The Turkish Airlines World Golf Final is being played this week in Turkey with 8 of the best players in the world. As an unsanctioned event, those players had to get permission to compete because there are scheduled events being played on both the PGA TOUR and the European Tour. While there is no doubt that those tours are being hurt by having their top players compete in an unsanctioned event, at the same time the tours cannot simply stop them from playing because if they do, it is possible that those top players will leave the tours. If top players leave the tours over one or two events, the impact on the tours would be devastating.
Bernhard Langer earned his 16th career Champions Tour win on Sunday. A year ago, he missed a significant amount of time on tour due to a thumb injury but he has come back strong. Langer was at Medinah for the Ryder Cup and he advised Martin Kaymer before he ended up winning the key point for Europe and it is possible that Langer arrived in Cary, NC feeling inspired by Kaymer’s performance in the Ryder Cup.
Justin Timberlake has been involved with the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open but they are parting ways after five years. Tournament organizers felt that Timberlake could have done more to increase the quality of the field and he could have done more to spend time with the kids of the Shriners Hospitals. Las Vegas is the perfect place to have a celebrity host but it is uncertain whether or not the tournament will bring on a new celebrity. Years ago, numerous tournaments had ties to celebrities like Bob Hope, Andy Williams, and Glen Campbell but that is not the case anymore.