Arizona hosting WM Phoenix Open, Super Bowl for the fourth time. Count Jordan Spieth among those looking to do both
Sports worlds will collide on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023, when the final round of the WM Phoenix Open concludes less than an hour before kickoff to Super Bowl 57.
Golf in Scottsdale, then football in Glendale, about 30 miles away.
That doesn’t give much time for anyone at TPC Scottsdale to make it across town, but there will be plenty of fans – and probably quite a few pro golfers – who will give it a go.
So what about tickets? Surely Pat Williams, the 2023 WM Phoenix Open tournament director, is getting bombarded with Super Bowl ticket requests from players.
“It’s interesting. It’s felt like this year it’s the reverse,” he said. “All these players want to be playing on Sunday and hopefully in the final group. … the last putt will drop 30 minutes before the kickoff and I think these players want to plan to be playing on Sunday. So we actually haven’t had a lot of player requests for Super Bowl tickets.
“What we have had is a lot of people, whether it’s the NFL themselves or executives, you know, corporate companies coming out for the Super Bowl that have requested to be here [at the Open].
“Interestingly, the Eagles were one of those teams that requested tickets and maybe they knew something long before everybody else about how good their football team was going to be because they’re going to have people out here on Saturday at the tournament.”
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In 2015, the last time the Phoenix area pulled off the double dip, Jordan Spieth was one of those who watched the Super Bowl in person after being at TPC Scottsdale. He had his best score of the week that Sunday, shooting a final-round 65 to tie for seventh before hustling across town.
“Did it in 2015 when it was there. I went with [caddie] Michael [Greller]. It was the Seahawks-Patriots, and Michael is a big Seahawks fan, and that’s when they threw it instead of handing it to [Marshawn] Lynch on fourth down,” Spieth recalled when asked at the Sony Open in Hawaii earlier this month. “I’ve been a Tom Brady guy, him being an Under Armour guy, and so I was on the good end and Michael was not. It was just us two who went to the game, sitting together.”
The Arizona Super Bowls have definitely been memorable. In 1996, Larry Brown picked off two passes to lead the Dallas Cowboys past the Pittsburgh Steelers the day after Phil Mickelson outlasted Justin Leonard in a playoff in a Saturday finish.
Phil Mickelson rides with his wife Amy back to the 18th green after defeating Justin Leonard in a three-hole playoff to win the 1996 Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo: Simon P. Barnett/Allsport)
In 2008, after J.B. Holmes defeated Mickelson in a playoff, David Tyree made a memorable catch against his helmet to help the New York Giants stun the New England Patriots, ending their perfect season.
The 2015 game, though, was talked about for a long time because of how it finished.
“It was a wild ending. It was good. It was fun. Certainly made the Phoenix Open crazier than it is,” Spieth said, adding that he’s probably going to go once again to the football game after the golf tournament ends.
“I would say more than 50 percent chance.”
