The McGladrey Classic at Sea Island GC in Georgia has been added to the US PGA Tour's schedule from October 2010.
McGladrey Classic to form part of Fall Series
The McGladrey Classic at Sea Island Golf Club in Georgia has been added to the US PGA Tour's schedule from October 2010.
With $4 million purse, the new event will form part of the PGA Tour's Fall Series of tournaments and fill a gap in the schedule for October 7-10 with US accounting firm RSM McGladrey having been brought on board as a title sponsor.
The move follows the PGA Tour's announcement on Monday that it had also found a title sponsor for next week's San Diego Open at Torrey Pines.
The Farmers Insurance Open will now take the place of the Buick Invitational following the withdrawal of General Motors car brand Buick from golf sponsorship during 2009 due to teh global economic downturn.
"This is the final piece to our 2010 schedule," commented PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem.
"It is a result of a three-year commitment by RSM McGladrey to sponsor this Fall Series event ."
Buick's cancellation of its sponsorship agreements last year signalled the end of the Buick Open at Warwick Hills in Michigan as well as its sponsorship of the Torrey Pines event in southern California.
With the troubled Stanford Financial Group also withdrawing its backing of the St Jude Classic, 2009 proved an uncertain year for the PGA Tour - especially following the lurid revelations about Tiger Woods' private life and his indefinite break from golf which followed.
Bright future
However, Finchem believes this week's developments demonstrate that the Tour is on the up once more and is confident of a successful 2010 season.
"Yesterday's announcement as it relates to San Diego and today's announcement for the Fall Series really caps off our announcements for this year," he continued.
"We are done. We have a full schedule and the upshot is that the total playing opportunities for our players are consistent with the last couple of years.
"Our prize money this year will be up slightly over 2009 and based on these announcements and also the financial performance of our first-quarter events we see our charity numbers now rebounding back into that $116m, $118m area for 2010."
Sea Island, which will host the McGladrey Classic, is also the home course to major winners Davis Love III and Zach Johnson and the tournament 's host organisation will be the Davis Love Foundation with the former US PGA champion acting as tournament chairman and his younger brother Mark serving as its executive director.
Former Masters champion Johnson will also be on the tournament board.
