The major tournament for senior players will return to the Midwest for the first time since 2006, to be contested at the Highland Park, Ill. club in partnership with the Western Golf Association.
PGA Tour Champions and Constellation has announced that the 2018 Constellation Senior Players Championship will be contested at Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park, Ill., marking the first time since 1997 that one of the five senior major championships has been conducted in the greater Chicago area. Tournament dates will be announced in the near future, with the event expected to be held in June or July of 2018.
This will mark the first time the Constellation Senior Players Championship will be contested in the Midwest since 2006, when the event was held at TPC Michigan in Dearborn. The tournament has since visited East Coast venues that have included Baltimore (Md.) Country Club, TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm (Potomac, Md.), Westchester Country Club (Rye, N.Y.), Fox Chapel Golf Club (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Belmont (Mass.) Country Club and the Philadelphia (Pa.) Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course, where Bernhard Langer won his third straight Constellation championship in the 2016 tournament, which concluded on June 12.
For 2017, the event will move to Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md. (suburban Baltimore). Exmoor will then become the 13th course to host the major championship, which began in 1983 when Miller Barber claimed the inaugural title at Canterbury Golf Club in Beechwood, Ohio.
The 2018 event will be managed by the Western Golf Association (WGA) in partnership with PGA Tour Champions and the PGA Tour’s Championship Management division.
The WGA currently conducts the PGA TOUR’s BMW Championship, as well as the Western Amateur and Western Junior. The organization, which is based in the Chicago suburb of Golf, Ill., also supports the nationally acclaimed Evans Scholars Foundation, which provides full housing and tuition scholarships to caddies across the country, including 910 students during the 2015-16 school year alone.
Exmoor CC is one of the more storied clubs in the greater Chicago area, with a history dating back to 1896. The club was one of 11 charter clubs that established the WGA in 1899, and is one of just seven WGA founding clubs remaining.
In 1914, Donald Ross redesigned the original H.J. Tweedie design, allowing for his trademark green contours and strategic bunkering to bring the course up to early 20th-century standards for one of Chicago’s most prominent clubs.
“Continuing a 120-year heritage of championship golf, we are proud that Exmoor Country Club has been selected to host the 2018 Constellation Senior Players Championship,” said club President Sandy Stevenson. “To have the legends of the game of golf grace us with their presence is a testament to the powerful place that Exmoor Country Club holds in the local community for hosting meaningful and memorable sporting competitions.”
Added Greg McLaughlin, President of the PGA Tour Champions: “We are looking forward to bringing the excitement of the Constellation Senior Players Championship to a golf-rich market such as Chicago. This event has established a history of playing some of the game’s elite venues, and that will continue in 2018 as we welcome Exmoor to the PGA Tour Champions schedule.”
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