The PGA Tour heads east this week from the bright lights of Las Vegas to the calm and serenity of Sea Island, Georgia for the fifth McGladrey Classic.
Davis Love calls Sea Island home and was the motivation for bringing the McGladrey Classic to the island. Love has 20 career wins on the PGA Tour including the 1997 PGA Championship. He turned 50 years old last April, but still played a full schedule on the PGA Tour last season.
Chris Kirk got his year off to a great start last year earning his first PGA Tour win at the McGladrey Classic. He went on to finish runner-up in Hawaii and win the Deutsche Bank Championship in the FedEx Cup playoffs. He won nearly $5 million last season and finished 10th in the FedEx Cup race.
Past champions include: Heath Slocum, Ben Crane and ex-Big Breaker Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey.
In addition to a total purse of $5.6 million, a check for $990,000 and a full complement of FedEx Cup points await the winner this week.
The McGladrey Classic is the third event of the 2014-15 PGA Tour season. It provides young players and recent Web.com Tour graduates a chance to earn valuable FedEx Cup points to improve their status on tour. This becomes very important when the tour hits the “West Coast” swing after the first of the year and the veterans begin their seasons.
The Seaside Course of the Sea Island Golf Club is the host venue for the McGladrey Classic. The first nine holes were originally designed by the famed English duo of Harry Colt and Charles Hugh Alison in 1929. Joe Lee designed the Marshside nine in 1973. Tom Fazio transformed these two nine-hole courses into the championship Seaside Golf Course in 1999. This par-70 can play to a maximum 7,055 yards and has a slope of 141.
The 2014-15 PGA Tour season is off to a rousing start with Sang-Moon Bae and Ben Martin winning the first two tournaments.
Who will etch their name onto the winner’s trophy at Sea Island this week?