End of an era at Firestone as Senior Players Championship moves to California

At a time of big changes in golf, one development on the senior circuit should not go unnoticed. The Senior Players Championship is moving to California, which likely spells the end of 72 years of PGA Tour presence at Firestone Country Club.

Healthcare company Hoag is taking over as title sponsor of the Senior Players and moving it from Firestone to Newport Beach Country Club, which has hosted the Hoag Classic since 1996. It will be played March 25-28 instead of a summer date.

That leaves Firestone without a tournament for the first time since the Rubber City Open in 1954.

Firestone opened in 1929 as a park for employees of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. It landed the 1960 PGA Championship, which inspired the American Golf Classic from 1961 to 1976. The PGA Championship returned in 1966 and 1975.

Firestone also hosted the first big-money event in 1962, the World Series of Golf, for the four major champions of the year. Jack Nicklaus, the 22-year-old U.S. Open champion, won $50,000 (he won $17,500 that year for the U.S. Open).

The World Series of Golf became part of the PGA Tour schedule in 1976 (Nicklaus won again), and it became a World Golf Championship in 1999. Tiger Woods won a record eight times. Over 11 straight visits to Firestone starting in 1997, Woods won seven times and never finished worse than fifth.

The one year the WGC went to Sahalee outside Seattle in 2002, Firestone hosted the Senior PGA Championship.

Justin Thomas won the final WGC at Firestone in 2018 before it moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and the Senior Players Championship took over in 2019. And now it's leaving.

Riviera Country Club will have a new structure in time for the U.S. Women’s Open next week, a bench weighing more than 10,000 pounds and incorporating 40% of the preserved root system from a eucalyptus tree that came down during the 2025 wildfires.

The course and the clubhouse were spared from the Pacific Palisades fires, though the historic tree on the 15th hole came down. It had been planted in the early 1930s and was part of nearly all of Riviera’s history.

“I felt it was important to honor what was lost, and what our community endured, by creating something lasting and meaningful,” Megan Watanabe, the CEO at Riviera, said in a letter to members.

Riviera commissioned artist Taylor Donsker to transform the fallen tree into a circular bench next to the tee on the par-3 14th as a place to pause, reflect and soak up the view.

“This bench is dedicated to the Riviera members who faced this time with strength, unity and resilience,” Watanabe said. “It stands as a reminder of our shared roots and how we move forward together, with gratitude for the past and the resilience of our community, as we look toward the club’s next 100 years.”

Riviera is celebrating its centennial by hosting the Women’s Open for the first time. The Olympics will be held at Riviera in 1928, followed by the U.S. Open in 1931.

The PGA of America waited until 5:01 p.m. of Memorial Day weekend to finally say it has suspended Don Rea as president for his final six months of his two-year term. It was a classic news dump and barely news.

Rea already has been moved aside in February, giving up his seat on the PGA Tour board to the vice president, Nathan Charnes, in February. The PGA of America said Rea’s responsibilities had shifted to PGA member priorities. He wasn’t visible during the PGA Championship two weeks ago.

Rea first raised eyebrows when he was asked during a press conference at the 2025 PGA Championship his opinion on bifurcation. “There is no personal opinion. I’m the president of the PGA of America, right? I’ve got 31,000 members that are listening to my every word.”

Far more infamous was his response to the vulgar heckling Rory McIlroy and Team Europe faced in the Ryder Cup last September at Bethpage Black. He compared it with what could be heard at a youth soccer game and said American players also get jeered at away matches. He later apologized.

Charnes is now acting president and already in line to become the next president in November.

Gary Woodland was No. 139 in the world when he won the Houston Open, his first since he had brain surgery in September 2023. It also paved the way for him to return to the British Open.

Woodland is at No. 47 this week. He is among 11 players exempt for the British Open through top 50 in the world ranking. The others are Patrick Reed, Kurt Kitayama, Min Woo Lee, Ryan Gerard, Rickie Fowler, Jake Knapp, Jason Day, Alex Smalley, Michael Kim and Matt McCarty.

The Memorial will offer one British Open spot and the Canadian Open offers three spots. The British Open also will take the leading five players not already exempt from the top 20 in the FedEx Cup through the Travelers Championship.

Si Woo Kim is playing some of his best golf without a trophy to show for it.

Kim has played in the final group twice this year, both times with Scottie Scheffler. Scheffler rallied to beat him at The American Express, while Kim and Scheffler were overtaken by Wyndham Clark in the CJ Cup Byron Nelson last week.

Kim was in the penultimate group Sunday at Torrey Pines and Phoenix. He has two runner-up finishes, twice has finished third and has seven top 10s in 15 tournaments.

It adds to $6,040,361, the first time in his career Kim has gone over the $6 million mark for a season, and he still has three full months remaining.

“I think if I keep knocking on the door, something is coming,” Kim said. “I can feel it. I played great. I think it's pretty much best play I've ever had. I'm a little frustrated, but nothing I can do.”

Auburn junior Jackson Koivun has won the Ben Hogan Award, the third college player to win the award twice. He won the Hogan Award as a freshman in 2024 and was a finalist last year, losing out to Luke Clanton.

The vote announced Monday night in Fort Worth, Texas, was not a big surprise. Koivun is the No. 1 player in the world amateur ranking, a winner of six college events this spring including three in a row culminating with his third straight SEC title. Koivun, who had a 67.97 scoring average in college tournaments, had four top-12 finishes in five PGA Tour events.

The other two-time winners of the Ben Hogan Award were Jon Rahm and Ludvig Aberg.

Ryan Hybl is leaving Oklahoma after 17 years and one NCAA title (in 2017) to take over as golf coach at Georgia Tech. Hybl replaces Bruce Heppler, who has retired after 31 years with the Yellow Jackets. ... Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been awarded the 2044 U.S. Amateur, the 2029 U.S. Girls' Junior and the 2036 U.S. Mid-Amateur. That brings to eight the number of USGA championships held at Southern Hills. ... The Nexo Championship is back on the European tour schedule this year. It will be Aug. 20-23 at Trump International in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Scheffler had only one 5 on his scorecard over four rounds at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. He still finished five shots behind Clark.

“My plans are just to play golf. I’ll play so much golf, I’m going to be sick and tired of golf.” — Scott Hend after winning on the PGA Tour Champions to be fully exempt into all tournaments.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Si Woo Kim, of South Korea, stretches before his tee shot on the 11th hole during the first round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament in McKinney, Texas, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Patrick Reed waves on the 17th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Gary Woodland hits out of the seventh green bunker during a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

FILE - Tiger Woods taps in his par putt on the first hole during the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, Aug. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Senate on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s push to redraw the state’s congressional district in hopes Republicans could gain an additional seat in the midterm elections.

Senators had political concerns, worrying that any map in a state where Democrats got at least 40% of votes in the past eight presidential elections couldn’t guarantee Republican wins in all seven districts.

And there were logistical worries. Statewide primaries are June 9, with early voting starting Tuesday. The plan had called for throwing out any congressional votes already cast and holding another statewide primary just for U.S. House races in August.

Election officials said holding three statewide elections in five months would require employees to work around the clock to prepare voting machines and ballots and to meet legal requirements.

The proposal passed the South Carolina House last Wednesday after two days of long debate.

Trump’s push in South Carolina was part of his broader effort to get Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps in hopes of retaining the party’s slim majority in the November elections.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s primaries, as state senators considered whether to cancel the congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary under revised districts designed to help Republicans oust a longtime Democrat.

Among the first to cast an early ballot in the small city of Orangeburg was U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the Democrat whose district Republicans are trying to reshape in their quest for a clean sweep of South Carolina's seven congressional seats. A defiant Clyburn insisted he would run for reelection, regardless of what the district looks like.

“I’m OK if it’s Trump plus 20,” Clyburn said while describing the potential Republican advantage in a reshaped district. “I would be running where I live.”

The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy — propelled President Donald Trump — to redraw voting districts to the GOP's advantage in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterm elections. Republicans have been moving quickly to try to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.

But the GOP also suffered a setback Tuesday in Alabama, where a three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state from using a Republican-drawn congressional map that could help the GOP win an additional seat. The court said the Republican plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district and ordered the continued use of a court-imposed map that includes two districts with a significant proportion of Black residents.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.

Democrats, who have suffered their own share of setbacks in the national redistricting battle, praised the turn of events in Alabama.

The “fight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymanders on top of gerrymanders to erase equal representation for communities of color,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Voting districts typically are redrawn after a census at the start of a decade. But Trump has urged Republican-led states to redistrict ahead of the November elections to try to rebuff political headwinds, which typically result in lost congressional seats for the president’s party in midterms.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its voting districts last summer, Republicans also have enacted new House districts in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Meanwhile, voters in California adopted new Democratic-drawn districts, and a court imposed a favorable map for Democrats in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback in Virginia, where the state Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win additional seats.

Redistricting discussions are ongoing in Louisiana following an April high court ruling that struck down a majority-Black congressional district as an illegal partisan gerrymander. The Louisiana House could vote later this week on a new map that could eliminate a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and improve Republicans' chances of winning six out of the state's seven seats.

The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts. That comes after the caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers.

More than 26,000 votes were cast in South Carolina by noon Tuesday on the first day of early voting for the June 9 primary after Democrats called for people against a proposed new map to turn out in force. In 2022, about 125,000 early votes were cast the entire two weeks.

The Republican-led House already has passed a plan that would reconfigure Clyburn's district, void the results of current congressional primaries and instead hold new U.S. House primaries in August.

Trump has lobbied for the plan, making at least two phone calls to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and also phoning in to a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this month. He also has maintained the pressure on social media.

Debate has stalled in the Senate, where Democrats are staunchly opposed and some GOP lawmakers have concerns that an aggressive redistricting could backfire by making some Republican-held seats susceptible to losses because of the addition of Democratic voters.

Clyburn noted that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional districts, after the 2020 census, they spent months holding meetings across the state to gather public suggestions. Although that map resulted in a 6-1 seat advantage for Republicans over Democrats, the process was orderly and fair, he said.

“When the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said, yes, this is constitutional,” Clyburn said. But now, “this White House says, to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do what we want done.”

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.

Republican South Carolina Sen. Carlisle Kennedy, left, Democratic Sen. Ronnie Sabb, middle, and Republican Sen. Jeff Zell, right, watch a video during a session on redistricting on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., center, joined by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, stands with members of the Congressional Black Caucus during an event outside the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)