The Champions Tour announced Wednesday the tournament schedule for the 2012 Champions Tour season.
Seven new tournament venues and several previously announced date changes for existing tournaments are the most significant developments for the 2012 season.
The official 2012 season begins on the Big Island of Hawaii at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai (Jan. 16-22), with the first full-field event coming three weeks later at the Allianz Championship (Feb. 6-12), in Boca Raton, Fla.
The ACE Group Classic (Feb. 13-19) returns to The TwinEagles Club (Talon Course), which hosted the event from 2002-06.
TPC Tampa Bay plays host to the Tampa Bay Pro-Am (Apr. 9-15) for the 21st consecutive year as the tournament celebrates its 25th anniversary in the Tampa area.
The Regions Tradition, played at Shoal Creek in Birmingham, Ala., will move from the early May date it previously occupied to the week of June 4-10. The Insperity Championship (April. 30-May 6), played at The Woodlands in Houston, Texas, will depart its traditional October timeslot and take over the spot vacated by Regions Tradition.
La Vallee du Richelieu Golf Club (Vercheres Course) will host The Montreal Championship (June 18-24), after two years at Club de golf Le Fontainebleau.
The Constellation Senior Players Championship (June 25-July 1), played in the fall for the last five years, moves to the last week of June. Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh, Pa., will host the championship, being contested for the 30th time.
The Dick's Sporting Goods Open (Aug. 13-19) moves from June to August to allow the En-Joie Golf Course more time to recover after sustaining major flooding damage when Tropical Storm Lee caused the Susquehanna River to overflow at record levels earlier this year and almost completely cover the course. En-Joie Golf Course, in Endicott, N.Y., has hosted the event since its inception in 2007 and had previously hosted the PGA TOUR's B.C. Open from 1972 to 2006.
Yet to be finalized on the 2012 schedule are the events to be played in Asia in September. As of the date of this schedule announcement, Champions Tour officials were in final discussions with representatives in South Korea on the renewal of the event that was played in that country the past two years. Officials are also in discussions with representatives in Japan and China with the hope of bringing new events on the Champions Tour to those countries. Announcements are expected after the first of the year.
The season will conclude with the Charles Schwab Cup Championship (Oct. 29-Nov. 4,) which moves from TPC Harding Park in San Francisco to the Cochise Course at Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Jack Nicklaus-designed course returns to the Champions Tour schedule having previously hosted the Tradition from 1989-2001.
The host venues for the five major championships in 2012 are:
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The Charles Schwab Cup, won by Tom Lehman in 2011, enters its 12th year as the successful season-long, points-based competition to determine the Champions Tour's leading player. The program rewards consistency and awards points for top-10 finishes at all official tournaments. Double points will be awarded at the five major championships and to all 30 players at the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
The Champions Tour National Qualifying Tournament-Final (Nov. 12-18) will be conducted at TPC Eagle Trace in Coral Springs, Fla.
All official events will be televised nationally in the United States, with most receiving complete coverage on GOLF Channel, the Tour's exclusive cable-television partner that reaches some 83 million homes in the United States. Four events will have network coverage on the weekend (NBC: Senior PGA Championship, Senior U.S. Open; CBS: Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf; ESPN: Senior British Open). Champions Tour telecasts are distributed internationally in Canada, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australasia, and Latin America through various distribution partners. The events air live, tape-delayed or in a highlights-package format in excess of 117 countries, reaching more than 133 million households.
