This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Lehi • Illness kept Will Wilcox stuck in his hotel room all week, as he never teed off at Willow Creek Country Club in the Utah Championship. The next year, he shot a 59.

The summary of Utah's Web.com Tour event, being staged this week for the 25th time, features a series of recovery stories — even if they're not all as historic as Wilcox's 2013 round. The tournament that begins Thursday at Thanksgiving Point is a survivor, having overcome sponsorship issues, lawsuits, low attendance and venue changes to remain on the schedule as the state's only PGA Tour-brand event.

The Utah Sports Commission is involved in attracting and staging a wide variety of sporting events, but "this one is near and dear," CEO Jeff Robbins said, "because we almost lost it a few times."

All kinds of adventures have ensued since the Utah Section PGA agreed to operate a tournament on what began as the Ben Hogan Tour in 1990. The event has survived for more than a quarter-century, counting a two-year gap between the end of the initial phase at Riverside Country Club in Provo and the start of a 16-year run at Willow Creek CC in Sandy, prior to the recent move to Thanksgiving Point. "I'm just happy that people think it has value to the community," said Jeff Beaudry, the Utah Section PGA's former executive director. "There were so many good things that came out of it."

The tournament's impact includes promoting golf in Special Olympics, showcasing a pair of two-time major champions and aiding two Utahns on their way to the PGA Tour, where they've thrived the past two seasons.

John Daly won the 1990 event's $20,000 first prize, 11 months before he would claim the PGA Championship. Zach Johnson also became a winner of two majors, after winning at Willow Creek in 2003. And last August, Patton Kizzire won a playoff at Thanksgiving Point to collect $117,000. The victory made him the runaway leader in season's earnings and launched him into the PGA Tour's 2015-16 schedule in October, when he tied for second place in Las Vegas.

The Utah Championship's last appearance at Willow Creek in 2014 proved vital to Utah natives Tony Finau and Zac Blair. Finau finished fifth and Blair tied for 11th. Finau responded from the experience of the missed opportunity in Sandy by winning a tournament in northern California soon afterward, clinching his PGA Tour card for 2014-15. Blair benefited from a top-25 finish at Willow Creek that enabled him to play in the next event and piece together a schedule that eventually sent him to the PGA Tour.

Wilcox's closing 59, giving him third place (one stroke out of a playoff) in 2013, is among the Utah Championship's memorable moments. Bubba Watson's drive that left him only 127 yards for his second shot on a 547-yard hole at Willow Creek, after a slight northwest wind helped him launch the ball over the pine trees, is indelible. So is Ahmad Dan Bateman's playing an eight-hole stretch in 9 under par with an eagle and seven birdies at Riverside in '96.

The Utah stop is among five remaining tournaments from 1990, when PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman launched a developmental tour. The others have been staged continuously in Boise, Idaho; Knoxville, Tenn.; Springfield, Mo.; and Wichita, Kan.

With the host Utah Sports Commission and the PGA Tour having extended their contract through 2020 and Zions Bank as the presenting sponsor, the tournament has a promising outlook. That's in contrast to some checkpoints along the way. The initial obstacle was a hot air balloon's making an emergency landing on Riverside's No. 3 green in the first hour of the inaugural tournament's pro-am. Six years later, having unsuccessfully tried to attract fans on Sundays, the Utah Section PGA persuaded tour administrators to approve a Saturday finish. They didn't account for BYU's playing a high-profile, televised football game at Washington that afternoon.

That probably was the final sign the tournament was doomed in Provo. Yet Riverside and the Utah Section PGA have reunited in staging the Siegfried & Jensen Utah Open — with mostly local club pros in the field — in late August. Special Olympics Utah is the tournament charity, just as in the early '90s at Riverside. A clinic involving Special Olympics athletes served as the launching point for helping golf become an official Special Olympics International sport and creating a strong relationship between the organization and the Utah golf community.

"I'll tell you something, it's been a great blessing in our lives ever since," said Riverside pro Robert McArthur.

The tournament was revived at Willow Creek in 1999, with a 72-hole event preceding an exhibition that featured Fred Couples, David Duval, Craig Stadler and John Cook competing against tour players. The Labor Day production attracted an estimated 20,000 fans, but reflected the Ganter Brewery USA's overextending itself, resulting in lawsuits and unpaid bills.

Evan Byers' stint as tournament director saved the event and restored credibility, then the Utah Sports Commission increased its role and took responsibility for funding the budget. Robbins believes in the value of Golf Channel's coverage as a promotional vehicle for the state, and is convinced that maintaining ties with the PGA Tour is important for Utah.

Since 2002, when the PGA Tour Champions event last was staged in Park City, the Utah Championship has been the state's only PGA Tour-brand event. The tournament moved last year when remodeling of Willow Creek's clubhouse created infrastructure issues. Thanksgiving Point proved to be a good venue, attracting bigger crowds — even on Sunday in Utah County.

Twitter: @tribkurt —

Utah Championship

P At Thanksgiving Point, Lehi

Host • Utah Sports Commission

Presenting sponsor • Zions Bank

Schedule • Thursday-Sunday; tee times 7 a.m.-2:52 p.m. Thursday-Friday, approximately 8 a.m.-2:15 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Television • Golf Channel, 5-7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 4-7 p.m. Sunday

Purse • $650,000; first prize of $117,000

Field • Includes nine former PGA Tour winners and five Utahns (with Thursday starting times): Marcus Burbank (9:12 a.m.), B.J. Staten (12:40 p.m.), Steele DeWald (2:41 p.m.), Matt Baird (2:52 p.m.) and Jordan Rodgers (2:52 p.m.) —

Utah's champions

Winners of Utah's Web.com event, played from 1990-96 at Riverside Country Club, from 1999-2014 at Willow Creek CC and in 2015 at Thanksgiving Point:

1990 • John Daly

1991 • Ted Tryba

1992 • Jeff Woodland

1993 • Sean Murphy

1994 • Chris Perry

1995 • Glen Hnatiuk

1996 • Michael Christie

1999 • Carl Paulson

2000 • Andy Morse

2001 • David Sutherland

2002 • Arron Oberholser

2003 • Zach Johnson

2004 • Brett Wetterich

2005 • Garrett Willis

2006 • Craig Kanada

2007 • Franklin Langham

2008 • Brendon Todd

2009 • Josh Teater

2010 • Michael Putnam

2011 • J.J. Killeen

2012 • Doug LaBelle II

2013 • Steven Alker

2014 • Andres Gonzales

2015 • Patton Kizzire