PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA (Jan. 13, 2015) – The PGA TOUR today announced the 2015 Web.com Tour schedule, which features 25 tournaments, played in 14 states and six countries outside the United States, and culminates with the four-event Web.com Tour Finals in September and October.
The season-long chase for 50 available PGA TOUR cards encompasses a 21-event Regular Season that runs from the season-opening Panama Claro Championship in late January through the WinCo Foods Portland Open presented by Kraft in late August and will end at the Web.com Tour Championship at TPC Sawgrass on Oct. 4th.
Eleven events will be produced in HDTV and air on Golf Channel in the United States. The Web.com Tour will be seen in 192 other countries and territories, reaching a potential 93 million households via the PGA TOUR’s international broadcasting operation.
“The structural and scheduling changes that have been made to the Web.com Tour the last two years are clearly having a positive impact as evidenced by the increased excitement and focus the Tour is experiencing,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem. “The competition for the 50 cards has produced a build up during the Regular Season that is followed by significant drama during the Web.com Tour Finals. I think the fans, both on site and watching at home on Golf Channel, are seeing terrific and meaningful competition throughout the year.”
“The success of the Web.com Tour is due in large part to an incredible tournament and sponsor base, which allows us to enjoy a strong tournament schedule year in and year out,” said Web.com Tour President Bill Calfee. “We are most appreciative of their efforts as we collectively work to keep building the foundation of this tour and have a greater impact in the communities where we play.”
“As we look ahead on the Web.com Tour, 2015 should be another exciting year of extraordinary play, intense competition, and positive community impact,” said David L. Brown, chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Web.com. “We look forward to the partnership between Web.com and the PGA TOUR producing another successful year for the players, fans, and communities.”
The 2015 season gets underway with five tournaments in Latin America that will be played in late January through mid-March in Panama City, Panama, Bogotá, Colombia, Cartagena, Colombia, São Paulo, Brazil and Santiago, Chile. The Tour welcomes the new Karibana Championship in Cartagena, which makes its debut March 5-8 at TPC Cartagena at Karibana. A sixth Latin American stop will be played in April in Leon, Mexico.
Kicking off the domestic tournaments in 2015 is the 24th playing of the Chitimacha Louisiana Open presented by NACHER in Lafayette, March 26-29. It is one of three events that turn 24 this year, joined by the WNB Golf Classic in Midland, Texas and the BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation in Greenville, S.C. The trio holds the distinction of being the fifth-longest running on Tour, behind Boise, Idaho, Knoxville, Tenn., Springfield, Mo. and Wichita, Kan., all of which celebrated their 25th seasons last year.
In addition to TPC Cartagena at Karibana, there are two other new venues on the 2015 schedule – Club de Golf Mapocho in Santiago, Chile (Chile Classic) and the Golf Club at Thanksgiving Point near Salt Lake City, Utah (Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank).
New to the Web.com Tour family of title sponsors is Karibana in Cartagena, Colombia and the Rust-Oleum Corporation, which assumed sponsorship of the Tour’s Cleveland-based event, the newly named Rust-Oleum Championship.
The Regular Season finale, the WinCo Foods Portland Open presented by Kraft, will be played Aug. 27-30 and determine the first set of 25 PGA TOUR cards for 2015-16. Host Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club proved to be a popular and memorable venue last year, with 2014 Player of the Year Carlos Ortiz of Mexico claiming the tournament title and the first three-win promotion on Tour since 2009.
The first two years of the Web.com Tour Finals have created a dramatic conclusion to the season-long chase for the 50 available PGA TOUR cards. The 2015 Finals will follow a week off after Portland and be played over four consecutive weeks, from Sept. 10-13 to Oct. 1-4.
- Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship at Ohio State University GC-Scarlet Course, Columbus, Ohio
- Web.com Tour Championship at TPC Sawgrass-Dye’s Valley Course, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
The season-ending Web.com Tour Championship (Oct. 1-4) will finalize the second set of 25 PGA TOUR cards for 2015-16 and determine player positioning in the priority ranking system, which is used to form fields for TOUR events, for all 50 card recipients.
With PGA TOUR China’s first year in the books, there are now three tours under the PGA TOUR umbrella that feed players to the Web.com Tour – PGA TOUR Canada, PGA TOUR China and PGA TOUR Latinoamérica. Each tour’s leading money winner from 2014 is now a Tour member and will pursue “The Path” to the PGA TOUR in 2015.
With December’s completion of the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament, there are 293 players who hold either full or conditional Tour status in 2015. They include recent collegiate/amateur standouts and Tour newcomers Greg Eason, Rhein Gibson, Oliver Goss, Hunter Hamrick, Andrew Landry, Tain Lee, Trey Mullinax, Seamus Power, Trevor Simsby, Curtis Thompson, Mike Van Sickle, Michael Weaver and Cameron Wilson, plus 2014 Order of Merit winners Julian Etulain (PGA TOUR Latinoamérica),Joel Dahmen (PGA TOUR Canada) and Hao Tong Li (PGA TOUR China).
Contact
Jeff Adams
Director of Communications, Web.com Tour c/o PGA TOUR
Tel: 904-273-3397 Cell: 904-607-6142
Email: jadams@pgatourhq.com
ABOUT THE WEB.COM TOUR
Founded (1990), owned and operated by the PGA TOUR, the Web.Com Tour continues to identify those players who are ready to compete and win on golf’s biggest stage. In 2013, the Web.com Tour became The Path to the PGA TOUR with all 50 available PGA TOUR cards coming through the Web.com Tour and the season culminating at the four-event Web.com Tour Finals. Web.com became the Tour’s umbrella sponsor on June 27, 2012. A 10-year agreement (through 2021) is in place. The Tour completed its 25th year of competition in 2014. Three out of four PGA TOUR members are Web.com Tour alumni. Tour alumni have won 396 PGA TOUR titles, including 19 majors and five PLAYERS Championships. The PGA TOUR, through the efforts of its tours and their tournaments, sponsors, players and volunteers, surpassed $2 billion in charitable giving in Jan. 2014. To learn more about the PGA TOUR and Web.com Tour and to follow the season-long quest for a PGA TOUR card, visit PGATOUR.COM, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
ABOUT WEB.COM
Web.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW) provides a full range of Internet services to small businesses to help them compete and succeed online. Web.com is owner of several global domain registrars and further meets the needs of small businesses anywhere along their lifecycle with affordable, subscription-based solutions including website design and management, search engine optimization, online marketing campaigns, local sales leads, social media, mobile products, eCommerce solutions and call center services. To get more information, visit www.web.com; follow Web.com on Twitter @webdotcom or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/web.com. For additional online marketing resources and small business networking, please visit Web.com’s Small Business Summit.
