JOHN DALY MEETS THE MEDIA at Harbor Shores Golf Club this site of this weeks Sr. PGA Championship. Arlington Lakes Golf Club reopens for golf on July 1st, call Arlington Lakes Golf Club at (847)-577-3030 or visit online AHPD.org for tee times now.  _____________________________________________________________________

THE GOG BLOG by Rory Spears, Editor and Director of Content. Follow Rory on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter @GogBlogGuy. On the 16th hole at Harbor Shores Golf Club.

The PGA of America and the Kitchen-Aid company of Benton Harbor Michigan announced the step in their partnership on the First-Tee of the Harbor Shores Golf Club on Wednesday afternoon.

Kitchen-Aid President Jeff Fettig and members of the PGA, along with two-time defending Sr. PGA Champion Colin Montgomerie stood together to make the announcement.

First up Kitchen-Aid goes from a presenting sponsor to a full title sponsor, and extended the agreement until 2024. The purse will go up for the players which made Montgomerie a happy bunny as he likes to say. The Sr. PGA will now be played at Harbor Shores in 2018 and as part of the new agreement also in 2020-2022-2024.

Click here to hear the announcement and then additional interviews with PGA CEO Pete Bevacqua and Jeff Fettig Chairman and CEO of Whirlpool Corporation the parent company of Kitchen-Aid.

There was no announcement made about where the 2019-2021 and 2023 championships would be played. fettig told Golfers on Golf that the PGA of America would decide the venues for those years, and Kitchen-Aid would have no objection to the championship being played in the Chicago area.

With Olympia Fields and Kemper Lakes scheduled to get a KPMG/PGA/LPGA championship in 2017 and 2018, the next step for one or both of the clubs could be a Sr. PGA Championship.

NBC Sports and and the Golf Channel will continue as broadcast partners of the championship. Current NBC coverage is seen in 123 countries and territories, and more than 262 million households.

“We’re proving that business and golf can be a part of helping to create great communities nad our KitchenAid partnership with the PGA of America, along with the more than 1,700 community volunteers, have been doing that in Benton Harbor,” said Fettig. “We received feedbackfrom the local community and volunteers about the PGA partnership, and response was overwhelmingly positive that the communit wanted the championship to come back.”

This year the players will compete for the Alfred S. Bourne trophy and a first place check of $550,000. Colin Montgomerie is going for his third straight win in the championship.