The Sanderson Farms Championship is a professional

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 on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

, played annually in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. It moved to the Country Club of Jackson in Jackson in autumn 2014, early in the

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

season. The tournament has been part of the PGA Tour schedule since

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...

, and has raised more than $8.1 million for statewide charities. Originally played at the Hattiesburg Country Club in

Hattiesburg Hattiesburg is a city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, located primarily in Forrest County (where it is the county seat and largest city) and extending west into Lamar County. The city population was 45,989 at the 2010 census, with the populat ...

, the event moved in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

to Annandale Golf Club in

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

, which hosted through

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. Since 2013, the tournament's title sponsor has been

Sanderson Farms Sanderson Farms is an American poultry producer which is based in Laurel, Mississippi. It is the third largest poultry producer in the United States and produces 13.65 million chickens per week. On July 22, 2022, it merged with Wayne Farms to fo ...

, a

poultry farming Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chicke ...

corporation based in

Laurel, Mississippi Laurel is a city in and the second county seat of Jones County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 17,161. It is located northeast of Ellisville, the first county seat, which contains the first coun ...

. The tournament's host organization, Century Club Charities, is a non-profit, tax-exempt

501(c)(3) organization A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of t ...

whose mission is promoting the game of golf for the benefit of charity. The Sanderson Farms Championship's primary charity is Friends of Children's Hospital, which benefits the Batson's Children Hospital.

Course

The Country Club of Jackson opened in 1914. It is a private club with 27 championship holes, 18 of which were re-designed by John Fought in 2008 and measure from the championship tees. Fought's layout incorporates classic Donald Ross flavor – parkland style routing with smallish, tricky greens – which range in size from .

History

Known as the Magnolia Classic from 1968 through 1985 with notable winners including

Roger Maltbie Roger Lin Maltbie (born June 30, 1951) is an American professional golfer and on-course analyst for NBC Sports. Career Maltbie was born in Modesto, California and grew up in San Jose. He attended James Lick High School where he was a teammate of ...

, Craig Stadler, and Payne Stewart, the tournament was renamed the Deposit Guaranty Golf Classic in 1986. From 1999 to 2006, it was known as the Southern Farm Bureau Classic, from 2007 to 2011 as the

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

Classic, and in 2012 as the True South Classic. In the past, this tournament was generally played opposite of a

major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

or limited field tournament (officially termed an "alternate event" by the PGA Tour). It later became part of the

Fall Series The PGA Tour Fall Series was name of the events on the PGA Tour that covered the end of the calendar year from 2007 to 2012 after the Tour Championship. Beginning in 2013, these events became part of the PGA Tour season, which from that point began ...

, a group of events held after

The Tour Championship The Tour Championship (stylized as the TOUR Championship) is a golf tournament that is part of the PGA Tour. It has historically been one of the final events of the PGA Tour season; prior to 2007, its field consisted exclusively of the top 30 ...

, before returning to its former status as an alternate event in 2011. In either case, the leading players in men's professional golf rarely participate. Until 1994, it was played opposite the

Masters Tournament The Masters Tournament (usually referred to as simply The Masters, or the U.S. Masters outside North America) is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, the Masters is the first maj ...

and then opposite

The Open Championship The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later th ...

in the mid-1990s. More recently, it played opposite various World Golf Championships and The Tour Championship. From 2007 to 2010, it generally played opposite the major team events involving PGA Tour players, namely the

Ryder Cup The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is contested every two years with the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup is named af ...

and Presidents Cup. In 2011, it returned to the PGA Tour regular season opposite the British Open in July. It has been an official money event on the PGA Tour since

. Prior to that, it was a satellite event with the money counting but the wins counting as unofficial, except from 1983 to 1985, when it was instead part of the developmental Tournament Players Series. From 2007 to 2010, it was part of the Fall Series. Because the

FedEx Cup The FedEx Cup is a championship trophy for the PGA Tour. Its introduction marked the first time that men's professional golf had a playoff system. Announced in November 2005, it was first awarded in 2007. Rory McIlroy is the 2022 champion. Th ...

season championship was already determined by that time, elite players generally passed on Fall Series events; most players in the tournament were trying to either make the Top 125 on the money list and retain their tour cards, or earn a quick two-year exemption by winning. The 2007 event was played in the same week as the Presidents Cup; most of the top Tour players played in that event instead of the Viking Classic. The situation was similar in 2008, with the tournament being scheduled opposite the

. The 2009 purse was due to be $3,700,000, with $666,000 going to the winner. That year's event was also to be the first in the tournament's recent history to be the sole event on the PGA Tour schedule for that week, as it had been moved to the end of October with a scheduled finish on November 1. However, the tournament was canceled on October 31, due to unplayable conditions at the Annandale Golf Club. The event was not rescheduled. The 2010 event was again held opposite the Ryder Cup. This would be the tournament's last fall edition, as it would move into the regular season the following year. In 2013, the title sponsor changed to Sanderson Farms. The tournament was not held in the 2013–14 season because of the new PGA Tour wraparound season; the 2014 tournament, part of the 2014–15 season, moved to late October and was played opposite the

WGC-HSBC Champions The WGC-HSBC Champions was a professional golf tournament, held annually in China. Inaugurated in 2005, the first seven editions were played at the Sheshan Golf Club in Shanghai, then moved to the Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen for a single ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. As an alternate event, the winner did not receive an invitation to the

, but did earn a trip to the

PGA Championship The PGA Championship (often referred to as the US PGA Championship or USPGA outside the United States) is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four men's major championships ...

, a two-year PGA Tour exemption, a minimum of 24

OWGR The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. It was started in 1986. The rankings are based on a player's position in individual tournaments (i.e. not pairs or team events) over a "rolli ...

points, and 300 FedEx Cup points. For the 2019–20 season, the tournament was upgraded from an alternate event to a full status event; it was also rescheduled to September, as the second tournament of the PGA Tour season. Along with an increased prize fund, the changed of status meant the winner receives the full benefits of a regular PGA Tour event, with 500 FedEx Cup points and an invitation to The Masters. Over the years, the Sanderson Farms Championship has been played opposite a number of different tournaments:

Winners

Multiple winners

Three men have won this tournament twice: * Dwight Nevil: 1973, 1974 * Brian Henninger: 1994, 1999 *

Fred Funk Frederick Funk (born June 14, 1956) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions. Early life Fred Funk was born in Takoma Park, Maryland. He tried several sports, and even boxed for eight years for a junior ...

: 1998, 2004

Notes

References

External links

*
Coverage on the PGA Tour's official site
{{coord, 32.397, -90.098, display=title, type:event PGA Tour events Golf in Mississippi Recurring sporting events established in 1968 1968 establishments in Mississippi