Wagnabbit: In 2003, Senior PGA golfers evolved into ‘Champions’

Wednesday, May 27, 2026

In 2003, Senior PGA golfers evolved into ‘Champions’

Effective in 2003, professional golf’s Senior PGA Tour was rebranded, becoming the “Champions Tour,” a move that was calculated to “freshen its image.”

The name was tweaked a bit in 2016 to “PGA Tour Champions”…and a three-tournament playoff system was introduced, similar to that used by the regular PGA Tour for its FedEx Cup.

Named the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, it continued Schwab’s association with the season-ending tournament for PGA Tour Champions, which had been established in 1990.

(The Charles Schwab Corporation is a multinational financial services company, offering banking, investment counseling and wealth management services to an array of clients.)

What hasn’t changed is that players become eligible to participate in Champions circuit events on their 50th birthday.

Some “names” who made their debut on the Champions tour in 2026 are Ian Poulter, Zach Johnson, Ben Crane, Vaughn Taylor, Jason Dufner and Henrik Stenson.

Johnson made a big splash, winning his first event on the Champions tour.

He won 12 tournaments on the regular PGA Tour, including two majors – the Masters (2007) and The Open (2015) played at the Old Course at St Andrews Links in Fife, Scotland.

Those with 50th birthdays coming up later this year include Ben Curtis, Geoff Ogilvy, Ryan Palmer, Luke Donald and Charley Hoffman.

Once again, one of the tour stops is in North Carolina. The SAS Championship will be played Oct. 18-20 at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, offering a total purse of $2.1 million.

Alex Čejka, 55, is the defending champion. Born in Czechoslovakia, he left the country with his parents as a refugee at the age of 9 and grew up in Munich, Germany.

The SAS Championship is the last tournament on the schedule prior to the Schwab Cup playoffs, so the caliber of the field should be superb.

The premier senior golfer of all-time is Bernhard Langer, 68, of Anhausen, a village in Bavaria, Germany. He now resides in Boca Raton, Fla.

Langer has won an incredible 47 PGA Seniors/Champions tour events since turning 50. His prize money earnings are approaching $38.5 million, and he is still competing in tournaments.

Langer has won the Schwab Cup a record six times. (He is also a two-time Masters winner, donning the “green jacket” in 1985 and 1993.)

In second place among the Seniors/Champions all-time tournament winners is Hale Irwin, 80, of Joplin, Mo. He won 45 titles and pocketed nearly $27.2 million in prize money between 1995-2007. He tells people his golf game is now in a “semi-retirement stage.”

In his younger days, Irwin won 20 PGA Tour titles, including three U.S. Opens (1974, 1979 and 1990).

Third in line is Lee Trevino, 86, of Garland, Texas. He collected 29 Seniors/Champions trophies between 1990-2000, which translated into about $9.9 million in prize money.

Trevino also won 29 times on the PGA Tour, including six majors. He won the U.S. Open in 1968 and 1971, The Open in 1971 and 1972 and PGA Championships in 1974 and 1984. (In four of those tournaments, Jack Nicklaus was runner-up.)

At the top of the Schwab Cup rankings so far in 2026 is Stewart Cink, 52, of Huntsville, Ala. He is the defending Schwab Cup champion, and he has already tallied four wins this season.

While competing on the PGA Tour, Cink registered eight victories, including a major. He won The Open in 2009, played at the Turnberry Resort in Ayrshire, Scotland.

Other PGA Tour Champions who are “making noise” in 2026 and loom as challengers to Cink’s supremacy are David Toms, Steven Alker, Retief Goosen, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington as well as “rookies” Johnson and Crane.