Schwab Cup golf moving out of S.F.
October 14, 2011|Ron Kroichick, Chronicle Staff Writer
-- Enjoy your glimpse of Tom Watson, Fred Couples and other Champions Tour players next month at Harding Park - because they're not coming back to San Francisco in 2012.
The Schwab Cup Championship, the season-ending event set for Harding on Nov. 3-6, will move to Scottsdale, Ariz., next year. Tour officials made the announcement Thursday, saying the tournament will be held at the Cochise Course at the Desert Mountain Club on Nov. 1-4, 2012.
This came as little surprise, given the tour's ongoing talks with San Francisco officials about future events at Harding Park. The Schwab was expected to move elsewhere next year, in part because the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in June will consume much of the Bay Area's corporate support for golf.
Even so, Thursday's news highlights the uncertainty about scheduling matters at Harding. The city's contract with the PGA Tour (which runs the Champions Tour) calls for two more marquee events at Harding in the coming years, including the "penultimate playoff event" on the big tour, the BMW Championship, in 2013 or '14.
But tour officials boxed themselves into a corner, given similar obligations to hold that tournament outside Chicago (its traditional home) in 2013 and near Denver (at Cherry Hills) in 2014. The tour and city of San Francisco have been negotiating ways to reshape their deal, possibly pushing back the higher-profile PGA Tour events and instead bringing more Schwab Cups to Harding.
The deal with Desert Mountain covers only one year, leaving open the possibility of the Schwab Cup returning to San Francisco in 2013 or '14. That's what tour officials envision - the event essentially bouncing between Scottsdale and San Francisco in a semi-regular rotation.
Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, did not view Thursday's news as a permanent loss.
"We're looking forward to the Schwab Cup returning to San Francisco as part of our long, sustained partnership with the PGA Tour," Ginsburg wrote in a text message, "that will continue to bring world-class golf to Harding throughout the next decade."
The Schwab was previously held in Sonoma from 2003 to '09, before moving to Harding last year. John Cook won the 2010 tournament - a poignant victory because his longtime mentor, Ken Venturi, grew up playing Harding.
Source: http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-10-14/sports/30282326_1_tour-and-city-harding-last-year-big-tour
No comments:
Post a Comment