The Senior Players Championship is leaving Firestone Country Club. Healthcare company Hoag is taking over as title sponsor and moving the event from Akron, Ohio to Newport Beach Country Club in California, where it will be played March 25-28. That leaves Firestone without a professional golf tournament for the first time since the Rubber City Open in 1954.
Firestone opened in 1929 as a park for employees of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. Professional golf arrived in 1954 and never left, until now. The club hosted three PGA Championships (1960, 1966, 1975), the World Series of Golf starting in 1962, and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational from 1999 through 2018. The Senior Players Championship took over in 2019 when the WGC moved to Memphis.
No player defined Firestone more than Tiger Woods. He won there eight times, tied for the most wins at a single PGA Tour venue in history, a record he shares with Sam Snead at Greenbrier and himself at Bay Hill. His first came in 1999 in the inaugural WGC event. He won three in a row from 1999 to 2001, then three more in a row from 2005 to 2007, adding a fifth in 2009 and an eighth in 2013. Over 11 consecutive visits starting in 1997, he never finished worse than fifth.
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The most iconic moment came at the 2000 WGC-NEC Invitational. Leading by 11 shots after a rain delay pushed play deep into the evening, Woods stood in near darkness on the 18th fairway, 167 yards from the pin. Fans held up lighters. He pulled out an 8-iron and stuck it two feet from the hole. The spot is now marked with a plaque. He won by 11.
Justin Thomas won the final WGC event at Firestone in 2018. The Senior Players Championship arrived the following year and will play its final edition at Firestone this summer, then move to Newport Beach Country Club in 2027.
