Watson Challenge features loaded field, including BV West grad now competing at Arizona
The 15h annual Watson Challenge, Kansas City’s signature golf tournament founded by and featuring KC sports legend Tom Watson, begins Thursday and concludes Saturday at The Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate.
One woman is playing this week’s 54-hole tournament: Blue Valley West High School grad Julia Misemer, a rising sophomore at the University of Arizona and the 2022 Prairie Invitational Champion.
Misemer won the Kenneth Smith award during her high school career at BV West. The award is presented annually to the top female and male golfer in the KC metro.
In 2021, she became just the second person, boy or girl, to win four straight Kansas Class 6A golf championships. And last year, she competed in the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
Last year’s Watson Challenge winner was BV North grad Davis Cooper, who will be a senior at KU this fall. He ended with a 2-under round of 68 at the par-70 Indian Hills Country Club to finish 13-under for the tourney, seven strokes ahead of runner-up Michael Letzig.
Cooper is back to defend his title, teeing off Thursday at 9 a.m. in a group that also includes Letzig.
There will be one glaring absence on the course this week. Watson, the tournament’s namesake, typically plays but is sitting out this year’s edition due to injury, according to a spokesperson.
Other Watson Challenge players to watch this week include:
- three-time Watson Challenge champion Andy Spencer, currently playing on the PGA Tour Latin America
- Joseph Winslow, currently playing on the Korn Ferry Tour
- 2019 Watson Challenge champion Alex Springer
- Nicklaus Golf Club head pro Robert Russell
- 2023 KC Match Play champion and former tour pro Curtis Yonke.
Founded in 2007, the Watson Challenge benefits The First Tee of Greater Kansas City. It typically features the best professional and amateur golfers living in the greater Kansas City community.
Admission to the Thursday-Saturday Watson Challenge is free, but a donation of $25 to the First Tee of Greater Kansas City is encouraged.
Tee times will run from 7:30-10 a.m. each day, Thursday-Saturday. The leaders will tee off at 10 a.m. for Rounds 2 and 3.
This story was originally published May 30, 2023 at 2:42 PM.