The Walt Disney World Golf Classic was an annual

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

tournament on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

. The tournament was played on the Palm and Magnolia courses at the

Walt Disney World Resort The Walt Disney World Resort is an entertainment resort complex located about southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States. Opened on October 1, 1971, the resort is operated by Disney Experiences, a division of the Walt Disney Company. ...

. It was played under several names, reflecting sponsorship changes. The tournament was founded in 1971 as the Walt Disney World Open Invitational. From 1974 to 1981, the tournament was played as a two-man team event with a better-ball format. Title sponsors have included

Oldsmobile Oldsmobile (formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors) was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produc ...

National Car Rental National Car Rental is a private American rental car agency based in Clayton, Missouri, United States. National is owned by Enterprise Holdings, along with other agencies including Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Alamo Rent a Car. National typically c ...

Funai is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka. Currently, it is in liquidation. Apart from producing its own branded electronic products, it was also an OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recor ...

, and

Children's Miracle Network Children's Miracle Network Hospitals (CMN Hospitals) (French: (RES)) is a nonprofit organization that raises funds for children's hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. Donations support the health of more than 10 million children each year. Donat ...

. From 2007 to 2012, it was the final event in the

PGA Tour Fall Series The PGA Tour Fall Series was name of the events on the PGA Tour that covered the end of the calendar year from 2007 to 2012 after the Tour Championship. Beginning in 2013, these events became part of the PGA Tour season, which from that point began ...

, and also the final official event of the PGA Tour season. As such, it was a final chance for many players to earn or retain a PGA Tour card through winning or getting into the top 125 on the Tour's money list. The 2010 and 2012 winners,

Robert Garrigus Robert Ira Garrigus (born November 11, 1977) is an American professional golfer who is currently a member of the PGA Tour. He won the 2010 Children's Miracle Network Classic, the last event of the PGA Tour season, to guarantee exempt status on th ...

and

Charlie Beljan Charlie Benjamin Beljan (born October 10, 1984) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. Amateur career Beljan was born in Mesa, Arizona. He won the 2002 U.S. Junior Amateur at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, Geor ...

respectively, were both outside the top 125 before their wins. The tournament was removed from the PGA Tour schedule for the 2013–14 wrap-around season after

declined to renew their sponsorship and no others were found.Disney no longer part of PGA Tour
/ref> The 2012 purse was $4,700,000, with $846,000 going to the winner.

Television

The event was televised by

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

and

ABC Sports ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial America ...

, until the demotion of the event to the Fall Series in 2007, when it was relegated to cable-only on the

Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply "Golf" or "NBC Golf") is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently ba ...

. While ESPN and ABC, which are owned by Disney, covered both courses as a form of publicity for both, the Golf Channel covered only the Magnolia course with highlight packages sent in from the Palm. However, this is the manner in which the network has always covered tournaments with multiple venues.

Courses

The Magnolia Course at Walt Disney World is known as more "tour"-style than its sister the Palm Course. The Palm course is known as the prettier of the two, however. In the 2006 telecast, one commentator is quoted as saying that the Palm course has the better greens of the two courses. The Magnolia has grown to 7,516 yards to battle the usual low scores during the tournament's history. The nearby Lake Buena Vista golf course has also been part of the tournament, along with the Palm and Magnolia.

Winners

Notes

References

External links

Official sitePGATOUR.com Tournament website
{{Former PGA Tour Events Former PGA Tour events Golf tournaments in Florida Golf in Orlando, Florida Recurring sporting events established in 1971 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2012 1971 establishments in Florida 2012 disestablishments in Florida Disney sports