Golf-PGA Tour announces fully sponsored schedule for 2009

LOS ANGELES Dec 23 (Reuters) - The PGA Tour has released its entire schedule for next year, a fully sponsored programme with a slight increase in purses despite the global financial crisis.

The line-up for the regular season was announced last month before the Fall Series, which will finalise the top 125 on the money list and playing priorities for 2010, was added on Tuesday.

Although one event still needs to be inked in for the first week of November, Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem is delighted with a calendar drawn up in a deteriorating economic climate.

"Once again, we believe we have a very strong line-up of fall tournaments for our fans, sponsors and players," Finchem said in a statement.

"We are working on a couple of options for the week of Nov. 2-8 and will announce that week as soon as it is finalised."

The Fall Series will start in early October with the $6 million Turning Stone Resort Championship in Verona, New York, one week after the culmination of the lucrative FedExCup playoffs.

The Nov. 12-15 Disney Classic in Lake Buena Vista, Florida will then bring the curtain down on the 2009 PGA Tour.

ONE DOWN

Forty-seven events feature on next year's schedule, just one down from 2008, with the elite winners-only Mercedes-Benz Championship launching the season in Kapalua, Hawaii from Jan. 8-11.

However, Finchem accepts the Tour is likely to take "some hits" with tournament sponsors in the auto and financial services sectors battling for survival and contingency plans are already being made.

"We are talking to a range of companies in other industry sectors," Finchem told Reuters. "It's a tough environment out there and very few companies are untouched by this downturn.

"We are making some progress in identifying companies that want to be involved with charity, want to be involved in golf and want to take advantage of the platform. We'll just have to see how it goes.

"We are not just focused on how we deal with the next year or two, we're focused on coming out of this cycle in a very strong position to take advantage of the up-cycle.

"If we have to replace a company, we replace it with an even stronger, more focused and more dedicated sponsor." (Editing by Pritha Sarkar)