Let the battle begin: Gene Elliott, Ken Kinkopf captain this week’s Golfweek Senior Challenge Cup
At the Golfweek Senior Challenge Cup, there’s a tournament within a tournament. Players teeing it up at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, this week land on one of two teams: the one captained by Gene Elliott or the opposing team captained by Ken Kinkopf.
Of course, neither man is a bad choice to lead, given their golf resumes. Elliott is the No. 1-ranked senior amateur in the world and Kinkopf was named the 2019 Golfweek Player of the Year.
In dividing the field into teams, each captain got to make his 10 captain’s picks. The rest of each team was filled by blind draw (if not for COVID, teams would have been filled out in a pairings party). Each team’s score will be made up of the low 25 percent of that team’s individuals scores.
Pairings: Golfweek Senior Challenge Cup
As usual, there are four divisions in which players are competing at the Senior Challenge Cup: Senior (55-64), Super Senior (65-69), Legends (70-74), Super Legends (75+). They are loaded with top senior amateur talent.
At the top of the list, of course, are Elliott and Kinkopf. Elliott was runner-up at the British Senior Amateur and won the Canadian Senior Amateur in 2019. He just won his fifth Iowa Senior Amateur title. Kinkopf racked up several senior victories last season, including the Golfweek Player of the Year Classic, Senior Masters and Jack Hesler titles.
Reigning U.S. Senior Amateur champion Bob Royak will play, as well as Doug Hanzel, the 2013 U.S. Senior Amateur winner who also won the Jones Cup Senior and the Florida Senior Azalea in 2019.
Craig Hurlbert is currently the No. 1-ranked player in the Golfweek Senior National Rankings. Dan Parkinson remains in South Florida this week after winning the super senior division of last week’s the Golfweek U.S. Super Senior, Legends, and Super Legends National Championship.
In addition to the team challenge, there is an important individual perk on the line this week, too. The Golfweek Senior Challenge Cup is a WAGR counting tournament, and the top 15 in the WAGR rankings get an automatic exemption into the 2021 U.S. Senior Amateur at The Country Club of Detroit.
