Rhode Island golf royalty paired on PGA Tour Champions
Is this the Chubb Classic or just a morning round at Rhode Island Country Club?
In what can only be termed a fortunate oddity, Rhode Island natives Billy Andrade, Brad Faxon and Brett Quigley will be paired in the same threesome in the first round of a PGA Tour Champions event Friday morning in Naples, Fla. The three long-time friends all grew up learning and playing the game at Rhode Island Country Club in Barrington, went onto long, successful careers on the PGA Tour and are now together once again.
The Champions Tour stops at The Classics Country Clubs at Lely Resort in Naples. The 6,700-yard course will host a strong field that includes defending champion Miguel Angel Jimenez, Fred Couples and Bernhard Langer with a winner’s check of $240,000 and a $1.6 million purse on the line.
While Andrade and Faxon have run on the Champions Tour for several seasons, this is Quigley’s first full year and he’s off to a marvelous beginning. After turning 50 last August, Quigley made his Champions Tour debut last fall and is making serious waves now. In just his second-ever start, Quigley won the Morocco Champions event in Marrakesh two weeks ago. Quigley needed to save par on the final two holes to hold off Stephen Ames and win by one stroke. Quigley posted five runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour but the win was his first pro tour victory since claiming the 2001 Arkansas Classic on what was then the BUY.com Tour.
Quigley’s PGA career was cut short in his mid-40’s after he battled a leg injury and recovered from fracturing three vertebrae. “I had a lot of years off, so I’ve been home for almost seven years raising girls. I think it’s a different perspective," he said after the win in Morocco.
Andrade is coming off one of his best years on the Champions Tour. He posted three runner-up finishes, a career-best 10 top-10’s and finished 13th in the Charles Schwab Cup in 2019. His 70.01 scoring average was his best since joining the tour.
Faxon is making his season debut. He is devoting most of his time to coaching and his duties as a Fox Sports TV analyst and made just three starts on the Champions Tour in 2019.