In Golfweek’s Senior Player-of-the-Year race, Kevin VandenBerg is all but untouchable. The 58-year-old from Pulaski, New York, has amassed a 3,350-point lead in Golfweek’s National Senior Amateur Rankings to this point in the season and is positioned to repeat as Player of the Year.
That doesn’t mean he’ll stay home for Golfweek’s final event of the season. Instead, VandenBerg, who is coming off top-3 finishes at the International Senior Invitational, Reynolds Senior and SOS Fall Classic, will tee it up at PGA National’s Fazio Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, for this week’s Golfweek Tournament of Champions. The 54-hole event will feature four divisions (Senior, Super Senior, Legends and Super Legends) and will be played Dec. 13-15.
VandenBerg is part of a deep field in the senior division, which also includes Iowa golf legends Mike McCoy, the 2023 Walker Cup captain, and Gene Elliott as well as 2019 Golfweek Player of the Year Ken Kinkopf and 2020 Golfweek Player of the Year Craig Hurlbert.
In the Super Senior division, the rankings add some drama to the competition. Greg Goode of Salina, Kansas, recently overtook Jim Starnes of Ft. Myers, Florida, at the top of the rankings. But Goode, who gained big points from his division win at the Golfweek Desert Showdown, only leads Starnes by 43 points.
The Super Senior field for the Tournament of Champions also includes Marcus Beck, the Tallahassee, Florida, resident who won Player of the Year honors in this division last year. Beck is ranked No. 5 in the Golfweek National Senior Amateur Rankings.
Notable names in the Legends division include Pete Allen, defending champion in this event, and Greg Osborne, who, earlier this year, led the Legends rankings at the same time his older brother John led the Super Legends rankings.
Perhaps the most impressive start belongs to Bev Hargraves of Little Rock, Arkansas. Hargraves has the Player of the Year title all but locked up after frontloading his schedule in an effort to do just that. After a top-5 finish in the Golfweek Desert Showdown last month, however, Hargraves began a 45-day stretch of radiation treatment for prostate cancer. In the run-up to the Desert Showdown, Hargraves told Golfweek he might suspend that treatment to compete in the TOC.
“If I need to, I’ll do it,” he said.
And here he is.
Don Donatoni, the Malvern, Pennsylvania, resident who trails Hargraves by 1,610 points, is also in the field.
In the Super Legends rankings, the top three players in the rankings are only separated by 420 points, and all three men will play in the TOC.
John Osborne of Vero Beach, Florida, leads Johnny Blank of Frostburg, Maryland, by 145 points. George Owens of Virginia Beach, Virginia, is another 275 points behind that.