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Zach Johnson on possibility of playing PGA TOUR Champions with Tiger Woods<\/p>\n
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Written by Paul Hodowanic<\/p>\n
Zach Johnson didn\u2019t need much convincing, but every once in a while, he would get a text from Stewart Cink and all it would say was \u201ctop 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
The joke being, Johnson, famously one of the shorter hitters on the PGA TOUR, ought to just make the jump to PGA TOUR Champions where his greatest inhibitor would suddenly become a strength. Johnson would laugh it off, but until this week, it hasn\u2019t mattered. He wasn\u2019t eligible.<\/p>\n
Well, now he is. Johnson turned 50 on Feb. 24 and will waste little time in making the jump to the Champions Tour. He announced Tuesday that he will make his debut at the James Hardie Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am invigorated to go out there and, you know, not take a head cover off on a par 4,\u201d Johnson said with a chuckle. \u201cI’m not taking it for granted.\u2029I feel like I’ve earned my diploma, and I’m gonna make the jump to greener pastures, more or less.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then again, Johnson would like to make one thing clear. He doesn\u2019t expect this to be easy. As he\u2019s prepped for his Champions Tour debut, he\u2019s received plenty of texts from family and friends who expect him to \u201cdominate.\u201d That\u2019s the weird circumstances on the Champions Tour, in which its \u201crookies\u201d are often top dogs because they are younger and freshly battle-tested from life on the main tour. Johnson fits this mold, having played at least 17 TOUR events for 22 straight seasons. Last year, he finished in a tie for eighth at the Masters. So, yes, he\u2019s had many people tell him they expect him to clean up on the senior circuit, a la Bernhard Langer or Steve Stricker. Johnson would like to dispel that expectation right away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think part of me is like, man, I still feel like I got a lot of really good golf in front of me, and I’d love to do that against the best,\u201d Johnson said, referencing the PGA TOUR. \u201cAt the same time, one, I gotta stay healthy, and two, I’m gonna go compete against guys that have always been one, two, three, four, five, six years older than me. And 25 years ago, they were still that age gap, and they beat me a lot. So, why am I to assume that it’s gonna be that easy? These guys are good.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Zach Johnson on the challenge of winning on TOUR<\/p>\n
Cink and Darren Clarke relayed similar sentiments to Johnson in recent months. Johnson said those two have been the voices he\u2019s leaned on in making this transition. They\u2019ve helped him understand how to prepare, what to expect and where he should play. In particular, Clarke made it clear that Johnson needs to come out firing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was pretty direct on that, like, ‘Hey, you gotta bring your game,'” Johnson said. “And you gotta put the pedal down fast, because there’s only three days. You have to putt well. And I was like, ‘Yeah, you know what? That makes sense.’ I never looked at it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson expects to play a full Champions Tour schedule in addition to \u201cmaybe three\u201d events on TOUR. He still plans to play the John Deere Classic and won\u2019t miss Davis Love III\u2019s The RSM Classic. He also has his lifelong exemption into the Masters and can play The Open Championship until age 60. Otherwise, he is \u201cgoing both feet in\u201d on the Champions Tour. Johnson said he\u2019s \u201cnever had so many tournament directors reaching out\u201d to play in their events.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s main priority now is keeping his body healthy. He\u2019s played through an ongoing elbow issue for several years and has the occasional joint pain. Those aren\u2019t going away. He\u2019s excited to have the option to take a golf cart, but isn\u2019t quite sure if he will use it beyond the early week pro-ams. He still likes the walk and prides himself on his conditioning. That being said, he\u2019ll use it when he needs it. Assuming good health, he sees no reason why he can\u2019t play into his 60s, though he\u2019s not setting any sort of goals to be the next Langer.<\/p>\n
“I don’t have any idea,\u201d Johnson said, “and I’m fully at peace with that. I know, well, whatever happens is supposed to happen. If the good Lord is like, \u2018Hey, you can keep competing a decade from now,’ well, then, I mean, I’m gonna welcome that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson has a long list of tournaments he\u2019s excited to play. The Champions Tour hosts the Principal Charity Classic in Johnson\u2019s home state of Iowa. He\u2019s in love with Firestone Country Club, a long-time PGA TOUR stop that\u2019s now on the Champions Tour schedule. And he\u2019s yearning to get another crack at Gleneagles, host of The Open Championship in 2026. His last memory there was getting \u201cshellacked\u201d by Team Europe in the 2014 Ryder Cup. He\u2019d like to right that wrong. Down the line, he would love to host his own tournament \u2013 as current Champions Tour stars Stricker and Jim Furyk do. \u201cDiscussions have been there,\u201d Johnson said, though he stressed it\u2019s been \u201cvery, very preliminary.\u201d<\/p>\n
First, he\u2019s excited for the James Hardie Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational next week. He expects it will feel a little different, but \u201ccompetition is competition.\u201d It\u2019s now just the start of a new competitive era for the 12-time TOUR winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope there’s jitters,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope there is, because then I know I’m feeling the right things.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Feb 22, 2026<\/p>\n
Scheffler\u2019s incredible top-10 streak ends at The Genesis<\/a>Latest<\/a>![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chacarra-return.jpg\"\/)
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5H AGO 5 Min Read Latest *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Zach Johnson on possibility of playing PGA TOUR Champions with Tiger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-488765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}