The Tradition (known as the Regions Tradition for sponsorship reasons) is an event on the

PGA Tour Champions PGA Tour Champions (formerly the Senior PGA Tour and the Champions Tour) is a men's professional senior golf tour, administered as a branch of the PGA Tour. History and format The Senior PGA Championship, founded in 1937, was for many yea ...

. First staged in

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ru ...

, the PGA Tour recognizes the event as one of the five

senior major golf championships Men's professional senior golf is for players aged 50 and above. Golf differs from all other sports in having lucrative competitions for this age group. The leading senior tour is the U.S.-based PGA Tour Champions, which was established in 1980 (as ...

. Unlike the

U.S. Senior Open The U.S. Senior Open is one of the five major championships in senior golf, introduced in 1980. It is administered by the United States Golf Association (USGA) and is recognized as a major championship by both the PGA Tour Champions and the E ...

Senior PGA Championship The Senior PGA Championship, established in 1937, is the oldest of the five major championships in men's senior golf. It is administered by the Professional Golfers' Association of America and is recognized as a major championship by both PGA ...

and

Senior Open Championship The Senior Open Championship, or simply The Senior Open (and originally known as the Senior British Open) is a professional golf tournament for players aged 50 and over. It is run by The R&A, the same body that organises The Open Championship. Pr ...

, it is not recognized as a major by the

European Senior Tour The Legends Tour is the current branding of the European Senior Tour, a professional tour for male golfers aged 50 and over, run by the PGA European Tour. The tour was branded as the Staysure Tour for the 2018 and 2019 seasons after UK-based insur ...

, and is not part of that tour's official schedule. It is the only senior major where the winner does not earn an exemption into a

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fif ...

event.

Locations

Arizona

From its inception in 1989 through 2001, the tournament was held in

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States. It is the list of U.S. states and territories by area, 6th largest and the list of U.S. states and territories by population, 14 ...

at the Cochise Golf Course of the Golf Club at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale. In 2002, it was held at the Prospector Course of Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club near Gold Canyon. While in Arizona, the event was played in early April.

Oregon

In 2003, the event relocated to northwest

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...

for four years at the South Course of

The Reserve Vineyards and Golf Club The Reserve Vineyards & Golf Club is a 36-hole private and public golf club in the northwest United States, located near Hillsboro, Oregon, a suburb west of Portland. The award-winning club in Washington County opened in 1997 and hosted the PGA ...

in Hillsboro, Oregon, just west of

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

. Following the 2006 edition, it moved to the high desert of

central Oregon Central Oregon is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Oregon and is traditionally considered to be made up of Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. Other definitions include larger areas, often encompassing areas to the north towards ...

for four years, to the Crosswater Club in Sunriver, south of Bend. The lengthy course sits on of woodlands and preserved wetlands along the

Deschutes River Deschutes River may refer to: * Deschutes River (Oregon) **Little Deschutes River (Oregon) The Little Deschutes River is a tributary of the Deschutes River (Oregon), Deschutes River in the central part of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is about lon ...

, at an average

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''. The ...

. The par-72 layout played at in 2009. During the eight years in Oregon, the event was held in mid- to late August.

Alabama

Following the 2010 event,

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

–based

Regions Financial Corporation Regions Financial Corporation is a bank holding company headquartered in the Regions Center (Birmingham), Regions Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The company provides retail banking and commercial banking, trust, stockbrokerage, and mortgage se ...

announced in August that it was taking over sponsorship of the tournament. For five years, the event was played at the Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club in the Shoal Creek development, southeast of Birmingham. The Tradition superseded the

Regions Charity Classic The Regions Charity Classic, formerly known as the Bruno's Memorial Classic, was an American golf tournament on the Champions Tour. It was originally held at Greystone Golf & Country Club and moved to Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa, one of ten cou ...

, a regular Champions Tour event which began in 1992 as the Bruno's Memorial Classic.Shoal Creek will host Regions Tradition in 2011
/ref> Shoal Creek previously hosted two PGA Championships, in

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast As ...

and

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

. Since moving to Alabama in 2011, the event has been played in May and June. It moved from Shoal Creek to the nearby

Greystone Golf and Country Club Greystone Golf & Country Club is a private 36-hole golf club in the southeastern United States, located in Hoover, Alabama, a suburb southeast of Birmingham. Opened in 1991, the first of the two courses was the Founders Course, designed by B ...

in 2016, and is held on the recently renovated Founders Course.

Winners

Multiple winners

Through 2021, five men have multiple wins in the Tradition: *4 wins: **

Jack Nicklaus Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is a retired American professional golfer and golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all time. He won 117 professional tou ...

: 1990, 1991, 1995, 1996 *2 wins: **

Gil Morgan Gilmer Bryan Morgan II, OD (born September 25, 1946) is an American professional golfer. Morgan was born in Wewoka, Oklahoma. He graduated from East Central State College in Ada, Oklahoma in 1968. In 1972, Morgan earned a Doctor of Optometry ...

: 1997, 1998 **

Fred Funk Frederick Funk (born June 14, 1956) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions. Early life Fred Funk was born in Takoma Park, Maryland. He tried several sports, and even boxed for eight years for a junio ...

: 2008, 2010 **

Tom Lehman Thomas Edward Lehman (born March 7, 1959) is an American professional golfer. A former number 1 ranked golfer, his tournament wins include one major title, the 1996 Open Championship; and he is the only golfer in history to have been awarded the ...

: 2011, 2012 **

Bernhard Langer Bernhard Langer (; born 27 August 1957) is a German professional golfer. He is a two-time Masters champion and was one of the world's leading golfers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1986, he became the sport's first official number one ran ...

: 2016, 2017 **

Steve Stricker Steven Charles Stricker (born February 23, 1967) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. He has twelve victories on the PGA Tour, including the WGC-Match Play title in 2001 and two FedEx Cup playo ...

: 2019, 2022

References

External links

*
Coverage on the PGA Tour Champions's official siteGreystone Golf and Country Club
– official site – current venue {{DEFAULTSORT:Tradition PGA Tour Champions events Golf in Alabama Golf in Arizona Golf in Oregon Sports in Birmingham, Alabama Sports in Hillsboro, Oregon Sports in Scottsdale, Arizona Recurring sporting events established in 1989 1989 establishments in Arizona