The most asked question this winter was for particulars on the 2012 Tour Championship: The biggest news is that we added another first class course to an already impressive lineup. Last year we added CC of Hilton Head, which drew rave reviews from the players and for 2012 the newest addition is The Ocean Course in Sea Pine Plantation. The seven courses for this year will be as follows: CC of Hilton Head, Oyster Reef, Palmetto Hall Arthur Hills, Robbers Row, Palmetto Dunes Trent Jones & Arthur Hills and of course The Ocean Course in Sea Pines Plantation. I have negotiated everything with these courses for the next 4 years so the price should remain constant through this period. However, the price will go up to $325 due to food increases and the rate hike on each courses' Friday round. Several years ago when we decided to go to 36 holes, I asked for a deep discount on Friday to keep the 54 hole rate low. The courses agreed to the trial run and now that the new format has proven to be successful, the rate needed to be adjusted resulting in a small increase in price by each course.
The main scoreboard will remain at Palmetto Dune's Arthur Hills course and we are going to be adding some new features to make the event even bigger and better. We are moving up the directors' meeting because we have a lot of new vendors that would like to be involved in this year's championship. Thursday will become a bigger day for manufactures to get product in front of our players before the tournament starts and after the annual skins games are over. In addition, we will bring back the welcome party at Port Royal on Thursday night so players can mingle and have a few beverages before the competition begins. We are working with Port Royal and possible sponsors to have the party be little or no cost to the players.
With those changes in mind, the Annual
Directors' Awards Dinner will be held on Wednesday night.
We are talking with The Omni Hotel (formerly the Hilton Oceanfront) on ways to make the Saturday pairings party a bigger deal with possibly a dinner/buffet. This would give us more time to do scoring and pairing in order to make it possible for me to announce the 36 hole leaders with all of the competition present. We also thought it would offer the opportunity to bring the players together to meet each other with possible Tour tables with the directors set up. Again, this cannot be included in the price of the entry fee but we will do our best to make it economically feasible. More on this as we get it finalized this summer.
A sample itinerary is below and will be blown out in full detail when we announce which courses each flight will play in Mid July:
Monday, October 15th thru Wednesday, October 17th
All Day Practice Rounds for all 7 courses
Wednesday, Oct. 17th
Directors Awards night at the Armada house
Thursday, Oct. 18
Optional Skins game for all flights at Port Royal Plantation 12:30 shotgun on Barony and Robbers Row
New equipment sponsors like Winn Grips for give-a-ways
All day demo and sampling opportunities at Heritage Group's Port Royal Clubhouse
Evening Welcome Reception for all players
Friday, Oct. 19: Round One of the Tour Championship
8:15am Shotgun start for all flights at all courses.
All players come to Port Royal Clubhouse for Lunch and first round results.
Demos and sampling opportunities on the range and the new putting green at Port Royal Clubhouse.
Saturday, Oct. 20: Round Two of the Tour Championship
8:15am Shotgun start for all flights at all courses.
Scoring moves to main scoreboard at Palmetto Dunes Arthur Hills course.
Demos and sampling opportunities available on the range.
Evening pairings party, TBD
Sunday, Oct. 21: Round Three of the Tour Championship
8:15am Shotgun start for all flights at all courses.
Final scoring and lunch for all flights at the main scoreboard at Arthur Hills at Palmetto Dunes.
National Champions are crowned. Media will be present for interviews and pictures of winners.
PLEASE REMEMBER All members and directors MUST fill out the "Join the tour" application for 2012 to receive their GOLFWEEK magazine, this includes renewals as well. Each member is given a full years' subscription and many of our subscriptions from last season are starting to expire. Upon expiration, Golfweek will send a renewal bill if they have not received a renewal subscription from us. PLEASE remind your players in your weekly emails to fill out a join the tour application and to ignore any bills that they receive.
It's a "SELL-OUT!"
The 2012 chant for the Tour this season has been "Sell-Out!" Incredible amounts of cities are hosting their biggest events ever and are seeing future events sell out faster than ever before. As of the end of April, the Tour already has almost 3,500 members toward our goal of 4,000 by seasons end. Given numbers I'll show you below, there will be a minimum of 5 tours in the 200 club, 4 to 5 in the 150 club and including these tours, 20 or more cities will boast over 100 members in 2012!
Race for the Belt: (All of these tours are in the running since many have only played one or two events this season.)
Charlotte 195
Tidewater 183
Columbus 181
Louisiana S 171
Orlando 139
Louisiana N 129
Nashville 127
Chicago 123
Ral/Pine 121
Michigan East 118
Kentucky 113
100 Man Tours:
Atlanta 89
Triad 89
DC Metro 81
Upstate 78
Down East 76
Denver 74
Mississippi 72
Michigan West 71
Memphis 61
Top 3 New Tours: We need to catch up with Michigan!!!!! These are paid memberships.. we have 75 that have filled out the app.. we just need you all to play!!!
Michigan West 71
Arkansas 61
Salt Lake 27