Andy DevaneyThe Staysure English Legends at Chart Hills in Kent will begin a day early with a fourball that looks as though someone has mixed a Ryder Cup archive with the more unruly end of golf’s internet.
Jimmy Bullard and 2005 U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell face Peter Finch and former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley at 8:00 am on Thursday 27 August, with spectators able to follow the match free of charge before the tournament Pro-Am.
A fourball with four very different CVs
There is a pleasing imbalance to the billing. Campbell and McGinley bring the sort of competitive history that tends to quieten a first tee. Bullard and Finch bring audiences, irreverence and the useful modern skill of persuading golfers to watch other people play golf on their phones.
Bullard, the former Premier League footballer turned television personality, partners Campbell. Finch, one of Britain’s best-known golf content creators, gets McGinley.
It is celebrity golf, certainly, but with enough pedigree in the other two bags to stop proceedings wandering off into exhibition territory.
Match play should help. It remains golf’s finest format for sudden grudges, disappearing leads and putts conceded with roughly the warmth of a parking fine.
Major pedigree meets Ryder Cup steel
Campbell’s place in golf history was secured at Pinehurst in 2005, where he held off Tiger Woods to win the U.S. Open. The USGA records Campbell’s even-par total of 280, two shots better than Woods.
McGinley’s Ryder Cup record is equally difficult to misplace. He holed the winning putt for Europe at The Belfry in 2002, appeared in two more victorious European teams and later captained Europe to victory at Gleneagles in 2014.
Put those two into a Thursday morning fourball and the competitive temperature is unlikely to remain entirely casual, however many cameras are pointed at it.
Bullard and Finch bring a different sort of pressure
Bullard has never appeared especially burdened by self-doubt, and his pre-match assessment does little to disturb that impression.
“I can’t wait for it. I’ve got Cambo on my team, so surely we’ve got to be favourites! That’s what’s brilliant about the Staysure Legends Tour – you get the chance to be out there with Major champions and Ryder Cup legends and have a bit of fun with it as well.
Pete and Paul will be tough to beat, but we’ll have a good laugh and once we’re on that first tee, we’ll definitely want to win.”
That final sentence is the useful bit. The laughter can survive a missed fairway. A three-down deficit is usually rather less amusing.
Finch, meanwhile, has built his audience by putting viewers close to golf through challenges, course content and collaborations. Here his problem becomes considerably more immediate: McGinley beside him, Campbell opposite him and Bullard evidently arriving with the confidence of a man who has already appointed himself favourite.
Chart Hills is more than scenery
Chart Hills gives the occasion some proper golfing jeopardy.
Designed by Sir Nick Faldo, the Kent course is known for the long ‘Anaconda’ bunker curling around the par-five fifth and an island-green par-three 17th. The course therefore possesses quite enough theatre before Bullard starts contributing any of his own.
The venue hosts the Staysure English Legends from Friday 28 August to Sunday 30 August, with the tournament becoming the next stop on the 2026 Staysure Legends Tour schedule.
Free Thursday match before the serious business
The 8:00 am match comes before Thursday’s Pro-Am and gives spectators the chance to walk the fairways with Bullard, Campbell, Finch and McGinley without paying for admission.
From Friday, attention shifts to the three-day Staysure English Legends tournament, where a field containing Major champions, Ryder Cup names and established Legends Tour winners competes at Chart Hills.
Thursday has a rather different charm. Two men know precisely how golf feels with enormous championships at stake. The other two have become very good at making the game entertaining to a different generation.
Nobody will mistake the match for the U.S. Open or Ryder Cup. Campbell and McGinley have already dealt with those.
At 8:00 am on Thursday, the first contest may simply be whether anybody can stop Bullard from declaring victory before he reaches the opening green.
