Alker with perhaps his most important win thus far – the Senior PGA – photo Montana Pritchard PGA of America
The final event of the 2022 PGA Tour Champions Tour will be played this week when the Charles Schwab Cup Championship is staged in Phoenix in Arizona with the leading 33 available players from the Charles Schwab table to compete over 72 holes.
New Zealand’s Steve Alker has a lead of 618 points over Padraig Harrington, Harrington needing to win the event and Alker to finish worse than solo 6th for Alker to lose the lead he has enjoyed for most of the year in the season long race.
In this final event of the season each dollar earned in this US$2.5 million event converts to two Charles Schwab points and so with a first prize of US$440,000 the remote possibility of Alker being toppled still exists.
There are other scenarios which could also see Alker lose the Cup if Harrington wins but they would require multiple players sharing positions between 2nd and 5th and the likelihood of it happening are possible but hardly probable.
If Harrington is not able to win this week then only Alker can take the title in what has been his first full season on the PGA Tour Champions, having joined as a Monday qualifier in August of 2021.
Alker has won four events and been four times runner-up while Harrington has won on three occasions and been three times runner-up this season so they have been going hammer and tongs for much of the season with Alker in front for most of it.
Rod Pampling is the only Australian in the field and while his season has been overshadowed by Alker, his effort to finish 17th in the standings this season and again retain his status for the PGA Tour Champions cannot be underestimated.
