Compliance Solutions Championship hopes to double crowd size in 2026
Compliance Solutions Championship | October 1-4
The Patriot Golf Club, Owasso
Broadcast schedule:
Oct. 1, 1 p.m.-4, Golf Channel;
Oct. 2-4, 2 p.m.-4, Golf Channel.
By MICHAEL PETERS
OWASSO — The Compliance Solutions Championship was the recipient of an unexpected Hail Mary touchdown pass when the state’s three Division I football teams finalized their 2026 schedules earlier this year.
Neither Oklahoma nor Oklahoma State play during the week of this year’s Korn Ferry Tour stop at the Patriot Golf Club — Oct. 1-4 — while the University of Tulsa’s home game that week takes place on Thursday night, Oct. 1.
With less competition from statewide college football, CSC tournament officials hope to see a significant spike in attendance.
“Saturday, which is our biggest day, we’re competing with pretty much no local teams,” CSC Tournament Director Lucas Fox said. “We got really lucky on the schedule this year.”
A year ago, OU played at home against Kent State, while OSU was at Arizona, and TU was on the road at Memphis.
Fox said there will still be a Jumbotron in the tournament’s fan zone showing the biggest college football games of the day. But with no direct competition from OU, OSU and TU, the CSC has a chance to make a significant leap.
This is the second of a three-year partnership between the KFT and the Patriot. The Folds of Honor, which provides educational scholarships to fallen and disabled military service members, is headquartered at the Patriot and is one of the charities benefitting from the CSC.
Fox said the 2025 tournament drew 5,000 total fans Thursday through Sunday. He would, “love to double that this year.”
The CSC is the third of four tournaments during the KFT Finals. The top 100 players on the KFT points list qualify for the CSC and play for a purse of $1.5 million. The top 60 on the points list after the CSC advance to the KFT Championship in Newburgh, Ind., on Oct. 8-11. The top 20 on the points list after the championship earn PGA Tour cards.
The Golf Channel features live television coverage of all four rounds of the CSC.
“Our biggest piece of feedback from sponsors and partners was, we had a great time, but we were shocked more people didn’t come out,” Fox said. “…More people would make it feel like a bigger event, which would also in return, make our sponsors feel like they would be a bigger part of the event.”
One way CSC officials look to do that is by being the culminating event of the inaugural Folds of Honor Salute. The week-long community initiative will encourage local businesses and organizations to honor first responders throughout Tulsa.
“When you look at the real successful golf tournaments around the country, it’s not about golf,” Folds of Honor founder Dan Rooney said. “It’s a community take over that golf is part of what is going on.
“It (Tulsa) will be the first city in America to do this, to recognize first responders across the community. And if you’ve spent any time around me, you know I’m super passionate about first responders.”
Compliance Solutions Founder and President Mark Lammert is passionate about keeping things fun for both spectators and players. For the second year, the CSC is partnering with Braum’s to give away 40,000 scoops of ice cream in the tournament’s fan zone (“T. Boone Pickens always said ice cream makes everything better, right?” Lammert said.).
To make things more interesting for the players, Compliance Solutions is sponsoring the Route 66 Cup, a KFT bonus pool that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Route 66.
The top three players in points after the CSC will share a prize pool of $100,000. The other three tournaments in the Route 66 Cup were the OccuNet Classic in Amarillo, Texas, and the Memorial Health Championship in Springfield, Ill., both in June, and the Evans Scholars Invitational in Glenview, Ill., in July.
Tommy Morrison, who is from Dallas and played his college golf at the University of Texas, won in Glenview and leads the Route 66 cup by 172.5 points. He is currently sixth on the KFT points list.
“Golf can be mundane,” said Lammert, who also sponsors a similar Sprint to St. Louis on the PGA Tour Champions circuit. “It’s the old Major League Baseball, dog days of summer. So I want to have something that’s fun.
“Here, we’re going to pair up three of the people in the Top 10. It’s a made for TV event.”
With two events left in the three-year partnership between Compliance Solutions, the KFT and the Patriot, both Lammert and Fox said talks of a contract extension wouldn’t start until after this year’s event. Lammert did say he would like to see more involvement from large Tulsa-area and statewide businesses.
The first two Compliance Solutions Championships were regular KFT events held in the summer of 2023 and 2024 at Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club in Norman.
“I run marathons,” Lammert said. “Sometimes in marathons, you actually don’t get into the groove until about mile 16.
“And that’s where I feel like we’re at here. The first year was good. This year, we’re right on the groove. It’s right in the middle of the fairway.”