The PGA Tour's Las Vegas stop will no longer be known as the Shriners Children's Open. The hospital has ended its sponsorship deal of the event played at TPC Summerlin, in what has been dubbed a mutual decision.
Shriners had been sponsor of the event dating back to 2007, ending one of the longer runs for a title sponsor on the PGA Tour.
“We have enjoyed a tremendous 18 years as the host and title sponsor of the Shriners Children’s Open,” said Bob Roller, vice president of sports for Shriners. “The opportunity to tell our incredible stories of the more than 1.6 million children that have received care from Shriners was, and always is, our primary goal.”
No explicit reason was given for ending the deal. However, in 2021, Shriners Children's Hospital and the PGA Tour annnounced a five-year extension of their deal through 2026.
The Las Vegas tournament was first played in 1983, and it has moved around the burgeoning metropolitan Vegas area over those 42 years. Tiger Woods broke through on the PGA Tour in Las Vegas in 1996.
The PGA Tour and tournament officials are now forced to identify a new title sponsor for 2025 or risk the event coming off the schedule after four decades. It is possible that the PGA Tour could step in and back the event if a new title sponsor cannot be found.
With the upheaval of the PGA Tour schedule in reaction to the creation of LIV Golf in 2022, the fall portion of the schedule has been dramatically impacted. The PGA Tour no longer has a wraparound season, now reserving the FedEx Cup Fall to determine the top 125 players in the final points standings that will keep exempt PGA Tour status for the coming calendar year, as well as 10 spots in the first two Signature events for the next season that are played in the mainland United States. The result has been a significant drop in TV viewership for the fall tournaments.
The decreased perceived value has meant a significant change in sponsors and purses. In all but one of the FedEx Cup Fall events, 2024 purses are down from 2023. Fortinet exited as sponsor of the PGA Tour's event in Napa, Calif., in July, forcing a scramble to find Procore as a new sponsor -- and presenting the tournament with a substantially lower purse than in 2023. Sanderson Farms had announced that 2024 would be their final year as sponsor of the Jackson, Miss., stop until a last-minute change of heart brought them back for next year's event.
Still more change may be coming to the schedule. As the PGA Tour floats proposals that would decrease field sizes and the number of fully exempt players, the meaning of the fall series may again change.
