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Park
City senior golf tournament is history
Thursday,
November 21, 2002
By Mike Sorensen
Deseret News Sports writer
As expected, the Champions (Senior) Tour golf tournament in Park
City will not be back in 2003. The tournament survived for 21 years
and was the Senior Tour's second-longest-running event behind one
in Boston. But a lack of a consistent title sponsor, a problem that
dogged the tournament for most of the past decade, finally doomed
it.
Ever since the Uniting Fore Care Classic was held in August at Park
Meadows CC, tournament director Bryan Naugle has been hopeful the
tournament could be renewed. "I'm disappointed, obviously.
We had such a good event," he said. "It's was ranked by
Sports Illustrated as one of the top seven Senior events, yet we
can't keep it."
In the past, the Senior Tour was willing to work with the Park City
event because it is such a popular event among the players. But
without approximately $1.5 million needed annually to sponsor the
event, the tournament couldn't continue.
The first tournament, called "Shootout at Jeremy Ranch"
was held in 1982 with local favorite Billy Casper coming from behind
to win with a 65 in the final round.
The next year it switched to a two-man best ball event with a Senior
Tour player teamed with
a player from the PGA Tour and another local golfer, Mike Reid,
teamed with Bob Goalby to win. Over the next four years, local fans
were able to see the likes of Greg Norman, Curtis Strange and Ben
Crenshaw along with the Senior Stars.
The tournament was nearly canned in the late l980s but kept surviving.
That trend continued in the l990s with various sponsors keeping
the tournament alive. The tournament's future looked bright when
Novell took over sponsorship in 1999 with a four-year contract.
However, when Novell's fortunes faltered, the company wasn't about
to renew and Naugle couldn't come up with a replacement.
"Everybody wants it, but nobody's willing to pay for it,"
said Naugle, who took over as the tournament director in 1997 after
working with the Senior Tour for several years.
The official 2003 Champions Tour schedule will be released next
month. It is expected that other tournaments, besides the Park City
event, will not be back because of similar sponsorship difficulties.
Utah will still have a PGA Tour event with the Utah Classic on the
Nationwide Tour (formerly Buy.com) scheduled for Sept. 4-7 at Willow
Creek Country Club.
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