​Ernie Els called the PGA Tour Champions’ decision to abandon Akron “crushing,” but the World Golf Hall of Famer pledged to use his influence to help fix the situation. The Kaulig Companies Championship, which will conclude on Sunday, July 12, marks the end of the PGA Tour’s 72-year run at Firestone Country Club. The senior major is relocating to Newport Beach, California, in 2027.
“I was around when they lost Castle Pines, The International. I had a really close relationship with the ownership, the members, the residents, and that was a hard one to take,” Els said, reflecting on the event held at Castle Rock, Colorado from 1986 to 2006. “This one’s even harder because this is a longer period of time that’s just going to be washed away. I still can’t believe that we’re never going to come back here. It was one of my first professional events in 1992. Thirty-four years ago. The guys in the locker room, the workmen on the course, you don’t get a better crew than this crew. I just hope the community … hopefully something happens. I’ll pull as hard as I can behind the scenes and try to get something back here.”
Els tees off from the first hole during Round 1 of the Kaulig Companies Championship, July 9, 2026, at Firestone Country Club. He will be contending with economic realities after Kaulig Companies, which is heavily invested in Kaulig Racing in NASCAR, reportedly chose not to extend its sponsorship of the event. But sponsorship is not the only challenge.
Since 2019, attendance at the Champions event on the South Course has been sparse. The crowds, once a sea of fans around Tiger Woods when he won the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational eight times, have dwindled. The prestigious PGA Tour event moved to Memphis, Tennessee, after 2018. Newport Beach Country Club already hosts a devoted following for its Hoag Classic, which next year will become the Hoag Senior Players Championship.
This week, players expressed sadness about leaving Firestone, but many said they felt powerless to change the outcome, believing their voices alone won’t alter the decision. “Nah, because we need a sponsor,” said 63-year-old Rocco Mediate. Then he added with a wink, “If we get all the members to throw in $500,000 each, we’d have a really big purse.” The sentiment was one of quiet resignation rather than anger: “We’re sad, but we’re not mad. Firestone has been so good to all of us. I’ve been coming here since ’91, my first World Series. It’s something you really wish would never go away, but sometimes things change. You never know, something might come back someday.”
Ryan Armour, 50, a Silver Lake native who attended Walsh Jesuit High School and Ohio State, suggested Firestone host a different kind of event to keep the venue in the mix—a second-tier PGA Tour event that could help sustain the course’s association with top-level golf. The landscape for the tournament’s future remains uncertain as the PGA Tour continues to adapt to sponsorship and attendance dynamics while the Firestone era draws to a close.