Simmons Bank Championship brings golfers to Little Rock from all over the world

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Simmons Bank Championship presented by Stephens Inc. is putting central Arkansas in an international spotlight with the only continent that has not sent a golfer to compete being Antarctica.

The PGA Champions Tour competitors traveled to Little Rock across 13 states and 16 countries. Countries include Australia, Canada, Thailand, South Africa, Ireland, England, Fiji, Denmark, Germany, Bahamas, Argentina, New Zealand, Japan, Sweden, Spain, and the Republic of Korea.

States include Minnesota, California, Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Kansas, Rhode Island, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, and Arizona.

Rod Pampling of Australia said the only time he came to Arkansas before was in 1990 for a tournament in Texarkana.

“Everything has been great,” Pampling said. “The whole town’s come out. You know 16, 17, 18 looks like a tour event.”

Ernie Els, a World Golf Hall of Fame inductee from South Africa, leads the PGA Champions Tour season standings heading into the weekend and said he first visited Arkansas for the same tournament in 1991.

Most of his familiarity with the state is through friends he has met in the PGA such as John Daly who he partied and played with for about two weeks when they were younger in Fayetteville.

“John and myself we go back a long time. We can tell a lot of stories,” Els said. “Not to you, but we can tell a lot of stories.”

Though this is the first PGA Tour Champions event for Arkansas, other PGA-sanctioned events in the state happened as recently as 2010 with the Fort Smith Classic. Central Arkansas last hosted a tournament in 1972 with the Maumelle Open Invitational.

Kerry Ellison Lareau is the Simmons Bank Championship Pro-Amateur tournament co-chair and said it is great to see professional golf return to the area.

“Northwest Arkansas gets so much of the shiny new stuff in Arkansas that sometimes we get forgotten, and this is such a banner thing for us to have here in central Arkansas to showcase what we’ve got here,” Lareau said.

Fans are trying to tee things off well with four more years of the championship scheduled in Little Rock. Pampling said so far it is practically a hole-in-one.

“I haven’t heard any player with anything negative,” Pampling said. “It’s all been positive, which is what we’re looking for.”

When asked if they enjoyed central Arkansas off the course, international golfers said not yet, but they hope to.

“I’ve got a lot of friends here, but we’ve got to just concentrate on playing golf, but maybe on some other time we’ll come back and have some fun again, maybe go to a football game or something,” Els said.

More information on the event and tickets can be found at SimmonsBankChampionship.com .

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