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 THE Wales Seniors Open - the second most lucrative event on the European Seniors Tour - comes to South Wales for the first time this summer when The Vale, near Cardiff, hosts the £500,000 tournament.
The tournament - which takes from June 16-18, two weeks after the Celtic Manor Wales Open on the European Tour - has been given a substantial sponsorship boost by Cardiff-based secured loan provider Firstplus Financial Group and will attract top seniors such as Eamonn Darcy, Mark James, Tony Johnstone, Jose Rivero and Sam Torrance.
All the previous five Wales Seniors Opens have been held at Royal St David's, Harlech, with Carl Mason the defending champion.
 The Vale and its three-year-old Wales National layout will pose a very different challenge to the traditional links at Harlech, but scoring is likely to be every bit as difficult over its 7,413 yards.
Vale Hotel, Golf & Spa Resort marketing director Stephen Leeke said, "The Firstplus Wales Seniors Open is the biggest event we have hosted and we are really looking forward to it. Our Wales National course will be set up to provide a testing but fair challenge to some of the biggest names in golf. With the event highlights shown on Sky TV around the world, it is a great opportunity to further boost the profile of the resort and Wales around the world."
The Wales National was opened in June 2003 by Sir Steve Redgrave and is one of Europe's newest championship courses and is one of the longest outside of the US. The course offers a mixture of mature wooded areas, wide and narrow fairways and vast water and bunker features.
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