Tulsa 2023: The Low Down

A posse of former Cowboys will feel right at home on the range, and on the course itself, as the LIV Golf League sweeps into Tulsa.

No fewer than five of the pros in the field – Eugenio Chacarra, Charles Howell III, Peter Uihlein, Matthew Wolff and Talor Gooch – played collegiately for the Oklahoma State Cowboys before beginning their pro careers. They will be joined by Abraham Ancer, who played for the Sooners of Oklahoma University.

Now all six are due back in the state as The Cedar Ridge Country Club, on the south-eastern outskirts of Tulsa, stages three days of scintillating golf.

Located on the south-eastern outskirts of Tulsa, the championship layout at Cedar Ridge Country Club in Broken Arrow was created by a group of local businessmen in the late 1960s who engaged architect Joe Finger to fashion a 200-acre dairy farm into one of the state’s best courses. 

Oklahoma native Tripp Davis was hired in 2016 to carry out a course renovation, three holes at a time, which involved a program of tree removal and rebuilding bunkers using the Better Billy Bunker system, reducing the number of sand hazards in the process by almost a third.

The redesign features a more modern course layout that challenges the game’s elite professionals from the tips. The club has hosted many state championships and national qualifying tournaments, and its most notable event was the 1983 U.S. Women’s Open won by Jan Stephenson. 

Local crowds will welcome Oklahoman and back-to-back LIV Golf Tour winner Talor Gooch, fellow former Oklahoma State University stars Eugenio Chacarra, Charles Howell III, Peter Uihlein and Matthew Wolff, and former University of Oklahoma star Abraham Ancer.

Talor Gooch will see a couple of familiar faces when he stands on the first tee Friday at LIV Golf Tulsa to begin his quest for a third consecutive win.

One of his playing partners is Sergio Garcia. It will be the third consecutive round that Gooch has been paired with the Fireballs GC captain. That includes the final two rounds at LIV Golf Singapore, which Gooch won by beating Garcia with a birdie on the first playoff hole.

The other member of the threesome is Dustin Johnson, the captain of Gooch’s former team, 4Aces GC. It will be the first time Gooch has been grouped with DJ at a LIV Golf event since leaving the 4Aces in the offseason to join good friend Harold Varner III on the rebranded RangeGoats GC.