Area golf fans faced with a tough choice in 2010: Boeing Classic or U.S. Amateur

What to watch: The world's greatest amateurs or the best 50-and-older players in the world?

That is a choice area golf fans will have to make next summer as the Champions Tour has confirmed that the Boeing Classic will be played the week of Aug. 23-29, the same week the U.S. Amateur is being played near Tacoma.

Michelle DeLancy, who was named tournament director of the Boeing Classic last week after serving as interim director in this year's event, said the tournament will remain at the Tournament Players Course at Snoqualmie Ridge.

"We will definitely play there this year and we are working on finalizing a deal that will keep us there through 2012," she said.

The Boeing Classic completed its fifth year in August and a record 67,500 attended the three-round event.

The U.S. Amateur is being played in the state for the first time since 1952, when it was held at the Seattle Golf Club. The list of champions for the oldest golf championship in this country, first played in 1895, includes Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. Puyallup's Ryan Moore won in 2004.

The host courses for the event are Chambers Bay in University Place and The Home Course in DuPont. Chambers Bay will also host the 2015 U.S. Open.

The U.S. Senior Open will be played at Sahalee in Sammamish from July 29-Aug. 1.

DeLancy said she thinks it's great for the community to have three big events next summer, and said she hasn't noticed any effects of sharing the same week as the U.S. Amateur.

"We already have 510 volunteers signed up, so we're over halfway to what we want," said DeLancy, who said there were 966 volunteers this past August. "We haven't felt any competition at all regarding sponsors, and it feels better overall than what we were facing last year at this time because of the economy."

Information in this article, originally published November 10, 2009, was corrected November 10, 2009. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the tournament, which is coming to Seattle in 2010, had never previously been played in Washington.