The PGA Tour announced its 2015-16 schedule on Thursday with several big changes because of golf’s return to the Olympics next August in Rio de Janeiro. The match-play event will be held at Austin Country Club, with other stops in the Lone Star State at the Shell Houston Open (March 28-April 3) and the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio (April 18-24) before competitors head to D-FW in May.
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“We will embrace our 2016 date with an eye toward delivering the kind of compelling and dramatic golf tournament that our local fans and TV golf viewers around the world have come to expect”, Peterson said. This year’s John Deere Classic is pushed back to the middle of August due to golf becoming an Olympic sport.
“To be able to do that it just gives me a lot more confidence going in to the rest of the season”. It is exciting now that so many players are playing so well, and so well on a consistent basis.
“It’s important from a worldwide standpoint, and I think it’s important to the game of golf that we work around the Olympics because it’s only once every four years”, said Jason Bohn, one of four player directors on the policy board which met on Monday at the Quicken Loans National.
“Tournament officials said this is “a one-time shift” and “[in] 2017 and beyond, the John Deere Classic will return to its normal early-July dates” which are the week before the British Open.
Woods’ struggles continued at the British Open when he missed the cut, so he is looking to get back on track and gain some momentum entering the PGA Championship. The Houston Open will be played the week before the season’s first major championship, the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga. John Deere, whose world headquarters is in Moline, Ill., assumed title sponsorship of the tournament in 1998.
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Having recently completed its 45 year, the tournament generated $6.33 million for its participating charities in 2014, ranking it first among regular PGA TOUR events overall in per capita contributions at $16.88 for each of the 375,000 residents of the Quad City area.
