The first professional golf event to be held at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm since its multi-million dollar renovation this spring is scheduled for next October, and officials there are hoping the tournament will bring some prestige to the new course.
The Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, will hit the links of TPC Potomac from Oct. 4-10, drawing some of the nation's greatest players age 50 and older with it. The Champions Tour is the senior arm of the PGA Tour, drawing hundreds of players to 25 tournaments in 2009.
Officials at TPC Potomac say scoring the tournament is proof that the $23 million renovation, which was meant in part to draw more professional tournaments to the course, is paying off.
"We're very excited," said TPC Potomac General Manager Michael Sullivan. "We tried to build in the competitive enhancements we needed to get an event, and we're hopeful the players will like it."
The tournament — known as the Champions Tour's "fifth major"— has been held at Baltimore Country Club in Timonium since 2007 and will return there in 2011. The tour has a four-year deal to host the event at Baltimore Country Club, but it has a five-year contract with sponsor Constellation. In order to fulfill both contracts, the tour had to find another Maryland-area club to host the event for one year, said Michael McPhillips, a spokesman for the Champions Tour.
"We had an opportunity with the newly renovated TPC Potomac, and we took it," McPhillips said. "It's been drawing rave reviews from the players who have been on it, and we wanted to take advantage of that."
The 220-acre, 7,124-yard course's fairways and greens reopened April 28, following extensive renovations to the course that began in August 2007. The repairs and upgrades dealt with previous flooding problems and made alterations to every hole on the course, from new fairway bunkers and stone walls to shifted greens and new forested areas.
The tournament will come at a welcome time for the county, which has become accustomed to hosting PGA Tour events. Tiger Woods' popular AT&T National tournament is leaving Bethesda's Congressional Country Club for two years starting in 2010 and moving to Pennsylvania, while Congressional prepares to host the 2011 U.S. Open.
"This will really help bridge the gap without Tiger being here," said Steve Silverman, director of Montgomery County's Department of Economic Development. "We don't have any projections yet, but [the Senior Players tournament] will certainly help the county's economy."
TPC Potomac hosted PGA Tour events from 1987 to 2004 and in 2006. An October article in Golfweek magazine named TPC Potomac the 12th best new course in the United States.
"This will definitely add a bit of prestige to the venue," Sullivan said. "Any time you have players like Tom Watson or Fred Couples at an event, it's good."
Staff Writer Andrew Ujifusa contributed to this report.
