The Patriot in Owasso could host Champions Tour stop
BY JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
4/10/12 at 4:41 PM
The Patriot Golf Club in Owasso could become the site of a Champions Tour stop.
Dan Rooney dropped that hint during a Tuesday press conference to promote a May 28 Patriot Cup celebrity pro-am.
“We have been approached by the Champions Tour,” Rooney, founder of The Patriot Golf Club and the Folds of Honor Foundation, said.
“It is a dream of ours, and it’s a big dream, whether it is in 2013 or 2014, to have a weeklong event here at the Patriot Cup, which would still revolve around Memorial Day.”
The Patriot Cup is a one-day event with a field of golfers from the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour.
If The Patriot Golf Club is granted a Champions Tour event, Rooney indicated Patriot Cup participants from the Champions Tour would remain at the course the following week for a Champions Tour tournament.
“Hopefully, with some sponsorship help, we would get to that point and what a great thing it would be for our community,” he said.
Rooney said exposure from a Champions Tour event would show folks what “Tulsa is all about and what our country is all about” and it would educate viewers on the mission of the Folds of Honor Foundation, which provides scholarships to family members of U.S. soldiers killed or disabled in combat.
Asked about the chances of a Champions Tour stop becoming a reality, Rooney said, “I have no idea.”
Rooney then referenced a previous question about whether he envisioned the Patriot Cup getting as big as it has gotten and said, “I figured out a long time ago that someone else is piloting this airplane. You do the right thing and, with the amount of families that we have been helping and the partners that we have involved, anything is possible. It’s certainly a big dream, but I couldn’t see any reason why we wouldn’t be able to make it happen.”
The Champions Tour is a professional golf tour for players 50 and over. It was called the senior PGA Tour until 2002.
Associated Images:
Folds of Honor Foundation founder Dan Rooney discusses the 2012 Patriot Cup golf event during a press conference at the Patriot Golf Club in Owasso on Tuesday. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World
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