It's official: BMW to Indy in 2016
[Your Name Here] Writing from Chicago
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Crooked Stick Country Club members have approved the return of the BMW Championship to Carmel, Ind., club in 2016, the Western Golf Association announced today.
The vote, taken Au. 28, was expected. Other details took longer to iron out. Crooked Stick hosted the 2012 tournament, won by Rory McIlroy, and spectators turned out en masse despite several downpours and wet conditions over the course of the week.
It also earned close to $3 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation, the Western’s caddies-to-college arm.
“We are thrilled to be bringing the BMW Championship back to Crooked Stick Golf Club, where we had such a successful event in 2012, thanks in large part to the tremendous community and business support in the market,” Vince Pellegrino, the WGA’s senior vice president of tournaments, said in a release.
“We look forward to engaging again with the great people of Indiana and to producing the very best fan environment possible.”
The precise date has not yet been set. The 2016 schedule is complicated but not only the Ryder Cup, but the Olympics.
Next year’s BMW – the 112th edition of the traditionally-named Western Open – is Sept. 17-20 at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest. Conway Farms is also expected to host in 2017, with the WGA settled into a routine that has the tournament in Chicagoland in odd-numbered years and out of town in even-numbered years.
Tournament officials and the brass at Cherry Hills Country Club, which hosted last year’s edition, were thrilled with the response from the public, corporate support, and the players, but when the Western might return to the club, or go to nearby Castle Pines Golf Club, host of the old International, is the big question. The next available date is 2018.
“It’s my personal opinion that the state of Colorado has to be looked at for the BMW Championship in the next five, 10 years,” club member George Solich, an Evans Scholar and the general chairman of the big week, told The Denver Post. “I know the PGA Tour wants to come back to Colorado.”
Solich, also a member of Castle Pines, noted it’s in Cherry Hills’ charter to host championship golf.
“We wanted to get in the conversation,” he told the Post. “I think we’ve done that.”
– Tim Cronin
Reader Comments (1)
This is great news for BMW. I believe they have the power and technology to succeed in motorsports.