.
Charles Schwab Cup Championship
Venue: Cochise Course at the Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale, Arizona
Date: Oct 30 – Nov 2
Course Stats: par 70, 6,929 yards
Purse: $2,500,000 Winner's Share: $440,000
Defending Champion: Fred Couples (-17, 267)
Television Coverage: Golf Channel (Thursday-Saturday, 4:30-7 p.m., 7:30-10 p.m.; Sunday, 3:30-6 p.m., 7-9:30 p.m.).