Valhalla is a Jack Nicklaus Signature design completed in 1986.

There is a reunion of sorts going on this week in Louisville, when Jack Nicklaus returns to Champions Tour play and major championship golf returns to Valhalla Golf Club. The 65th Senior PGA Championship, the oldest major in senior golf, tees off today at Jack Nicklaus' nationally ranked design at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky. And highlighting a field that includes 22 former major championship winners is the Golden Bear.

Jack, who has not played a senior event since the Toshiba Senior Classic two months ago, will start on the 10th tee today at 10:10 a.m. with defending champion John Jacobs and 2003 Champions Tour Player of the Year Tom Watson. The trio will tee off No. 1 at 1:10 p.m. Friday.

This is the third major championship in just eight years for Valhalla, which began as a dream by the Gahm family and was made a reality by Jack in 1986. Just 10 years after opening, Valhalla hosted a PGA Championship. Then, in 2000, Valhalla played host to Jack's final appearance in a PGA Championship. This is the first senior major held at a club ranked 87th in Golf Digest's list America's 100 Greatest Courses.

"This golf course is one that the Gahms have put an awful lot into this place and they were very loyal to me, and I felt like if I'm going (to consider playing the Senior PGA), I needed to really do that and be here," Jack said Wednesday. "So that's why I'm here.

"Dwight (Gahm), the first day I was on this property he looked at me and he said, 'Jack, do you think you can do a golf tournament here and have a PGA Championship on it?' I said, 'Dwight, I think we can do that. And I think actually you're in the right city for it, too.' And what I meant by that is you look at the places that have a hard time attracting the crowds and so forth and so on, and it's where the sports dollar is really very competitive--New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles...It's places where there's a lot of competition with major sports. That's why the Memorial Tournament has been so great. We had Ohio State football, we had six Saturdays of that, and there wasn't anything else for people to go do. So the golf became a very, very big deal. The Memorial Tournament has been a very big deal in Columbus, Ohio."

Valhalla, which is now owned by the PGA of America, has undergone minor design changes through the years to counter technology, but the course Jack saw Wednesday met his satisfaction.

"I think that the golf course has come along very nicely," he said. "I know that the PGA's made some changes on it and they have done it with my blessing. And it's just evolved into a place that's going to have major championships. As long as the PGA owns this (course), it's going to have major championships for a long, long time. And Louisville is going to be blessed with a lot of very, very good golf for a lot of years to come."

The Senior PGA will air today from noon to 4:00 p.m. on ESPN2. Coverage continues Friday from noon to 2 p.m. on ESPN2, then from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on ESPN. NBC will pick up the weekend coverage, with Saturday's telecast running from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. For more information, including the transcript from Wedneday's press conference with Jack Nicklaus, visit www.nicklaus.com.