The 2011 pro tour schedule in Georgia will have one notable addition and a few minor date changes for several other events in the state.
The PGA Championship returns to Atlanta Athletic Club after a 10-year absence, with next year’s dates Aug. 11-14. Atlanta will be host to two of golf’s top events in a six-week stretch, with the Tour Championship scheduled for Sept. 22-25 at East Lake. The Masters begins golf’s major championship stretch April 7-10.
There will be a small change to the FedExCup playoff schedule, as the off week that has preceded the Tour Championship the last few years will now come in between the second and third playoff events. The tour will take a week off after the Deutsche Bank Championship, which concludes on Labor Day, with the BMW Championship at Chicago’s Cog Hill played the week before the Tour Championship.
Georgia’s other PGA Tour event will be played one week later in 2011. The McGladrey Classic at Sea Island GC will be played Oct. 13-16, and will be the next-to-last event on the PGA Tour. This will be the second year for the McGladrey Classic, which was the only new event on the PGA Tour schedule in 2010.
The only changes of note on the 2011 PGA Tour involve several of the tour’s lesser events. The Turning Stone Resort Classic has dropped off the schedule, with the Viking Classic in Mississippi moving from the Fall Series to a spot on the FedExCup schedule opposite the British Open.
The Valero Texas Open, which annually draws one of the weakest schedules on the tour, moves to the week after the Masters, which may dilute the field even more. As a result, the sponsor-less Heritage Classic is being moved back one week (April 21-24) and will be played the same week as the Champions Tour Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf in nearby Savannah.
The next two weeks in the state feature back-to-back Nationwide Tour events, beginning with the South Georgia Classic at Valdosta’s Kinderlou Forest GC April 28-May 1. The tour moves to Athens the following week for the Stadion Classic at UGA. Both eill be played one week later than they were last year.
With one of the PGA Tour’s top events also played that week (Quail Hollow in Charlotte), the Athens tournament should draw one of the strongest fields on the Nationwide Tour, with a number of PGA Tour members likely to enter.
The Hooters Tour has scheduled five stops in Georgia this year, with four other events just outside the state’s borders. The 2011 Hooters Tour schedule begins March 3-6 at Killearn CC in Tallahassee, and includes early season stops at Chattahoochee GC in Gainesville (March 24-27), Stonebridge G&CC in Albany (April 14-17) and Whitewater Creek in Fayetteville (April 21-24).
Crystal Lake in Hampton will host a Hooters Tour event May 26-29, with Southern Hills in Hawkinsville the site of a tournament August 4-7. The Hooters Tour will also make two of its annual stops near Augusta at Savannah Lakes in McCormick, S.C., (April 28-May 1) and at Mt. Vintage Plantation in North Augusta, S.C. (Sept. 1-4). The tour also visits Auburn, Ala. this season (Aug. 11-14).
The North Carolina-based eGolf Tour, which has played several events in Savannah in recent years and made a recent stop at Callaway Gardens, has no Georgia tournaments on its tentative 2011 schedule. The tour opens its season in mid-February on Hilton Head Island, and plays at Woodside Plantation in Aiken, S.C., just outside Augusta, in July.