IF you thought playing 58 events across the country in a single year, as well as tournaments in New Zealand, Fiji and the United States, was tough enough for a 54-year-old with a dicky wrist and bad feet, just wait until you hear what Andre Stolz has planned for 2025.
Stolz, who has been a champion player on the Australian Legends Tour for the past four years, is putting together a schedule that will see him trek back and forwards between Australia and the US, seeking starts on the PGA TOUR Champions circuit, while defending his status as our best over-50 golfer.
And, if things work out, he might even make a trip to the United Kingdom in July to have a crack at the Senior British Open.
Realising that his window of opportunity isn’t getting any wider, Stolz is throwing everything at making 2025 the year that his talent – and his ability to overcome adversity – is recognised throughout the world.
“I’m going to back myself,” he said. “I’ll be blowing a lot of cash but I know what I’m doing and I know what I’ve got to do.”
Stolz flew to the US in December and came frustratingly close to qualifying for the Champions Tour, finishing just one shot behind the five veterans who won the right to play on the world’s most lucrative over 50’s tour in 2025.
Andre Stolz, the winner of 14 events on the Legends Tour in 2024, including the Australian PGA Senior Championship, has set an ambitious playing schedule in 2025.
He’s still agonising over missed putts in the first couple of rounds, divots in which his ball twice landed, leading to a double bogey on the final hole of his third round, and his failure to birdie the easy par-five 17th on the final day.
“They say it’s the hardest tour to get onto,” Stolz said. “You’re playing for one of only five spots and there’s a lot of very good golfers trying to get on. You really need everything to go your way.”
Stolz’s tied sixth place earned him the right to play PGA Tour Champions Monday qualifying events in 2025 – a concession that was already his for being a winner on the PGA Tour (he claimed the 2004 Michelin Championship at Las Vegas) – and he’s going to take up the challenge.
He’ll play on our Legends Tour until March, then fly to the US to tackle four qualifiers over a five-week period, before returning to Australia. Then he’ll be back to the US in May to contest the US Senior PGA, for which he’s already qualified by taking out his fourth Legends Tour Order of Merit title in 2024.
He’ll then stick around and play a couple more Monday qualifiers. “They’re not easy,” Stolz stressed. “There are only three spots to be won and there will be 50 to 80 players trying for them – all of them very good players.”
But Stolz knows he, too, is a very good golfer and, as he says, he’s backing himself to succeed.
He’s considering a trip to Britain in mid-July to try to earn a spot in the Senior British Open, but acknowledges that playing in the UK brings with it additional challenges.
Stolz suffers from plantar fasciitis – painful inflammation of a thick band of tissue that runs across the bottom of each foot – and finds it difficult to walk 18 holes. In Australia and the US, Stolz is allowed to ride in a cart, but not in the UK.
Over the years he’s also been troubled by a wrist injury, which has twice forced him out of golf for lengthy periods, though he’s managed to overcome it in recent years by completely rebuilding his swing.
Stolz won 14 times on the Legends Tour last year, including the Australian PGA Senior Championship in November. He’s still working out his schedule for the second half of the
year.
Jones to join Aussies on PGA TOUR Champions
As reported in the January edition of Inside Golf, while Andre Stolz will attempt to earn starts through pre-qualifying events, in claiming one of five tour cards on offer Brendan Jones will enjoy full status in joining the Australian contingent competing on PGA TOUR Champions in 2025.
Jones will play alongside the likes of Richard Green, Rod Pampling, Greg Chalmers, Mark Hensby, Stuart Appleby and Cameron Percey on the world’s richest over-50’s circuit.
The 2025 Champions Tour was scheduled to begin at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai GC in Hawaii during January.
Jones will be eligible to play when he turns 50 on March 3.
