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After nearly a year of back-and-forth speculation, the Tournament of Champions golf tournament at Kapalua has a title sponsor.
For the second time in the last eight years, the event will be known as the SBS Tournament of Champions when it plays for the 19th time at the Kapalua Plantation Course Jan. 5-8.
"Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) continues its relationship with the tournament, based on its original 10-year agreement that began in 2010 and extends through 2019," the PGA Tour said in a statement. "Under that agreement, SBS would underpin the tournament through 2019, but also had the opportunity to bring in a new title sponsor. SBS brought Hyundai in as title sponsor in 2011, at which time the tournament's original 'Tournament of Champions' name was reintroduced to highlight the exclusive nature of its field. The 2017 event will be referred to as the SBS Tournament of Champions."
The event had gone without a sponsor tied to it since Hyundai finished a six-year run with the event 11 months ago. SBS was the 2010 title sponsor before Hyundai came in.
Earlier this year, the event carried the SBS TOC designation on several websites, but that name was removed -- for the last two months the event has been called simply the 2017 Tournament of Champions.
The Golf Channel, pgatour.com and golfatkapalua.com all started referring to the event as the SBS Tournament of Champions on Monday.
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com