Norman commits to play in The Cap Cana Championship

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SANTO DOMINGO, D.R. -- Tournament officials today announced that one of golf's most celebrated players, Greg Norman, has committed to play in his first regular season Champions Tour event, The Cap Cana Championship. The second annual event returns to the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at Punta Espada Golf Club in Cap Cana, Dominican Republic on March 23-29, 2009.

Badz/PGA TOUR

Greg Norman will be making his sixth start on the Champions Tour.

The 54-year-old Australian, known as the 'Great White Shark', is the winner of 91 titles worldwide, including 20 PGA TOUR titles. Inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001, Norman is a two-time British Open champion who spent 331 weeks as the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world during the 1990s. The fan favorite will make his first appearance at The Cap Cana Championship and sixth career start on the Champions Tour. He finished T6, T5 and fourth respectively, in his last appearances on the 50+ circuit at the 2008 Senior PGA Championship, Senior British Open and U.S. Senior Open.

"I very much look forward to playing in The Cap Cana Championship in the Dominican Republic, my first non-major on the Champions Tour," Said Norman "Over the years I have enjoyed the time spent in the Dominican Republic and I look forward to continuing both my personal and professional interests there."

Norman joins an already stellar field which includes fellow World Golf Hall of Fame members Hale Irwin, Bernhard Langer, Larry Nelson, Nick Price, Gary Player and Curtis Strange. Also returning will be defending champion Mark Wiebe, who cruised to a four-stroke, wire-to-wire victory over Vicente Fernandez at last year's Cap Cana Championship, the first-ever Tour-sanctioned event to be held in the Dominican Republic.

"We're delighted to have Greg Norman at The Cap Cana Championship," said Tournament Director Efren Garcia-Estrada. "He's been a true global ambassador for golf and we're proud that he has chosen to make his first full-field Champions Tour start of the season in the Dominican Republic."

The 54-hole, stroke-play Cap Cana Championship will feature a 78-player field and official prize money of $2.1 million, with the winner collecting $315,000. GOLF CHANNEL will broadcast all three rounds in the United States and coverage of the event will be distributed internationally.

Punta Espada Golf Club, the first of three Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Courses to open in Cap Cana, is operated by Troon Golf and opened for play in November 2006. The par-72 course incorporates the surrounding natural beauty of Cap Cana, stretching along a coastline where golfers on each hole look out into the blue expanse of the Caribbean Sea.

The Cap Cana Championship is part of the Champions Tour's "The Road to the Charles Schwab Cup", a season-long points race that kicks off in Hawaii with 25 official events and culminates in Northern California at Sonoma Golf Club October 26 - November 1, with $2.1 million in payouts awarded to the season's top five leading performers.