Brian Gay prepares for Champions Tour debut

Brian Gay, 50, will make his PGA TOUR Champions debut Friday at the Chubb Classic in Naples, Florida.

After that, he can’t say what the rest of his schedule will be for 2022 because he honestly doesn’t know.

“It’s a daily thing … multiple times a day I hear, ‘You’re 50, what are you gonna do?’ It’s a bit of a distraction,” Gay said this week. “I need to focus. I have too many options is probably the problem right now.”

It’s not the worst problem to have. Gay won on the PGA TOUR at the age of 48, at the Bermuda Championship on Nov. 1, 2020. That event was part of the 2020-21 season and gave the former University of Florida star fully exempt status on PGA TOUR through the 2022-23 season. He was the oldest player to win a PGA TOUR event since Davis Love III in 2015.

“I still feel like I wanna stay with the regular TOUR, but living in Florida, well, I’ll go play Naples and check out the scene and see what I think about it,” Gay said of the Chubb Classic. “A lot of guys … I’m in a good spot. I can pick and choose, do either one. A lot of guys don’t stay on TOUR till they’re 50 and they’re itching to go on the Champions Tour. I’m kinda eager to see what it’s all about.”

Gay practices out of the Isleworth Golf and Country Clubs in the greater Orlando area, and thus leaned on a couple of other pros who practice there for advice about PGA TOUR Champions, namely Lee Janzen and Scott Hoch.

They’ve told Gay he’ll enjoy playing with the older competitors, that it still requires great golf to be atop the leaderboard but the vibe is more chill.

“They all seem to love it,” Gay said.

Gay, a five-time winner on the PGA TOUR, hasn’t gotten off to a great start this season. He has made only three cuts in 10 events, with his best finish a T12 in defense of his title in Bermuda. In fact, before his win in Bermuda in 2020 his last top 10 on TOUR was … at Bermuda in 2019. He tied for third.

Maybe Gay will find out he’s better off full time on PGA TOUR Champions. But it’s not a decision he has to make anytime soon. He said he’ll pick and choose which events he wants to play on each tour this season. But he did note some of the Champions Tour events in which he would have played, including a few contested at venues that used to be part of the PGA TOUR schedule, conflict with some of his favorite PGA TOUR events.

“After Naples I probably won’t play on the Champions Tour again until the new event in Dallas,” Gay said in reference to the ClubCorp Classic April 22-24 at Las Colinas. “ClubCorp is a former sponsor of mine, and that’s the week of New Orleans our team event (the Zurich Classic on the PGA TOUR). So I thought I’d play Dallas.”

Gay mentioned he already had received an invite to the Senior PGA Championship, and he said he probably would play another major or two on the Champions Tour. Besides playing in favorite events on the PGA TOUR, his results on each tour largely will determine the remainder of his schedule.

Gay enters the Chubb not feeling particularly good about his game other than his putting. He said he

putted “great” at the WM Phoenix Open last week but some wayward drives and poor iron play led to another missed cut.

“Steve Stricker told me a year, year and a half ago, he told me it’s too hard to go back and forth (playing PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions events) because then you’re just half-assing both tours. And I believe that,” Gay said. “I don’t think I can play at a high enough level to play half a schedule trying to beat these young guys still. I don’t know if I can pull that off.

“You don’t wanna waste these first few years after you turn 50 because they can be your best years out there. You don’t wanna wait too long.”