Remember "The Ultimate Game"? That high-stakes, buy-in tournament in Las Vegas earlier this year? It got a lot of play this year because it served as the professional debuts for the teenage Finau brothers, Gipper and Tony.
It was a $50,000 buy-in tournament, with $2 million going to the winner. The Ultimate Game had grown out of a previous Las Vegas tournament called The Big Stakes Match Play Golf Tournament, one that had a $100,000 per 2-man team buy-in.
In 2008, The Ultimate Game is returning to a 2-person team format, and it has snagged a very high-profile team: Cristie Kerr and Jim McLean will play as a team - eaching paying $22,500 (the team entry fee is $45,000 now, going up to $50K closer to tournament time) - in the March 6-11 event at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif.
The Ultimate Game this year has a 2-person, best-ball format, with 64 teams and a $2.4 million purse. While the tournament bars golfers who've had fully exempt status within the past five years on the PGA Tour, Nationwide, Champions, European, European Challenge, Japan or Asian tours, it is open to any other male golfers, plus women from any tour, including (obviously) the LPGA Tour.
Kerr, who will play from the same tees as everyone else (as will any other female entrants, should there be any) - says the chance to play with a partner she calls a mentor is what drew her to the event:
"It's not often that I get to play in such a unique format with my longtime mentor and a person who has so greatly influenced my golf game, Jim McLean. Couple that with the fact that it's a chance to play for $1 million, and I can't wait."
McLean, one of the most famous golf instructors, also has some serious playing credentials:
As a player, McLean made the cut in the Masters and qualified for four U.S. Amateurs and two U.S. Opens. He won three college events as an All-American at the University of Houston. Among his more than 50 junior and amateur titles in the Pacific Northwest - he's also a member of the Pacific Northwest Hall of Fame - are the Northwest Open, the Pacific Coast Amateur and three Pacific Northwest Amateur titles. He also won the 1987 Westchester PGA Championship, the 1989 National Skins Game Pro-Am, two Metropolitan PGA Pro-Pro titles and was runner-up at the 1993 Metropolitan PGA Championship, in addition to holding three course records at Doral.
What the state of his game is in 2007 I can't hazard a guess. I believe he's around 55 years old now.
McLean has worked with Kerr since she was 13 years old. He said about Kerr:
"She basically grew up at Doral. We played a lot of six- and nine-hole rounds of golf after work, or during the day in a break. She loved working with the Tour players I taught. When she was at Doral and I had Brad Faxon or Tom Kite at the range, she would invariably get into a contest with them on some sort of shot. All that little stuff helped her become one of the top players in the game."
The Ultimate Game will be televised in primetime on The Golf Channel in 2008. And now it has a hook.
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