Ponte Vedra Beach, FL – The PGA TOUR’s Champions Tour today announced its 2006 tournament schedule. It features 29 official Charles Schwab Cup events and official prize money of a minimum of $52.75 million with the average tournament purse growing to a record $1.82 million.
The Champions Tour will play in 17 states in the United States, plus Mexico and Scotland.
"The thing that stands out most about the 2006 Champions Tour schedule is its strength and continuity of our sponsorships," said Champions Tour president Rick George. "Within the last two years, many of our title sponsors have signed multi-year tournament extensions. As a result, the Champions Tour enjoys a very strong underpinning, with some contracts extending as far out as 2010. Our sponsors are committed to this Tour, and the Tour and its players are committed to them in return."
The Champions Tour’s 27th season gets underway again in Hawaii January 16-22 with back-to-back events, the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai and the Turtle Bay Championship. The season will come to a close in late October at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Sonoma (CA) Golf Club where many of the season’s award winners will be determined.
The major championship schedule includes new sites in the middle of the country for the Senior PGA Championship (Oak Tree Golf Club, Edmond, OK) in late May and the U.S. Senior Open Championship (Prairie Dunes Country Club, Hutchinson, KS), which moves a few weeks earlier to the first full week of July. The Ford Senior Players Championship returns to the Tournament Players Club of Michigan in Dearborn in July and the JELD-WEN Tradition is back at The Reserve Vineyards & Golf Club outside Portland, OR in August. The Champions Tour’s other major championship, the Senior British Open Championship, makes its sixth visit to The Westin Turnberry Resort / Ailsa Course on Scotland’s west coast in July.
The Champions Tour welcomes one new tournament in 2006, the Puerto Vallarta Golf Classic in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It will be played at the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at Vista Vallarta Golf Club March 27- April 2.
In addition to new venues for the Senior PGA, Senior British Open and U.S. Senior Open Championships, the Tour’s West Florida event has a new title sponsor and new home. The Boeing Championship at Sandestin, sponsored by Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, will be played at The Raven Golf Club at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Destin, FL in May. Boeing now titles two Champions Tour events with Boeing’s Commercial Airplane Division having signed on with the inaugural Boeing Greater Seattle Classic in 2005. It was announced today that the Tour’s Birmingham, AL event also has a new title sponsor and a new site. The Regions Charity Classic will be played at the Robert Trent Jones Trail at Ross Bridge. The Allianz Championship returns to its original venue, Glen Oaks Country Club in West Des Moines, IA. The newly-named Greater Kansas City Golf Classic welcomes a partnership of local companies that includes Sprint Nextel, HCA, Garmin and Cerner.
Already a highly-popular event among fans, junior golfers, Tour players and TV viewers, the Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach will be played for the third time, with Del Monte Golf Course sharing early-round host duties with the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links.
All 29 official Charles Schwab Cup events will be televised with 24 airing on The Golf Channel, the Tour’s exclusive cable television home. Six events will be televised on ABC (two), CBS (one) and NBC (three). The Golf Channel (Saturday) and NBC (Sunday) will split the weekend telecasts of the Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach.
The Charles Schwab Cup, the Champions Tour’s year-long, point-based championship worth $2.1 million in annuities enters its sixth year with Tom Watson defending the Cup for the second time. The Charles Schwab Cup, designed to identify the Tour’s leading player, will continue to be featured prominently in all Golf Channel telecasts next year.
The 2006 Georgia-Pacific Grand Champions competition for players age 60 and over will feature five events leading to its culminating event, the Georgia-Pacific Grand Champions Championship in Atlanta in September.
Contact:
Jeff Adams
Director of Public Relations, Champions Tour
Tel: 904-273-3397
