A PGA Tour Champions tournament will debut in October 2024 at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock, officials announced Thursday morning during a news conference in Little Rock.
The Simmons Bank Championship will be held Oct. 21-27, 2024, and will serve as the second round of the annual Charles Schwab Cup playoffs. The top 54 players in the Charles Schwab standings will compete for a spot among the top 36 to gain entry into the season's final event.
The five-year agreement establishing the event was announced at the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, with Simmons First National Corporation Executive Chairman George Makris, PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in attendance.
The tournament will be held annually at Pleasant Valley Country Club.
It will mark the first PGA Tour Champions event held in Arkansas, and the first PGA Tour-sanctioned tournament in the state since the Korn Ferry Tour's Fort Smith Classic in 2010.
PGA Tour Champions events generate upwards of $15 million dollars in local economic impact, according to a news release handed out during Thursday's news conference. Net proceeds from the tournament will benefit several 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organizations in the state of Arkansas, according to the release.
The Champions tour features several golfers with Arkansas ties. They include former University of Arkansas golfer John Daly of Dardanelle, who won five PGA titles including the 1991 PGA Championship and the 1995 British Open Championship; Glen Day of Little Rock, who won the 1999 MCI Classic on the PGA Tour and 1990 Benson & Hedges Malaysian Open; and former Henderson State University golfer Ken Duke, winner of the PGA's 2013 Travelers Championship and international titles at the Shell Payless Open, the Bayer Championship and the Times Colonist Open in 1999.