The Florida swing is growing this season.
With the COVID-19 pandemic preventing the PGA Tour from holding the WGC-Mexico Championship in Mexico City next month, the Tour announced Friday that the event will be moved to The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida. The championship will retain its Feb. 25-28 competition dates, kicking off what will now be four straight weeks in the Sunshine State. The Arnold Palmer Invitational will be played the next week, followed by The Players and Honda Classic.
The Tour plans for the WGC-Mexico to return next year to Chapultepec Golf Club, which has hosted each of the past four editions since the event was moved from Trump National Doral after 2016.
“The PGA Tour is grateful for its continued partnership with Grupo Salinas as we navigate the unique challenges created by the pandemic,” said Ty Votaw, the PGA Tour’s executive vice president, international. “While we work toward returning to Mexico in 2022, we are appreciative of the collective effort to bring this event to a worthy venue in The Concession Golf Club, which is renowned as one of the top courses in the state of Florida.”
While the Tour is still looking for a title sponsor for this year’s championship, the eligibility requirements will remain the same. The limited 72-player field will still include the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking among other special exemption categories.
No ticketed spectators will be allowed, but the club will permit members and invited guests to attend the competition days. A Wednesday pro-am will also be held.
Concession has never hosted a PGA Tour event, but it did serve as the host venue for the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Golf Championships in 2015, the first year that men and women played on the same course in back-to-back weeks. SMU’s Bryson DeChambeau won the men’s individual title that year while LSU captured the men’s team title over USC.