Cleveland just went from having one of the best-run, most fun events on the web.com Tour schedule to having THE best of all: a critically important web.com Tour Finals event, made even more special by being held at one of the world’s great golf courses.
Starting in 2016, Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland will host the first of four web.com Tour Finals tournaments, in a brand new event named the DAP Championship. The tournament will be played September 8 – 11th, 2016, with the pro-am and other activities held September 5-7.
The field for this first of four playoff events will consist of the top 75 players from the web.com Tour who did not earn one of the top-25 automatic PGA Tour cards from season-long earnings, and the players from the PGA Tour who did not earn a top-125 money list exemption. This combined batch of players will have four web.com Tour Finals events in which to finish as a top-25 points earner to gain exempt status to the PGA Tour for the 2017 season.
That makes the DAP Championshiop a huge deal to the players in the field, as they are trying to earn their way directly onto the big money of the PGA Tour. Playing at the storied Canterbury Golf Club during the first week after Labor Day to have that chance makes it all just that much better.
Further amping up the buzz, The DAP Championship has named the LeBron James Family Foundation as its primary charity partner, bringing a recognizable name into the fold. To make the donation path clear, money from all ticket sales for the event will go directly to the Foundation.
The web.com Tour’s Rustoleum Championship held at Lakewood Country Club in Westlake the last two seasons was moved to Chicago in a decision made about six weeks ago. The sponsors chose a site very near the company headquarters of Rustoleum, to better host their clients and partners. The decision had nothing to do with the great results seen at Lakewood Country Club, but nevertheless it left Lakewood CC and Cleveland out as a host city.
But when the Fort Wayne IN web.com tournament could not secure a 2016 sponsor for their Finals event slot, Jon Wagner from Milestone Sports Management and Terry Horan, President of RPM International (the company that owns both the Rustoleum and DAP brands), started a discussion with Canterbury GC and the LeBron James Family Foundation to build anew for Cleveland. From those conversations, a three-year agreement was reached to host the finals event.
Kevin Krisle is the new Tournament Director for the DAP Championship. Golf Channel will cover the event for all four days, and a purse of $1M will be on the line, with $180,000 going to the winner.
Get more details about the event at DAPchampionship.com
