ORLANDO, Fla. – Gary Player is a big believer that you can’t go through life without love. Even at 89, he’s never too old to find it. Player happily shared his big news at the PNC Championship.
He has a new girlfriend.
“I said I wanted to live to 100. Now if I live to be 91, I’ll be happy,” Player said with a laugh. “Isn’t it great that you can find a girlfriend at 89? She loves everything I love: golf, fishing, gym, reading, opera, everything.”
Her name is Susan Waterfall, she lives in New York and is 83. Player’s wife, Vivienne, died in 2021. They were married for 64 years.
Player said he wasn’t looking. Friends approached him at a fundraiser in Leopard Creek, South Africa, about a woman he should meet. It never happened. He was in New York for a golf course design when someone else brought up her name. Again, they never connected. He was then invited to become an honorary member of a new golf course in Miami, where membership costs about $1.3 million.
“I’m standing on the putting green and this lady comes up and says, ‘I’m Susan Waterfall. Everyone has been trying to introduce us,” Player said. “I put my arm around her – she’s beautiful – and I said, ‘I love this country, America, so much. I must have an American girlfriend.’ She blushes, says nothing. So I said, ‘Will you come and eat with me?’
He called her in New York two days later – he says she left a board meeting to take his call – and they went to Gleneagles in Scotland to go fishing.
“She’s very rich,” he said. “I said, ‘Listen, Susan, I don’t need your money. I’m rich too. You don’t need my money. But if you die before me, you can leave me behind a little. ”
Stick to the script
Nelly Korda is celebrating part of Christmas a little early because younger brother Sebastian is heading Down Under for the Australian Open tennis tournament. And then she goes to the mountains for some… dog sledding?
“I’m really excited about that, something I’ve never done before,” Korda said. “I love the mountains, I love snow and that’s why I’m super excited about that to recharge my batteries. I used to ski as a kid, but I don’t ski anymore. I’m already vulnerable enough.”
The actual charging of the batteries will follow early this year.
Korda found a recipe that worked during her epic seven-win season that led to being named LPGA Player of the Year. She played twice in Florida (won the second event) at the start, sat out a month during the first Asia swing, returned and won her next four starts.
She said she would skip the early Asian swing again and only return to the West Coast.
Hype and reality
The Crypto.com Showdown had everything, except a lot of people watching.
The made-for-TV match at Shadow Creek pitted PGA Tour stars Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy against LIV Golf stars Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. It was under the lights of Shadow Creek in Las Vegas. It was billed as the PGA Tour vs. LIV, just what golf fans wanted.
But according to Sports Business Journal, the 16-hole match (Scheffler and McIlroy won handily) drew just 625,000 viewers across two networks on TNT and TBS on Tuesday night.
Sports Business Journal said it was the second-lowest viewership for the series “The Match.”
One of those viewers was Fred Couples, but not until the fifth hole.
“I didn’t know it was on,” Couples said. He didn’t realize it until his old caddy, Joe LaCava, texted him and, “I don’t even have to say what the text is about.”
“It was pitch black and freezing. Now I don’t know why they would do that, to play such a big game. … But I liked it,” Couples said. “I just…we just couldn’t get pitch black. It was just weird.”
What kind of rating the PNC Championship had on NFL Sunday has yet to be announced.
PGA Tour director Ron Price is retiring
Ron Price had the unique honor of working with three PGA Tour commissioners and even briefly serving as one. Price announced to the Tour staff last week that he will retire at the end of the year.
He leaves as Chief Operating Officer, after previously serving as Chief Financial Officer. He was involved in most of the financial matters, whether it was the FedExCup bonus program or the new player stock plan.
But he was unknown outside Tour headquarters for most of his career, until he found himself thrust into the brightest spotlight.
Price served as co-commissioner for five weeks when Jay Monahan resigned for health reasons after announcing the shock deal with LIV Golf’s Saudi backers on June 6, 2023. It was Price, along with board member Jimmy Dunne, who were summoned to Washington for a congressional hearing.
Price worked at Ernst & Young when he was an advisor to former commissioner Deane Beman. He served for 22 years under Tim Finchem and then under Monahan when he took over in 2017.
Charity matters
There’s no better time than the holidays to release charitable donations from various tournaments, and the Western Golf Association has dropped a big one. The 125-year-old WGA, which runs the BMW Championship, said the tournament at Castle Pines, Colorado, raised a record $10.2 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation.
The BMW Championship has increased its profile since returning to its WGA roots and moving away from its Chicago headquarters. Next year it returns to Caves Valley outside Baltimore.
The Wells Fargo Championship has raised $5.9 million in charitable donations from the tournament and from previous net reserves in its final year as title sponsor. The tournament has raised more than $36 million since its first year in 2003.
The tournament will have a new title sponsor in Truist starting in 2025 and will move to the Philadelphia Cricket Club for a year as Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina, hosts the PGA Championship for the second time.
Divots
The PNC Championship not only had a great finish, but an even better start. The announced tournament Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank has extended its contract as title sponsor through 2032. … The Epson Tour has announced a 20-tournament schedule for 2025, including three new tournaments and a total prize pool of $5 million. … Fred Couples says he has been asked to introduce players on the first tee when the Skins Game returns next year on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Couples was known as “Mr. Skins” during the event’s peak years. Couples earned nearly $4.5 million – back when $4.5 million still meant something – in eleven performances. …The TMRW Golf League, which kicks off next month, will travel around the world before a shot is fired into the monstrous screen at SoFi Center. It has deals for Canal+ to broadcast matches live in France and sub-Saharan Africa, while Disney+ has acquired the rights to show them exclusively in the five Nordic countries. Both deals run until 2026.
Statistic of the week
Ten of the twenty professionals in the PNC Championship have been No. 1 in the world.
Last word
“I try not to compare my seasons. It’s very easy to do that. I am very proud of myself and my entire team for what we have achieved this year and what we have experienced, but next year I always look at it as a clean slate and I am hungry for more.” – Nelly Korda.
