Big Golf News - Tiger Woods And Rory McIlroy Headline New International Tournament
Breaking news - the biggest golf news in a year that has seen the postponement of both the Olympics and the Ryder Cup.
Today, Tiger Woods and the Big Cedar Lodge resort announced an all new international competition, the Payne’s Valley Cup, a Europe vs. USA team match pitting Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas against Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose. All four are Major winners.Woods and McIlroy are easily golf’s biggest stars, with 19 Major championships between them, while Thomas is currently ranked the third best player in the world, second in the FedEx Cup standing, has already won three times this year, is a past World Number One, and one of the only players to ever shoot 59. Rose is currently ranked number eighteen in the world, has been Number One in the FedEx Cup, has amassed nearly two dozen victories including the US Open and over $54 million in career earnings, and is the only current PGA Tour player to have won on all six continents where tournaments are held. Most importantly for this event, Rose is the current defending Olympic Gold Medalist.
The Payne’s Valley Cup is being played on September 22, 2020 - three days before the now postponed Ryder Cup was scheduled to begin. It is being contested on its namesake course, Payne’s Valley, the first public access course in the country designed by Tiger Woods and his TGR Design firm, and the only course of his at any full service resort in the world. Payne’s Valley is one of five courses at the Big Cedar Lodge resort in the heart of Missouri’s Ozarks, and the course in turn is named to honor the late local golf legend and Ozarks’ native Payne Stewart. The event is a charity tournament, with proceeds benefiting the Payne Stewart Family Foundation
This event marks the official grand opening of the course, but Payne’s Valley has been available for 14 holes of preview play for several months, and before that, I was one of the very first journalists to visit and preview the layout, which I wrote about here at Forbes. While many top professional players turned designer struggled early on to grasp how regular golfers play and enjoy the sport, Woods had no such problem, and the course is simply awesome. You can read more in my earlier analysis, but it is extremely playable, not penal, beautiful and seriously fun, sure to bring a smile to every players’ face, yet with enough risk/reward options and length from the back tees to still challenge the best golfers. Payne’s Valley is a unique 19-hole layout filled with dramatic water features including an island green and has an unforgettable finish where golfers must journey through a natural cave system to return to the clubhouse.