The Country Club of Virginia ' s James River Course will again host a PGA Tour Champions playoff event in 2017 .

SAVE THE DATES The Dominion Charity Classic will return to the Country Club of Virginia ’ s James River Course in 2017 , with the second edition being a little bigger than the first and coming a little earlier on the calendar .

The DCC , which was the second stop on the PGA Tour Champions Charles Schwab Cup playoffs calendar , will be the first playoff event in 2017 , moving from the first week of November to the weekend of Oct . 20-22 . Because the DCC is now the first Schwab Cup event , the field will increase from 54 players in 2016 to 72 in 2017 . The top 54 after the DCC will advance to the second event on the slate in Thousand Oaks , Calif . The final playoff event will again take place in Scottsdale , Ariz .

The move addresses unwieldy travel issues that affected the 2016 playoff schedule . The final event on the regular-season schedule was in Cary , N . C . The

first playoff event was in California , followed by a trip to Richmond and , finally , a trip to Arizona . The schedule change will alleviate some of those concerns .

Also , the LPGA Tour ’ s Kingsmill Championship will return in 2017 at the Williamsburg resort ' s River Course . The dates are May 15-21 . There will be a one-week break after the Lorena Ochoa Match Play in Mexico prior to Kingsmill . The Tour will head to Ann Arbor , Mich ., for the LPGA Volvik Championship immediately after Kingsmill .

USGA ENACTS NEW LOCAL RULE The USGA and The R & A announced the introduction of a new Local Rule that

eliminates the penalty when a ball is accidentally moved on the putting green . The Rule went into effect on Jan . 1 and has been adopted by the USGA and The R & A in all of their championships , qualifying competitions and international matches .

“ Eliminating this penalty responds to the concerns we have heard from both golfers and committees about the difficulties in applying the current Rules when a player accidentally causes a ball to move on the putting green ,” said Thomas Pagel , USGA senior director , Rules of Golf and Amateur Status . “ This change is a good example of the type of Rules Modernization changes we hope to implement after completing our fundamental review of all of the Rules . We are looking for ways to improve the Rules by making them easier to understand and apply .”

The change affects Rules 18-2 , 18-3 and 20-1 . When a player ’ s ball lies on the put-

DOMINION CHARITY CLASSIC