NAPLES, Florida – The 39th edition of Chubb Classic, Naples’ oldest professional golf tournament, returns this week to Tiburón Golf Club’s Black Course with most of the world’s best senior golfers, age 50 and over, in action.
The Chubb Classic features a 78-player field competing over 54 holes from Friday to Sunday, Feb. 13-15, for a piece of the $1.8 million prize purse. First place pays $270,000.
Ten major champions, including Davis Love III and Corey Pavin, will compete along with 16 major winners from the PGA Tour Champions. The Golf Channel will televise all three rounds.
Eight former winners are in the field including defending champion Justin Leonard, five-time champion and World Golf Hall of Fame member Bernhard Langer, Stephen Ames (2024), Joe Durant (2018), Lee Janzen (2015), Kirk Triplett (2014), Miguel Angel Jimenez (2019), and Scott Parel (2020).
“The golf course itself is probably one of the tighter courses that we play. There’s trouble everywhere you look, and being kind of a straight driver of the ball, I enjoy that,” 53-year-old Leonard said. “It’s a course where if you’re playing well, you can certainly score. If you’re not hitting it very good, it makes it very difficult.”
Last year, Leonard finished 15 under par, earning a four-shot victory over Billy Andrade, who is ten years his senior.
Two-time PGA Tour winner and Naples-native George McNeill will make his debut on the PGA Tour Champions. McNeill, who lives in nearby Fort Myers, turned 50 last October and has competed in 324 Tour events over the past 25 years.
McNeill is scheduled to tee off in the first group at 8:10 am along with John Huston and Ken Duke. In the pre-tournament press conference McNeill shared his thoughts competing in his first event on Champions Tour.
“They’ve had this tournament here for a long, long time,” McNeill said. “I’ve always watched and paid attention to the event, not knowing whether this was going to be my first start or not. Playing here in Naples at the Chubb Classic and seeing all the guys as I start my career out here on the Champions Tour is a great way to do it.”
Tiburón Golf Club also hosts the LPGA’s season-ending CME Titleholders on its Gold Course, the same layout used for early December’s Grant Thornton Invitational mixed event featuring one PGA Tour and one LPGA player.
The Black Course, opened in 2001, has a unique appearance, featuring pine-straw-lined fairways, crushed coquina waste areas, and rolling greens surrounded by pine trees and native Florida plants. It is recognized as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary by Audubon International, which helps protect and improve its natural environment.
TEE TIMES
https://www.pgatour.com/pgatour-champions/tournaments/2026/chubb-classic/S2026552/tee-times
