The Champions Tour will play 29 official events next season, with the total purse growing to US$54 million for a record average of $1.86 million per tournament, the 50-and-over tour said Monday.

All 29 events will be broadcast on national television, with 22 tournaments airing on The Golf Channel. Five events will air Saturday and Sunday on NBC, with ABC and CBS each televising one tournament. The five majors will be on network TV.

Twenty-four of the 29 tournaments on the 2007 schedule are committed through at least 2008, with some extended as far as 2010 and 2011.

``The Champions Tour has made great strides working with our tournaments and title sponsors to strengthen our sponsorship foundation, the courses we play and the look, feel and dates of our tournaments,'' Champions Tour president Rick George said. ``As a result, we feel the 2007 schedule is one of the strongest in the history of this tour and that we are well positioned for the next few years.

``Coupled with an unparalleled lineup of major championship venues and one of the Champions Tour's best rookie classes ever, there is a great deal of anticipation about the year ahead among the tournaments, sponsors, players and staff.''

Mark O'Meara, Nick Price, Nick Faldo, Jeff Sluman, John Cook, Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer are among the top players who will turn 50 in 2007.

For the 11th straight year, the tour will open in January with the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai and the Turtle Bay Championship on Oahu. The season will end in late October with the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Sonoma, Calif.

Among the new events and changes, the Principal Charity Classic will be played in June at Glen Oaks in the Des Moines, Iowa, area, home of the sponsoring Principal Financial Group. The Allianz Championship, formerly played in Des Moines, has a new home at the Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, Fla., giving the tour a three-event February swing in Florida.

The $2.5 million Ginn Championship at Hammock Beach also has been added to the schedule in late March. The host course, The Conservatory at Hammock Beach, is a Tom Watson design in Palm Coast, Fla.

The tour also added the Dick's Sporting Goods Open, which ensures official PGA Tour golf will return to the En-Joie Golf Course in Endicott, N.Y., the site of the PGA Tour's B.C. Open from 1973-05.

The tour will again have five majors, beginning with the Senior PGA Championship in May at Kiawah Island in South Carolina. In June, the U.S Senior Open is set for Whistling Straits in Wisconsin and the Senior British Open will be played at Muirfield. The JELD-WEN Tradition will follow in August at the Crosswater Club at Sunriver Resort in Oregon, and the major season will conclude in October with the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship at Baltimore Country Club.

Also, the Charles Schwab Cup, the yearlong competition that offers $2.1 million in annuities to the five leading point-earners, will enter its seventh year. There will be three Challenge events, the Wendy's Champions Skins Game, the Del Webb Father/Son Challenge and the Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge.

© The Canadian Press, 2007