Champions Tour heads to Mexico
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico (Ticker) – After a year away the Champions Tour returns to Mexico for the inaugural $1.6 million Puerto Vallarta Golf Classic starting Friday at the Vista Vallarta Golf Club.
The Jack Nicklaus designed course has previously hosted a World Golf Championships event and will be the site of the first senior circuit event to be held south of the border since the 2004 MasterCard Classic.
Loren Roberts, the tour’s leading money winner, is taking the week off after playing in The Players Championship on the PGA Tour.
Roberts won the first three events of the season and has five top-10 finishes on the year so he will hardly be missed by the rest of the field.
Argentina’s Eduardo Romero is one player likely to take advantage of Roberts’ absence having played the course here in the WGC World Cup. Romero and countryman Angel Cabrera finished sixth in that event and Romero won the 1998 Mexico Open.
Other players in the field who have won events in Mexico include Hale Irwin, Hubert Green, Bruce Lietzke and Gil Morgan.
The Vista Vallarta course is a par-72 layout that plays 7,073 yards.
First prize is $240,000.