In the brief history of the Mitsubishi Electric Classic at TPC Sugarloaf, Germany’s Bernhard Langer has been the tournament’s dominant force.
That comes as no surprise, considering Langer has been the Champions Tour’s top player for almost a decade, finishing either first or second in the Charles Schwab Cup standings every year since 2010 with the exception of one season (2011) when he missed considerable time with an injury.
Langer has 22 Champions Tour victories since his first full season in 2008, including the inaugural event at Sugarloaf in 2013. In the past four years, he has placed second in the tournament three times, most recently in 2017.
Five tournaments into the 2018 schedule, Langer’s name is absent from the list of winners and he is not among the top 10 on the money list. He placed second in the second event of 2018 in south Florida, but in his last three starts has not finished better than 36th, a decidedly un-Langer-like stretch of golf.
Langer will be looking to regain his place at or near the top of the Champions Tour money list when he returns to Duluth for this year’s Mitsubishi Electric Classic, which will be played April 13-15. Langer will be among a strong group of potential contenders for this year’s event at Sugarloaf.
Through the tour’s first five events this season, there have been five different winners, including three players who still compete on the PGA Tour. Jerry Kelly won the season-opening Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, also sponsored by Mitsubishi, with Steve Stricker and Vijay Singh the winners of the two most recent tournaments. Mark Calcavecchia and Joe Durant have scored the other two victories in 2018.
Kelly, Stricker, Durant, and Singh all rank among the top 5 in the early Schwab Cup standings, with David Toms second behind Kelly thanks to four finishes of fifth or better. Stricker and Singh still play most of their golf on the PGA Tour, as does Davis Love, who will be playing in the Heritage on Hilton Head Island, which is annually played the same week as the Champions event at Sugarloaf.
Singh and Langer are among eight Champions Tour members who will be teeing it up in the Masters the week before the over-50 set visit metro Atlanta, seven if Fred Couples is unable to play in Augusta because of his recurring back issues. Also among that list is Jose Maria Olazabal, who along with 2014 Sugarloaf winner Miguel Angel Jimenez, will have a potentially conflicting event the following week. The European Tour stop that week is the Spanish Open, requiring a decision for both Spaniards.
There won’t be any such decision for the three most recent winners at Sugarloaf. Olin Browne, Woody Austin and Stephen Ames will be looking to score their second Mitsubishi Electric victories, with Ames looking to match his outstanding performance last year.
Ames took a slim one-stroke lead over five players into the final round. While none of his five primary challengers could break 70 at Sugarloaf on Sunday, Ames fired a 6-under 66 to wind up with a 4-stroke margin over Langer, who placed second in the tournament for the third time in four years.
When the final round began, 26 players were within five strokes of Ames’ 36 lead, but he broke away from the pack with birdies on four of his first seven holes, capped by a chip-in at the par-4 seventh. No one seriously challenged Ames after that, and he put the tournament away with back-to-back birdies at 13 and 14.
Ames set a tournament scoring record at 15-under 201, with the victory his only title since he joined the Champions Tour in 2014. Ames won four times on the PGA Tour between 2004 and ’09. Both Austin and Browne scored their second Champions victories the previous two years at Sugarloaf, with Austin’s win one of three he scored in a four-tournament stretch.
Jimenez held the previous scoring record with a 202 total, finishing two shots in front of Langer four years ago. Browne was within range of surpassing that mark after playing the first 36 holes in 2015 in 12-under 132, but the final round was washed out with Langer sitting only one stroke off the lead.
Austin scored the lone playoff victory in tournament history, edging out Wes Short in extra holes in 2016.
The Georgia contingent on the Champions Tour is led by the trio of Atlanta’s Billy Andrade, Savannah’s Gene Sauers and Duluth’s Scott Dunlap. Augusta’s Scott Parel will also be competing in the tournament along with Augusta native and Columbus resident Larry Mize, among the former Masters champions playing on the Champions Tour. Marietta’s Larry Nelson continues to play a limited schedule at the age of 70.
Andrade has the only top-10 finish in the tournament by a Georgia resident, tying for eighth in 2016. He was one of the players within one shot of the lead going to the final round last year and was still among the contenders after eight holes. A double bogey at the tough ninth followed by a 3-over 39 on the back nine dropped Andrade from a tie for second to a tie for 18th. He is currently 27th on the money list with a tie for ninth in Tucson his best finish.
Sauers, the 2016 U.S. Senior Open champion, is seventh in earnings thanks to top-10 finishes in the first two tournaments of 2018 and a tie for second in Tucson.
Dunlap, who almost won the PGA Tour stop at Sugarloaf in 2005 after making it into the field in a Monday qualifier, has been a solid performer since joining the Champions Tour in 2014. He is 15th on the money list with a pair of top 10s, sharing second with Sauers in Tucson a few weeks ago.
After a strong showing in 2017, Parel is off to a slower start this season and stands 52nd in earnings. He earned his spot on the tour by finishing first in the finals of Q-school late in 2016, with former Georgia Bulldog Tommy Tolles one of five Q-school qualifiers for the 2018 season,
Tolles is 12th on the money list, contending until a late fade in Tucson dropped him into a tie for ninth, which he followed with a tie for second the next week in Newport Beach, Calif., firing a 65 in the final round to fall one shot short.
Vidalia native Paul Claxton, Tolles’ UGA teammate, has qualified for two Champions Tour events this season, including the tournament in Biloxi, Miss., the last one before the tour plays at Sugarloaf.
Among the other top players in the field is Scott McCarron, a two-time winner at Sugarloaf when the course hosted a PGA Tour stop. Calcavecchia also won the BellSouth Classic at Atlanta Country Club, as did John Daly, Corey Pavin, Bob Tway and Nelson.
Also expected to be in the field is Colin Montgomerie, who will look to join Langer and Jimenez as European winners at Sugarloaf.
The 78 players in the field will take on one of the stronger courses that host a Champions Tour event, with Sugarloaf among the longest courses on tour at almost 7,200 yards. With an exception or two, Sugarloaf is mostly generous off the tee, but the greens typically are on the speedy side with modest amounts of movement.
The strength of the course is its par 4s, five of which play over 440 yards for the Champions Tour pros and are among the most demanding holes on the course, particularly the dangerous ninth, which took out two of Ames’ main contenders last year.
The ninth is one of seven holes with hazards in play, including a pair of risk/reward par 5s (4 and 18), a testy but not overly long par 3 (11)and a stout par 4 that features one of the most demanding approach shots on the course (5).
There are plenty of scoring opportunities beginning with a vulnerable stretch of holes early that include a short par 3 (2), short-ish par 4 requiring considerable precision (3) and a par 5 of modest length with trouble along the way (4).
After the toughest three-hole stretch on the course (7, 8 and 9), Sugarloaf provides more scoring chances to start the back nine with a long but mostly friendly par 5 (10), an over-water par 3 that varies significantly in terms of difficulty depending on wind direction and pin position (11), a par 4 of modest length and challenge (12) and a drivable par 4 with one of the toughest greens to putt on the course (13).
There aren’t many likely birdie chances after that until the scenic, downhill 18th, a terrific risk/reward par-5 finishing hole.
As a development-oriented course with the two nines circling around the property in opposite directions, Sugarloaf is a tough walk for players, caddies and spectators. The stands that flank the 18th green and a sizeable expanse of hillside near it provide ample viewing space for those preferring not to challenge Sugarloaf’s moderately hilly nature with some hikes between greens and tees.