Steve Stricker eager to bring big-time game back to 'small-town feel' Ally Challenge

Steve Stricker will be in Rome in September to see if Team USA can win a second straight Ryder Cup for the first time since the early 1990s. Stricker captained the 2021 team, which won in his native Wisconsin.

It was casually mentioned to him this week, given the way he's playing, that perhaps he should be on the team.

"Not a chance," he said with a smile. "Not a chance."

Fair enough. There aren't many "not a chance" situations for Stricker these days.

The 56-year-old is playing arguably the best golf of his long career, and has the wins to show for it — five this year alone on the 50-and-older Champions Tour, including three senior majors. He's won four of his last six starts, and in 13 starts this season on the Champions Tour, he hasn't finished worse than a tie for eighth.

Stricker will defend his championship at The Ally Challenge next month at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club in Grand Blanc. He won in 2022 by a stroke over Brett Quigley.

That was his ninth Champions Tour win. Less than a year later, he has 16.

"I've been asked that a few times, and the results are the best throughout my career," Stricker said, when asked if this is the best he's ever played for a sustained stretch. "It's hard to quantify. I had some good runs (on the PGA Tour) where I was the second-ranked player in the world, a top-10 player in the world. It's hard to say which is better, you know? I've had a hard time answering that question.

"Obviously, it's a great run. I'm super jacked. I'm super excited about it, and I love the opportunities I've been getting to try to win golf tournaments," Stricker continued, in an interview this week. "That's been the really fun part of playing, getting in contention and seeing what you have down the stretch. And when you do it, it's a blast. And when you don't, you try to figure out and learn from those mistakes."

Stricker, who also won 12 times on the PGA Tour, headlines an Ally field that also will include Jim Furyk, Bernhard Langer, Justin Leonard, Retief Goosen, Mark O'Meara, David Toms, Jerry Kelly and Lake Orion native Tom Gillis.

This will be the sixth playing for The Ally Challenge (set for Aug. 25-27), and there hasn't yet been a repeat champion in the tournament's history.

The last repeat champion at Warwick was Vijay Singh, who won the PGA Tour's old Buick Open in 2004 and 2005. There's a good chance he has company soon, given the Stricker Steamroller.

"I think you can keep that momentum going from one year to the next, and especially when I start off the year with a win over in Hawaii," said Stricker, who won four times in 2022 and already has topped that in 2023. "It felt like it was just a continuous season for me, and I play a lot of golf in the offseason to keep that going.

"I know I don't have a lot of time left in this game, but I'm trying to maximize all the opportunities I have."

We'll see how much golf Stricker has left.

There's a guy on the Champions Tour, of course, who is defying Father Time. That would be Langer, who earlier this month won the U.S. Senior Open (Stricker finished second) for his 46th Champions Tour victory. That gave Langer the all-time record, one ahead of Hale Irwin.

Langer, of course, is 65. The Ally Challenge is a rare Champions Tour tournament Langer hasn't yet won.

"I told Bernhard the other day, I said, 'I want to be like you when I grow up,'" Stricker said. "He's incredible and we all just shake our head at what he continues to do. That's incredible stuff what he's doing. That's the fun part of watching him and trying to duplicate what he's doing. Something you can strive for really, too.

"He's 65, and he's playing great golf. That puts me with another nine, 10 years of good golf, if I continue to take care of myself and continue to work hard at it."

The Ally is the fourth and final annual major-tour stop in Michigan — following the Meijer LPGA Classic outside of Grand Rapids, the PGA Tour's Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit and the LPGA's Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational in Midland — and like the three others, the Ally continues to grow when it comes to fan support. Part of that is thanks to its annual concert series, which this year has booked country star Miranda Lambert for a Saturday show that is included with the price of that day's ticket.

The Ally also offers free admission and hospitality for active service members and veterans, and has a celebrity shootout that in past years has included golf legend Jack Nicklaus.

And the 17th hole, a par 3, remains a party, even if it isn't quite as rowdy as the old Buick Open days.

Stricker said The Ally has the "small-town feel" that he enjoys.

"We used to have that a lot on the regular tour," he said. "Some of those have gone away over the years. Not there at Ally. That's the same feel of community coming together for a good cause, to raise money for charity, to watch some golf, to have a good time. That's the neatest part about that place.

"It fires me up thinking about Ally and coming back to Warwick Hills, for sure."

The Ally Challenge

➤ When: Aug. 25-27

➤ Where: Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club, Grand Blanc

➤ Defending champion: Steve Stricker

➤ Tickets: Daily passes from $10 to $65 (the $65 tickets for Saturday, Aug. 26, include a Miranda Lambert concert); weekly passes $100. Active military members and veterans get free tickets. Details at theallychallenge.com.

tpaul@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @tonypaul1984