For the first time in more than two years, part-time Denver resident Kevin Stadler will compete in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.
Stadler, winner of the 2014 Waste Management Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour, is in the field for the Web.com Tour’s Digital Ally Open, which runs Thursday through Sunday (July 27-30) in Overland Park, Kan.
Stadler (pictured) last played in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event in July 2015, at the John Deere Classic on the PGA Tour. His one tournament since then was the 2016 CoBank Colorado Open, where he finished 41st.
In November 2014 while competing in China, Stadler started having major issues with his left hand.
“It literally felt like I had a firecracker going off in my palm every time I’d practice,” he recounted to coloradogolf.org at last year’s Colorado Open. “It was a nightmare.”
It turns out, he had two fractured bones in his hand. Since then, he’s played in a grand total of three events on the PGA Tour — the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, the Masters and the John Deere Classic, all in 2015.
(July 29 Update: Stadler withdrew after shooting a 1-over-par 72 in the first round in Overland Park. “It’s been a lot better the last couple of months, so I thought I’d come and give it a try (but) it was really ugly today, so it’s kind of a setback I wasn’t looking for,” Stadler said on Web.com Tour video. “… It’s incredibly frustrating.”)
Whenever Stadler returns to the PGA Tour, he’ll do so with a major medical extension that gives him 26 tournaments to earn $717,890 in order to remain exempt.
Stadler was one of the best players in Colorado during the late 1990s and early 2002. He won the CGA Match Play twice and the 2002 Colorado Open in his professional debut.
Stadler, now 37, last competed on the Web.com Tour — where he won four times total between 2004 and ’06 — in September 2011.
Stadler will be joined in the Digital Ally Open by Michael Schoolcraft of Denver and former University of Colorado golfer Josh Creel, both of whom Monday qualified to get into the tournament. Likewise competing are Colorado-based Web.com Tour regulars Jim Knous and Tom Whitney and former Golden resident Andrew Svoboda.
Meanwhile, in the PGA Tour’s RBC Canadian Open this week, Coloradan Wyndham Clark, the 2017 Pac-12 champion, will make his fourth PGA Tour start on a sponsor exemption. He’s made one cut in his previous three PGA Tour events (placing 51st in Quicken Loans National), and tied Knous for 23rd in last week’s Web.com Tour tournament after Monday qualifying. Also in the Canadian Open field are Shane Bertch of Parker, Denver native Mark Hubbard and former Coloradan Sam Saunders.
