Shriners Open intends to remain strong fall event on PGA Tour schedule

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…