Florida receives another senior tourney

There will be a true Florida swing on the Champions Tour in 2007.

The Tour announced Thursday that the Allianz Championship would move from Des Moines, Iowa, to Boca Raton’s Broken Sound Golf Club next year. The event will be played Feb. 5-11, the week prior to the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am in Tampa, and two weeks before The ACE Group Classic at Quail West Golf Club in Naples from Feb. 19-25.

The Allianz and the tour have a three-year deal. There had been only two early-season tournaments in Florida — Naples and Tampa — the past two years since the Royal Caribbean Classic on Key Biscayne ended in 2004. Prolinks Sports will manage the tournament.

“I think it’s great for the tour to be able to bring an event back to Southeast Florida,” ACE Group Classic tournament director Jason Camp said. “I think, overall, it’s good for the tour.”

“The South Florida location will offer Allianz wonderful customer entertainment at a great time of year,” Tour commissioner Rick George said in a press release. “The move also allows the Champions Tour to achieve one of its highest priorities, strengthening its early-season schedule and enhancing its Florida swing.”

George said the tour planned on having an event back in Des Moines next year with a new title sponsor. The Allianz event had been played in Iowa since its inception in 2001.

Camp isn’t concerned about The ACE Group Classic’s move to the end of the Florida swing.

“If you really track the top 50 players, they very rarely take any events off in the first quarter,” he said. “If they do, it’s because of a personal conflict or another engagement. We anticipate still having as strong a field as ever.”

Camp said The ACE could possibly switch back with Tampa starting in 2008.

“We want to make sure we do what’s best for the tour, the entire Florida swing, and The ACE Group Classic,” he said.

The addition of the Allianz and the switching of weeks by tour events in Tampa and Naples also will affect a local tournament, the Beck’s Open, held at Fort Myers Country Club. Tournament director Rich Lamb had moved the Beck’s from its normal mid-January slot to the weekend prior to The ACE Group Classic the past two years. But with the Allianz and the Outback being played in the two weeks before The ACE, Lamb said he will have to take another look.

Lamb had made the move to February because of the chance for better weather, longer days, and the possibility of some Champions Tour players playing in it to tune up for The ACE.

The Tour also released a transcript of a June 12 press conference. Among other items, George discussed the state of the tour, which he said he was healthy. George said attendance was up nine percent so far, but wanted that to grow even more.

George also said the Constellation Energy Players Championship — formerly known as the Ford Senior Players Championship — would move to October in 2007, breaking up a bunching of four of the tour’s five majors.

George said he had talked with Mark O’Meara, Nick Price, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Jeff Sluman and John Cook — all of whom turn 50 sometime in 2007 — and that all assured him they would be playing on the tour. O’Meara and Price both will turn 50 prior to the 2007 ACE Group Classic.

George isn’t concerned about the PGA Tour’s new, 15-year television contract with The Golf Channel affecting the Champions Tour’s television broadcasts, almost all of which are on the Orlando-based cable station.

“A lot of people say we’re going to take second fiddle and they’re going to blow up the PGA Tour,” George said. “Yes, they are going to do that, but we think the universe of The Golf Channel is going to grow significantly and quickly. We also think the viewership of the Champions Tour will grow because there will be a lot more synergies with the PGA Tour being on Thursday and the pre-promotions we’re going to get off of that.

“On Fridays, we’ll either be prior to the PGA Tour coverage or we’ll be after the PGA Tour. We think that’s going to increase our viewership and draw some fans from the PGA Tour broadcast.”