LAS VEGAS — It has had ten different names. It has been played on 12 different golf courses. It has been held in March, May and October. But whatever it has been called and wherever it has been played, a stop in Las Vegas has been a staple on the PGA Tour for 39 years.
So what does the future hold for the Shriners Children’s Open?
The Tour has had a wrap-around schedule, starting in September and ending in August, for eight years.
But what’s old is new again, so beginning in 2024, the Tour will return to its calendar-year schedule format, with the season starting in January like it used to do.
That means 2023, which will also mark the 40th anniversary of the first regular PGA Tour stop in Las Vegas, could very well be the end of the fall series as fans know it now.
Patrick Lindsey, in his eighth year as tournament director of the Shriners Children’s Open, is optimistic about the future.
“Ultimately, we have really two great things that are going on for us. One we have, we have a great title sponsor. The mission of the charity is awesome,” he said. “We also live in this incredible market in this destination of Las Vegas. So talking with players, they’re like, ‘Listen, we love Las Vegas, we love Shriners, we’d love just being there. We are always going to kind of schedule your event and be here and be a part of it’, so that made me feel a little bit better about the direction.”
Count Max Homa among them.
“I’m not sure that the future of all these, I don’t know what changes when we don’t have a wraparound season,” he said. “I would imagine that the events would still do all right because, like I said, I think a decent amount of us are still very excited about the events that we would play.”
A year ago, Shriners Hospitals for Children signed a five-year extension as title sponsor through 2026. As for the tournament itself, there are no plans to go anywhere. Lindsey says they like their spot in the fall.
“In this climate that we’re in, it’s built to have this event in the fall, because we don’t overseed and the growing process and winter in the spring being very light, they would have to, my opinion, change some agronomy standards of this golf course,” said Lindsey. “So really, this tournament works out great being in the fall, because we have the whole summer growing season to get the course exactly how we want it for the PGA Tour event, the first week of October.”
As the LIV Golf Series eyes expansion, there is some internet chatter about Greg Norman and Co. perhaps trying to pick off one of the PGA Tour’s fall events, maybe due to the notion that a fall Tour event may not want to risk facing diminished status or a weaker field.
But since the Shriners is staged on a TPC course, “it won’t happen here,” Lindsey said, adding that no one from LIV Golf has contacted him or anyone else at his tournament, nor would he take the call even if they did.
Two recent past champs of the Shriners—Bryson DeChambeau and Kevin Na—won’t ever be back, due to their defections to LIV, and Lindsey did sound a bit bummed about that.
“I respect the guys that left, disappointed that they left,” he said. “I have no problem with that. I wish they were here, you know, I wish they hadn’t moved but you know, still appreciate those guys and what they have done for Shriners.”
The big picture for the Vegas stop is keeping the event in a burgeoning sports market.
“This is a great sports town,” said Chesson Hadley. “It’s becoming more and more of a phenomenal sports town. I mean, the next 10 years—they’ve got hockey and football—there’s going to be basketball and baseball here.”
Jim Furyk, who won three of his 17 PGA Tour titles in Las Vegas, has fond memories.
“When I started playing, Las Vegas was one of four bigger purses,” he said. “The first time I won in 1995, the purse was $1.5 million and lot of the purses at that time were $1 million. It’s Las Vegas, right? It had a lot of buzz.
“I know it’s in the fall now. … three of my first four victories came there so I always have a soft spot for it. I hope to see it on the schedule in the future. I really do.”
Garry Smits from the Florida Times-Union contributed to this article.
