Small changes, new courses dot '10 PGA TOUR schedule

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Tiger Woods' 17-tournament schedule was his heaviest since the 2005 season, when he played 21 times.

One new tournament, a handful of new courses and a reconfigured California swing highlight the 2010 PGA TOUR schedule released Tuesday. PGATOUR.COM analyzes the upcoming season below.

Changing dates: The FBR Open, which has traditionally been played over Super Bowl weekend, will anchor the West Coast Swing next year. This move, while likely not permanent, creates an easy commute from the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson to Phoenix the following week.

The Turning Stone Resort Championship also will move into the regular season schedule and becomes part of the FedExCup competition. The tournament will now be played the week of Aug. 2 opposite the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club.

The Reno-Tahoe Open, formerly played opposite the Bridgestone Invitational, moves to create a playing opportunity for those not eligible to play in the British Open. The tournament replaces the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.

New sponsor: There are two new sponsors on the PGA TOUR schedule in 2010. One is SBS, the Seoul Broadcasting System, which is contracted to be the title sponsor for the season-opening, winners-only SBS Championship at Kapalua for the next 10 years. The other is The Greenbrier -- more about that below.

New event: The Greenbrier Classic, which replaces the Buick Open, is the only one. It will be played the week of July 26 at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., where the legendary Sam Snead was the Golf Professional Emeritus from 1994 until his death in 2002.

The Greenbrier Classic will be played on The Old White Course, the original of four layouts at the sprawling resort in the mountains of West Virginia. The resort played host to the 1979 Ryder Cup, the 1994 Solheim Cup and a Champions Tour event from 1985-87. Tom Watson followed in Snead's footsteps at Golf Professional Emeritus beginning in 2005.

New courses: There are four new venues for existing tournaments, as well as a return to Ridgewood Country Club for The Barclays after a two-year absence.

The Shores Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club replaces Poppy Hills in the rotation at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. The Shores was a part of the tournament in 1965, '66 and 77. The course, which is located along the scenic 17 Mile Drive, was originally designed in 1959 and revamped in 2003 by Mike Strantz, who designed 12 new holes and remodeled the other six.

AT&T National will be played at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pa., in 2010 and 2011. The tournament's previous host, Congressional Country Club, is being renovated in time for the 2011 U.S. Open. Aronimink, which hosted the 1962 PGA won by Gary Player and the 2003 Senior PGA won by John Jacobs, was designed by the famed Donald Ross in 1926.

St.George's Golf and Country Club in Etobicoke, Ontario, will host the RBC Canadian Open. The course, which was designed by Stanley Thompson and completed in 1927, has hosted the national championship three times, most recently in 1968 when Bob Charles defeated Jack Nicklaus by two strokes.

The Valero Texas Open will be played at the Greg Norman-designed AT&T Oaks Course at the TPC San Antonio for the first time in May. The resort opens in January and also includes the Pete Dye AT&T Canyons Course. Sergio Garcia was the player consultant with Norman on the scenic par-72, 7,522-yard layout in the Texas Hill Country while Bruce Lietzke worked with Dye.

The PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup: Although there had been speculation that the spacing of the events would change with an off week built in after the second Playoffs event, the schedule remains the same in 2010. The open date will occur after the BMW Championship and immediately prior to THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola -- with the Ryder Cup on tap the following week in Wales. Good thing Atlanta has an international airport.

The majors: Augusta National is a given each April to kick off the four majors. Two of the other three return to historic venues at Pebble Beach, which hosts the U.S. Open in June, and St. Andrews, which is the home of golf and home to the 139th Open Championship for the 27th time in July. The PGA Championship is being played at a relative newcomer in Whistling Straits, Herb Kohler's Wisconsin homage to the great links courses of Ireland, where Vijay Singh won in 2004

Tiger's schedule: While we have no insider knowledge, it's reasonable to expect Tiger Woods' schedule to look like it did the last time he completed a full season in 2007 and won seven times.

He generally opens the season at Torrey Pines and then plays in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. He might want to add the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am since the U.S. Open is being played there in 2010 -- but then again, he did win the season's second major there by 15 shots in 2000, so course knowledge shouldn't be an issue. His stops during the Florida Swing are usually the World Golf Championships-CA Championship and Arnold Palmer Invitational, where Woods picked up his sixth title in 2009.

Woods will begin his quest to end a major drought that stretches back to the 2008 U.S. Open at the Masters in April. He'll likely play the Quail Hollow Championship the week before THE PLAYERS Championship; after playing at TPC Sawgrass, he'll likely hang it up until the Memorial Tournament, where he is the defending champ. After that, it's back to Pebble Beach for the U.S. Open and then to Aronomink to defend his title at the AT&T National that he hosts.

Woods will return to another familiar major venue in St. Andrews, where he has won two of his three British Open titles, for the 139th Open Championship. Three weeks later he'll likely be at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational; he has won seven of the last 11 years and is the defending champ. Next up will be the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits where he tied for 24th in 2004.

Then come the Playoffs. Woods skipped The Barclays in 2007 but the players raved about Ridgewood Country Club, which hosted the event in 2008, so he could be persuaded. And Woods played all four Playoff events this year -- winning the BMW Championship and finishing second at The Barclays and THE TOUR Championship on the way to winning the FedExCup for the second time in three years. So we'll see.