ORLANDO, Fla. — Gary Player is a big believer that one can’t go through life without love. Even at age 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 until 100. Now if I live to 91, I’ll be happy,” Player said with a laugh. “Isn’t that amazing that at 89 you can find a girlfriend? She loves everything I love — golf, fishing, gym work, reading, opera, everything.”
Her name is Susan Waterfall, she lives in New York and she’s 83. Player’s wife, Vivienne, died in 2021. They had been married for 64 years.
Player said he wasn’t searching. Friends approached him during a fundraiser at Leopard Creek in 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. Then he was invited to be an honorary member for a new golf course in Miami, where memberships go for about $1.3 million.
“I’m 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 gorgeous — and I said, ‘I love this country, America, so much. I’ve got to have an American girlfriend.’ She blushes, doesn’t say anything. So I said, ‘Will you come to dinner with me?’”
He called her two days later in New York — he says she stepped out of a board meeting to take his call — and they headed 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 also rich. You don’t need my money. But if you die before me, you can leave me a little.’”
Stick to the script
Nelly Korda is celebrating part of Christmas a little early because younger brother Sebastian is headed Down Under for the Australian Open tennis tournament. And then she’s off to the mountains for a little ... dog sledding?
“I’m very excited for that, something I’ve never done,” Korda said. “I love the mountains, I love snow and so I’m super excited for that to recharge my batteries. I skied as a kid, but I do not ski now. I’m already fragile enough.”
The real recharging of batteries follows the start of the year.
Korda found a recipe that worked during her epic season of seven victories that led to being LPGA player of the year. She played twice in Florida (winning 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 Asia swing again and won’t return until the West Coast.
Hype and reality
The Crypto.com Showdown had everything, except for a lot of people watching.
The made-for-TV match at Shadow Creek brought PGA Tour stars Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy against LIV Golf stars Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. It was under the lights at 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 only 625,000 viewers across two networks on TNT and TBS on a Tuesday night.
Sports Business Journal said that put it as the second-lowest viewership for “The Match” series.
One of those viewers was Fred Couples, but not until the fifth hole.
“I did not know it was on,” Couples said. He only realized it when his longtime caddie, Joe LaCava, sent him a text and “I don’t even need to say what the text about.”
“It was pitch dark and freezing. Now, I don’t know why they would do that, to play a match that big. ... But I thought it was fun,” Couples said. “I just ... we just didn’t get the pitch dark. It was just weird.”
Still to be announced is what kind of rating the PNC Championship had during NFL Sunday.
PGA Tour executive Ron Price retires
Ron Price had the unique distinction of working with three PGA Tour commissioners and even briefly serving as one himself. Price announced to the Tour staff last week he is retiring at the end of the year.
He leaves as the chief operating officer, having previously been the chief financial officer. He had a hand in most financial matters, whether it was the FedExCup bonus program or the new player equity plan.
But he was unknown outside Tour headquarters for the majority of his career, until he found himself under the brightest of spotlights.
Price was co-commissioner for five weeks when Jay Monahan stepped away for health reasons after announcing the shock deal on June 6, 2023, with the Saudi-backers of LIV Golf. It was Price, along with board member Jimmy Dunne, who was summoned to Washington for a congressional hearing.
Price worked at Ernst & Young when he was an advisor to former Commissioner Deane Beman. He served under Tim Finchem for 22 years and then Monahan when he took over in 2017.
Charity Cases
There’s no better time than the holidays to release charity donations from various tournaments, and the Western Golf Association dropped a big one. The 125-year-old WGA, which runs the BMW Championship, said the tournament at Castle Pines in Colorado raised a record $10.2 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation.
The BMW Championship has raised its profile since going back to its WGA roots and moving around outside its Chicago headquarters. Next year it returns to Caves Valley outside Baltimore.
The Wells Fargo Championship in its final year as title sponsor raised $5.9 million for charity donations from the tournament and from previous net reserves. The tournament has raised more than $36 million dating to its inaugural year in 2003.
The tournament has a new title sponsor in Truist starting in 2025 and will move to the Philadelphia Cricket Club for one year because Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina, is hosting the PGA Championship for the second time.
Divots
The PNC Championship not only had a great finish, it had an even better start. The tournament announced Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank has extended its contract as title sponsor through 2032. ... The Epson Tour has announced a 20-tournament schedule for 2025 that includes three new tournaments and total prize money 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 made nearly $4.5 million — back when $4.5 million meant something — in 11 appearances. ... The TMRW Golf League that starts next month is going worldwide before a shot has been struck into the monstrous screen in SoFi Center. It has agreements for Canal+ to show matches live in France and sub-Saharan Africa, while Disney+ has secured rights to show them exclusively in the five Nordic countries. Both deals are through 2026.
Stat of the week
Ten of the 20 professionals in the PNC Championship have been No. 1 in the world.
Final word
“I don’t try to compare my seasons. It’s very easy to do that. I’m super proud of myself and my entire team of what we accomplished this year and what we went through, but next year I always look at as a clean slate and I’m hungry for more.” — Nelly Korda.
