There’s no repeat champion at Senior PGA without Waston

There might have been some pre-tournament posturing going on. But there could also be carnage this week.

"My goal is to think you're never really out of it because everyone's going to make bogeys," Couples said. "I don't know if under par discount golf clubs is going to win, 10-under is going to win or if 2-over is going to win, but I know it's a very hard course."

Allen, who won at TPC Tampa Bay last month and teamed with David Frost for a victory at Savannah Harbor, will try to repeat his Senior PGA Championship win of 2009, when he was two strokes better than Larry Mize. That was the last year this tournament didn't go to a playoff. Tom Lehman took the 2010 title.

Funk is 13th on that list and seems more concerned about the course than the competition.

The 10th hole, a 539-yard par 5, includes a multitiered green. Funk, Allen and Langer will start their round there Thursday.

Harbor Shores opened two years ago for its first full season in one of Michigan's most economically distressed communities. The Jack Nicklaus-designed course was built on land that was home not long ago to abandoned factories and industrial waste.

Funk is coming off a victory this month at The Woodlands. He's in a group for the first two rounds Thursday and Friday with Michael Allen and Langer, the Champions Tour's top two money winners this year.

"I thought maybe we could reverse the order and play the greens as tees and the tees as greens and it would be easier to putt," Funk said. "Just play in reverse."

"You do have to be precise, but the Taylormade R11 irons greens, to what point?" he said. "When you see some of the greens, I don't think anyone can be precise enough to hit it in the certain spots on these greens."

"There's a lot of short irons where you've got some really small areas to hit to, but if you can hit them — and you've got backstops — if you can use the course to your advantage, I think you can score decent out here," Allen said. "I know I'm going to say that and be jinxing myself and swearing a few times at myself for a ball coming up in a place I can't play it hardly, or not feeling that I got the best out of it. But that's golf, too."

"I think the golf course is phenomenal," Langer said. "If he had done one-third of the undulations on the green — that's my personal opinion — I think it would be in the top 20 golf courses I've ever played."

The tournament will take place without its Taylormade R11 driver defending champion. Tom Watson had to withdraw because of a wrist problem. He won last year's championship at Valhalla, beating David Eger in a playoff.

The course was awarded the Senior PGA Championship in 2012 and 2014, amid hopes that it could help restore some stability and prosperity to Benton Harbor, which is under the jurisdiction of a state-appointed emergency manager.