Cary, NC – The SAS Championship presented by Forbes will feature a top-caliber field when the Champions Tour visits Prestonwood Country Club, October 2 – 8. Headlining the action will be Loren Roberts, Jay Haas, Brad Bryant, Gil Morgan, Bobby Wadkins and Tom Kite. The professionals will compete for the largest non-major purse on the Champions Tour at $2 million.
The high purse and great venue will bring out 10 of the top-10 on the Official Money List. The field is very deep, featuring 17 of the top-20 and 25 of the top-30. The Tournament has 22 of 24 winners from the 2006 season.
Roberts and Haas enter the SAS Championship in the midst of a heated competition for the Charles Schwab Cup, top position on the Official Money List and Player of the Year honors. Roberts leads the Charles Schwab Cup points and the Official Money List, while Haas is close on his heels at number two. Roberts’ 2006 campaign is highlighted by four wins, including the first three tournaments of the year and a major championship, The Senior British Open. He has finished in the top-10 in 15 of 17 events. Haas has recorded three wins this year including the Senior PGA Championship, two runner-ups and three third-place finishes.
A hot finish by Bryant, Morgan, Wadkins or Kite could land them in the mix for year-end honors. Bryant has had an impressive 2006 season. He is third on the Official Money List and the Charles Schwab Cup standings. He has registered two victories and four 2nd place finishes. Morgan stands fourth on the Official Money List and fifth in the Charles Schwab Cup standings. He won the 2006 Allianz Championship and has tallied ten top-10 finishes.
Wadkins has nabbed two victories in 2006, including the Ford Senior Players Championship, and currently stands seventh on the Official Money List and fourth in the Charles Schwab Cup points. Kite is fifth on the Official Money List and sixth in Charles Schwab Cup points. He has notched two wins in 2006.
The SAS Championship and Triangle area have become one of the most popular stops on the Champions Tour. With the highest non-major purse on the Tour, the SAS Championship annually brings in an elite field and great competition. Past winners include Hale Irwin (2005), Craig Stadler (2004), D.A. Weibring (2003), and Bruce Lietzke (2001 & 2002).
The SAS Championship has supported various educational organizations since 2001. In partnership with the Triangle Community Foundation, SAS has donated Tournament proceeds to non-profits such as Communities In Schools of Wake County (CIS Wake). CIS Wake operates the Tournament’s signature project, the SAS Community Learning Center in a public housing community in Raleigh, NC. CIS Wake offers educational programming to help young people succeed in school and in life.
Tickets for the SAS Championship are on sale and can be purchased by logging onto www.saschampionship.com, by calling (919)531-4653 or at participating Triangle Harris Teeter locations after September 18.
About SAS
SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites — including 90 percent of the Fortune 500 — to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know®.
About Champions Tour
The Champions Tour is a tax-exempt membership organization of professional golfers age 50 and older. Conceived in 1980 as the Senior PGA Tour, it started with just four events and purses totaling $475,000. The Champions Tour now has 29 official events offering a minimum of $52.65 million in prize money in 2006 and its highest average purse ever of $1.82 million. The Champions Tour’s primary purpose is to provide significant competitive and earnings opportunities for players age 50 and older; to protect the integrity of the game; and to help grow the reach of the game in the U.S. and around the world. In addition to providing competitive opportunities for its membership, Champions Tour events also generate significant sums of money for charity. On October 30th, 2005 the PGA TOUR, Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour and their tournaments announced they had reached the $1 billion milestone in charitable donations dating back to the first recorded donation in 1938. The commissioner of the PGA TOUR is Tim Finchem. Rick George is president of the Champions Tour. TOUR headquarters is in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Our web site address is PGATOUR.com.
About Octagon’s Golf Division
Octagon’s Golf Division manages some of the finest professional golf events including two Champions Tour events, The ACE Group Classic and the SAS Championship presented by Forbes; three LPGA Tour events, the Sybase Classic presented by Lincoln Mercury, the John Q. Hammons Hotel Classic presented by SemGroup and the LPGA NW Arkansas Championship presented by John Q. Hammons; and one Nationwide Tour event, The Rex Hospital Open. Octagon’s Golf Division also represents nearly 40 golfing professionals including Davis Love III, Chris Smith, Natalie Gulbis, Christina Kim, Meg Mallon, Beth Daniel, Tom Kite, Gary Koch, and brothers, Bobby and Lanny Wadkins.
About Octagon
Octagon is the world’s largest sports and entertainment representation and marketing agency with global expertise in consulting, athletes & personalities, event management, property representation, marketing solutions, licensing and merchandising, talent procurement and television rights and production. As part of The Interpublic Group (NYSE:IPG), one of the world’s leading organizations of advertising agencies and marketing services, Octagon employs more than 1,000 people in 60 offices around the world. For further information, please visit www.octagon.com.
Contact:
Michelle Berish, Marketing & Communications Manager
michelle.berish@octagon.com or (919)531-0233