Alker’s Calgary comeback comes full circle with playoff victory

Once upon a time, Steven Alker cut his sporting teeth on the Canadian Tour.

So a win Sunday – in a playoff – at the 2026 Rogers Charity Classic had him thinking back to his early days as a professional golfer …

Albeit recalling a few fun moments he laughed off as ones he couldn’t share publicly.

“Oh, I couldn’t tell – not for your ears,” said Alker, when asked about his best times on the circuit that’s helped push today’s top players to stardom. “But we just we just a great group of guys.

“It was a whole nucleus of players that were all coming up and we’re trying to develop and get our games together,” continued Alker. “And it was just fun times. It really was.”

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In fact, Alker can thank The Great White North for helping him secure his life partner, wife Tanya.

“This is where we basically courted,” said the 55-year-old native of Hamilton, New Zealand. “She started caddying for me, and that was our courting days, and it was a whole lot of fun, and we always had a blast here.

Certainly, the Kiwi had a blast in scoring the Rogers Charity Classic this weekend.

Alker completed a remarkable comeback at Canyon Meadows Golf and Country Club, closing with a five-under-par 65 Sunday to finish the 54 holes at 16-under 194. That left him tied with South Korea’s Y.E. Yang, who fired a spectacular 63 to reach the same number.

The two went back to the par-5 18th for a sudden-death playoff, where Alker delivered the winning birdie.

It was his 12th PGA TOUR Champions victory and his second win of the 2026 season, adding another chapter to a remarkable senior-tour career. PGA TOUR records list Alker with 11 Champions victories and $13.94 million in earnings entering the tournament; the Rogers victory added another $375,000 to his career haul, putting him at roughly $14.31 million.

The numbers are remarkable for a player who turned professional in 1995 and spent much of his early career grinding his way through the international golf ranks, including on the Canadian Tour.