The Regions Charity Classic, formerly known as the Bruno's Memorial Classic, was an American

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

on the

Champions Tour PGA Tour Champions (formerly the Senior PGA Tour and the Champions Tour) is a men's professional senior golf tour, administered as a branch of the PGA Tour. History and format The Senior PGA Championship, founded in 1937, was for many years ...

. It was originally held at

Greystone Golf & Country Club Greystone Golf & Country Club is a private 36-hole golf club in the southeastern United States, located in Hoover, Alabama, a suburb southeast of Birmingham. Opened in 1991, the first of the two courses was the Founders Course, designed by Bob ...

and moved to

Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa The Renaissance Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa is a 259-room resort, equipped with fine dining, a championship golf course, and a full service spa. In addition there is approximately of indoor/outdoor meeting space. The hotel is managed by PCH ...

, one of ten courses on the

Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail is a collection of championship caliber golf courses, designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., distributed across the state of Alabama, as part of investments by the Retirement Systems of Alabama. The Trail started ...

, located in

Hoover, Alabama Hoover is a city in Jefferson and Shelby counties in north central Alabama, United States. Hoover is the largest suburban city in Alabama and the 6th largest city in Alabama. The city had a population of 92,606 as of the 2020 US Census. Hoover ...

(a suburb of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

) in 2006. The tournament was founded in 1991 by Birmingham-based

Bruno's Supermarkets Bruno's Supermarkets, LLC was an American chain of grocery stores with its headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. It was founded in 1932 by Joseph Bruno in Birmingham. During the company's pinnacle, it operated over 300 stores under the names Br ...

. The event was managed by the Bruno family under it
Bruno Event Team
company. Through 2006, the tournament was normally scheduled to end on the first Sunday of May of each year, or a few days close to that day. In 2007, the tournament schedule was moved roughly two weeks later, to May 17–20. The first two tournaments were held in August — frequently a time of hot, humid

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

. The dates were moved to June for three more years, then finally to the early May/late April period. In 2010, organizers announced that the tournament would be superseded by the move of

The Tradition The Tradition (known as the Regions Tradition for sponsorship reasons) is an event on the PGA Tour Champions. First staged in 1989, the PGA Tour recognizes the event as one of the five senior major golf championships. Unlike the U.S. Senior Op ...

, a Champions Tour major tournament, which is played at nearby Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club. Regions will take on sponsorship of this event, which will be called "The Regions Tradition."

History

The tournament was first held in 1992 as the Bruno's Memorial Classic, with

as the title sponsor. The name stems from the founders, Angelo and Lee Bruno (brothers of Bruno's founder Joseph Bruno), who were killed in an

airplane crash An aviation accident is defined by the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the ''intention of fl ...

shortly after the December 1991 press conference announcing the tournament's inception as the Bruno's Classic. From its beginning, the tournament was staged at the

, in the Inverness section of the Birmingham suburb of Hoover. Since its inception, the Bruno's Memorial Classic has been one of the most popular stops on the Champions Tour, usually attracting all of the top money winners. With the loss of the annual

Iron Bowl The Alabama–Auburn football rivalry, better known as the Iron Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between the Auburn University Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide, both charter members of the Southeastern Conferenc ...

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

game between

and

Auburn Auburn may refer to: Places Australia * Auburn, New South Wales * City of Auburn, the local government area *Electoral district of Auburn *Auburn, Queensland, a locality in the Western Downs Region *Auburn, South Australia *Auburn, Tasmania *Aub ...

, which was formerly played at Birmingham's

Legion Field Legion Field is an outdoor stadium in the southeastern United States in Birmingham, Alabama, primarily designed to be used as a venue for American football, but occasionally used for other large outdoor events. Opened in 1927, it is named in ho ...

, the golf tournament has become Metro Birmingham's largest sporting event. Bruno's Supermarkets has since dropped as the presenting sponsorship before the 2009 event. In 2006, Bruno's Supermarkets—which had undergone a series of financial struggles, various ownerships, and the loss involvement by Bruno family members—announced it would reduce its sponsorship commitment to the tournament.

Regions Financial Corporation Regions Financial Corporation is a bank holding company headquartered in the Regions Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The company provides retail banking and commercial banking, trust, stockbrokerage, and mortgage services. Its banking subsidia ...

, a

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

ing and financial services company based in Birmingham, stepped in as the title sponsor, with Bruno's remaining as a presenting sponsor. At the same time, tournament organizers announced that the site would move to the new Ross Bridge course, approximately 15 miles (25 km) west of Greystone at the other end of the city of Hoover. Ronnie Bruno, son of Angelo Bruno, continues to serve as chairman of the tournament. Additionally, the group that managed the tournament, run by Ronnie Bruno and Gene Hallman, later became a full-time event-management company known as the Bruno Event Team. The team runs a wide variety of events, mostly sports-related, including many championships for the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

. Bruno himself is no longer associated with Bruno's Supermarkets, nor are any other Bruno family members. On January 30, 2009, Bruno's Supermarkets LLC confirmed that it would no longer be a presenting sponsor of the golf tournament thus ending its 17-year association with the event.

Winners

Regions Charity Classic *2010

Dan Forsman Daniel Bruce Forsman (born July 15, 1958) is an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and who now plays on the Champions Tour. Early years Forsman was born in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. however his family relocated to Mountain View ...

*2009

Keith Fergus Keith Carlton Fergus (born March 3, 1954) is an American professional golfer who has played on the PGA Tour, the Nationwide Tour and the Champions Tour. Fergus was born in Temple, Texas. He started playing golf at age 8. In high school, he pla ...

Regions Charity Classic presented by Bruno's Supermarkets *2008

Andy Bean Thomas Andrew Bean (born March 13, 1953) is an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour. Bean has won numerous tournaments at both the amateur and professional level. Bean won 11 PGA Tour victories, includi ...

*2007

Brad Bryant Bradley Dub Bryant (born December 11, 1954) is an American professional golfer. Bryant was born in Amarillo, Texas, the son of a Southern Baptist pastor. He moved with his family to Alamogordo, New Mexico during his youth. Bryant attended the U ...

*2006

Bruno's Memorial Classic *2005

D. A. Weibring Donald Albert "D. A." Weibring Jr. (born May 25, 1953) is an American professional golfer who has won numerous tournaments including several on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour. Early life and amateur career Weibring was born in Quincy, Illinoi ...

*2004

Bruce Fleisher Bruce Lee Fleisher (October 16, 1948 – September 23, 2021) was an American professional golfer. Early years and amateur career Fleisher was born in Union City, Tennessee, and was Jewish. In 1950, the Fleisher family moved to Wilmington, North ...

*2003 Tom Jenkins *2002

Sammy Rachels Sammy Tindol Rachels III (born September 23, 1950) is an American professional golfer who has played on the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour, but found his greatest level of success on the Champions Tour. Rachels was born, raised and lived his ...

*2001

Hale Irwin Hale S. Irwin (born June 3, 1945) is an American professional golfer. He was one of the world's leading golfers from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. He is one of the few players in history to win three U.S. Opens, becoming the oldest ever U.S. Op ...

*2000 John Jacobs *1999

Larry Nelson Larry Gene Nelson (born September 10, 1947) is an American professional golfer who has won numerous tournaments at both the PGA Tour and Champions Tour level. Nelson was born in Fort Payne, Alabama and grew up in Acworth, Georgia, northwest of A ...

*1998

Hubert Green Hubert Myatt Green (December 28, 1946 – June 19, 2018) was an American professional golfer who won 29 professional golf tournaments, including two major championships: the 1977 U.S. Open and the 1985 PGA Championship. He was inducted into the ...

*1997

Jay Sigel Robert Jay Sigel (born November 13, 1943) is an American professional golfer. He enjoyed one of the more illustrious careers in the history of U.S. amateur golf, before turning pro in 1993 at age 50, when he became a member of the Senior PGA Tou ...

*1996 John Bland *1995

Graham Marsh Graham Vivian Marsh MBE (born 14 January 1944) is a retired professional golfer who was one of the leading Australian players of his generation. During his career he won more than 70 tournaments around the world, including 10 on the European To ...

*1994

Jim Dent James Lacey Dent (born May 9, 1939) is an American professional golfer. Dent was born in the golf mecca of Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters Tournament, though as an African American he wouldn't have been allowed onto the Augusta National c ...

*1993

Bob Murphy Robert, Rob, Bob or Bobby Murphy may refer to: Sports Ice hockey *Robert Ronald Murphy or Ron Murphy (1933–2014), Canadian ice hockey player * Bob Murphy (ice hockey) (born 1951), Canadian retired professional ice hockey player *Rob Murphy (ice ...

*1992

George Archer George William Archer (October 1, 1939 – September 25, 2005) was an American professional golfer who won 13 events on the PGA Tour, including one major championship, the Masters in 1969. Early years Born in San Francisco, California, Arch ...

Source:

References

External links

Official websiteBruno Event Team official websitePGATOUR.com's tournament website
{{Former Champions Tour Events Former PGA Tour Champions events Golf in Alabama Sports in Birmingham, Alabama Hoover, Alabama Regions Financial Corporation Recurring sporting events established in 1992 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2010 1992 establishments in Alabama 2010 disestablishments in Alabama