Senior Champions of Golf Tournament Is Planned for Desert Mountain Course

The man who helped start the Skins Game and the Desert Scramble golf tournaments has announced plans for a new Senior PGA Tour event in Arizona.

Land developer Lyle Anderson has announced that the 72-hole Champions of Golf medal-play tourament will be played April 13-16 on the Cochise Course at Desert Mountain in north Scottsdale.

“We have a multiyear agreement with the PGA Tour for a $600,000 tournament,” Anderson said. “We are excited to get this date because it comes right after the Masters and during the middle of our premier golf season.”

Anderson said the new event will not compete with the Arizona Classic stop on the Senior PGA tour, which is played in early March in Sun City West.

But Anderson said the Champions of Golf tourney “will have no corporate sponsorship and no commercial ties.”

In addition to Senior Tour regulars, Anderson said “past champions over (age) 50 of major events (British Open, PGA Championship and Masters) and other selected winners will be invited.”

Anderson said Jack Nicklaus is “excited about the format. He said that he was planning on playing in it.”

Nicklaus designed Desert Highlands, which was host for the first few Skins Games, and Desert Mountain, which was the site of the first Desert Scramble last April involving Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Greg Norman and Ian Woosnam.