PGA Tour rules official Stephen Cox showed up with a new partner at the Jacksonville Area Golf Association Family Championship on Dec. 21.
He still returned the first-place trophy to the family mantle.
Cox and his wife Gill shot 7-under 51 on a short course at the Jacksonville Beach Golf Club to win the couples gross tournament by five shots over K.C. and Tama Caldabaugh.
Cox and his daughter Nancy, a freshman on the Florida Atlantic Golf team after earning two Florida Times-Union First Coast Player of the Year awards at Ponte Vedra High, won the Family division in 2022 and tied for second last year behind Bart and Barton Abstein.
Nancy Cox didn’t get shut out of the tournament. She picked up her grandmother, Beverley Cox, who was visiting the family for the holidays from England, and the twosome finished at 1-over 59.
The tournament, played on a December date for the sixth year, also featured eight-time PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel and his 10-year-old son Axel. They finished second in the family gross division by two shots to Len Schoenfeld II and Len Schoenfeld III.
Horschel conducted a clinic between the morning afternoon waves of the tournament.
Other gross division winners were Jeff-Kelly Johnstone (62) in the afternoon couples division and Jeremy-Evan Raynor (53) in the family divisions.
Net division winners were Tama-K.C. Caldabaugh (54) in the morning couples wave; Jamie-Bruce Kanehl (51) in the family morning wave; Paul-Sheila Brocki (64) in the afternoon couples wave; and Jackson-Jordan Bork (58) in the family afternoon wave.
Miles Russell wins in Miami
Miles Russell of Jacksonville Beach tied for second last year in the South Beach International, despite a 10-under-par 60 at the Normandy Shores Golf Course.
He didn’t get a 60 this year, but two 63s and steady play in two other rounds got him the title and the tournament record at 19-under-par 264 at Normandy Shores and the Miami Beach Golf Club.
Russell defeated Henry Guan by two shots and snatched Guan’s tournament record away that he had set with Luke Clanton in 2022 when the two went to a playoff that Clanton won.
Russell, 16, has won his last two starts, the AJGA Tournament of Champions in San Antonio and the South Beach International. He averaged 67.375 in those two events.
Marsh Creek pro retires
Cary Splane, who went from Middleburg High School to the University of Florida golf team, winning the 1985 Florida Amateur along the way, retired on Dec. 14 after 21 years as the director of golf at the Marsh Creek Country Club.
Splane, who also worked at the Gainesville Country Club, is a four-time Northern Chapter Player of the Year and holds most pro records in the Underwood Cup Matches.
Splane won the Florida Amateur at the Sawgrass Country Club. He also had 30 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour at a time when it was known as the Ben Hogan Tour.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Cox family shuffles partners, still comes away with JAGA Family trophy
