The Casa Serena Open will welcome a new crop of European Senior Tour players, including Barry Lane and Andrew Oldcorn, when the third edition of the lucrative event returns to the Czech Republic from September 17-19, 2010.
With a prize fund of €600,000, the largest on the Senior Tour outside the Senior Major Championships, the Casa Serena Open will once again have a significant impact on the Order of Merit, won last year by former Ryder Cup Captain Sam Torrance.
Both Lane – who turns 50 this month - and Oldcorn will have their sights set on succeeding Torrance as winner of the John Jacobs Trophy and a strong performance at Casa Serena Golf would help them towards that goal.
Scot Oldcorn, winner of the 2001 PGA Championship at Wentworth Club, has already made a strong start to his Senior Tour career, finishing tie eighth in the US Senior PGA Championship in Colorado on his debut in a Senior Major Championship.
Englishman Lane, a five time European Tour winner, will make his first Senior Tour appearance in this month’s De Vere Collection PGA Seniors Championship and he will look to succeed his compatriot Peter Mitchell as Casa Serena Open champion.
Mitchell jumped from 48th to fifth place in the Order of Merit courtesy of his three stroke victory over Peter Senior and Glenn Ralph in the Casa Serena Open last year and the €90,000 first prize helped him finish sixth in the end of season standings.
Mitchell succeeded Germany’s Bernhard Langer as champion after the 2002 Ryder Cup winning Captain came out on top in the battle of the Masters Champions with Ian Woosnam in the inaugural event in 2008.
Andy Stubbs, Managing Director of the European Senior Tour, said: “The Casa Serena Open has become a leading tournament on the European Senior Tour over the past three seasons and with another prize fund of €600,000 – one of the largest prize funds of the Senior Tour season - on offer, the competition is likely to be as keenly fought as in each of the past two editions.
Maureen Chang, Founder of Casa Serena: “Casa Serena Open is in its third as a European Senior Tour tournament and we are proud to continue this great event for everyone here to experience in person.
“I would like to thank all the sponsors who have supported this tournament in the past and the ones who are supporting us for the first time. They are the ones who have made the Casa Serena Opens possible.”
