PGA Tour replaces Buick Open

The PGA Tour has moved quickly to fill the breach left by Buick’s pull-out from tournament sponsorships with the announcement of a new event for 2010.

Buick, whose parent company General Motors has filed for bankruptcy, announced it was ending its sponsorships on Tuesday – two days after Tiger Woods won the Buick Open at Warwick Hills in Michigan.

The Greenbrier Classic, sponsored by and hosted at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, was yesterday unveiled as a new tournament in the last week of July, 2010.

The Greenbrier Classic will be played on the Charles Blair Macdonald-designed Old White Course and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said the agreement for the tournament would run until 2015, for the first year at least in the week of July 26-August 1.

“We are delighted with the opportunity to return golf at the PGA Tour level to one of the truly great resorts and golf destinations in the world,” Finchem said.

“The Greenbrier has a long and storied history in golf. The White Course and the other course there have hosted a variety of competitions over the years - the 1979 Ryder Cup, the 1994 Solheim Cup, which I attended, a Champions Tour event in the mid-80s.”