It’s the midpoint of the BMW Championship on the PGA Tour. The BMW is the second stage of the Fed Ex Cup playoffs with an eventual $18 million payday to the last golf professional standing next Sunday at the Tour Championship in Atlanta. The BMW is being contested at Olympia Fields in suburban south Chicago. Olympia Fields is a Willie Park Jr. design that first opened for play in 1915. Park not only won a pair of British Opens in 1887 and 1889 but also designed highly regarded Maidstone in Long Island, Sunningdale in London, and 170 other golf courses. Olympia Fields has hosted four major championships with Walter Hagen winning the 1925 PGA, Johnny Farrell capturing the 1928 U.S. Open, Jerry Barber making miles of putts to win the 1961 PGA, and Jim Furyk prevailing in the 2003 National Open to secure his one major title. Olympia Field has a lot of history and yet the perpetual trophy presented to the BMW champion this Sunday does as well.
The BMW Championship trophy is an enormous piece of hardware with more than a century of past champions. The first name on the trophy was engraved in 1899 after reigning U.S. Open champ Willie Smith defeated Laurie Auchterlonie at the Glen View Club in aptly named Golf, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. The tournament was the inaugural Western Open and only the British Open and the U.S. Open have a longer history. The Western Open has now morphed into the BMW and is near and dear to my heart for two reasons. I caddied at Beverly Country Club and the Western visited Beverly in 1963, 1967, and 1970. It rotated between other Chicago area courses, namely Midlothian, Medinah, and Olympia Fields at that time. Its main beneficiary is the Chick Evans Scholars Foundation that raises millions annually for caddie scholarships at 20 major universities throughout the country.
Last week’s stage one of the Fed Ex Cup playoffs was in Memphis with 70 golfers qualifying for the St. Jude field. This is the first year that just 70 golfers have qualified for stage one. In previous years 125 golfers have been in the field at Memphis. The low 50 are in Chicago this week. The most important long term aspect of teeing it up this week at Olympia Fields is that the big money signature events on next year’s PGA Tour will have a guaranteed place in their no-cut events. The top 30 advance to Eastlake Country Club in Atlanta next week. An advantage to a top 30 finish is a free ticket to golf’s four majors in 2024, from Augusta National to Kiawah Island to Pinehurst to Royal Troon.
The September to August PGA Tour wrap-around calendar is now a thing of the past. In a scheduling abnormality, this year’s PGA Tour schedule that opened last September with the playing of the Fortinet Championship at Napa’s Silverado Resort continues until November of this year. The Fed Ex Cup playoffs that conclude next weekend are simply the end of a massive money grab for the tour’s elite. However the PGA Tour season for 2023 refuses to end as there are seven more tourneys scheduled for after the playoffs from September to November. It is a small bone the tour is throwing at those golfers ranked from number 71 through 200, offering them a chance to make more money and secure their PGA Tour exempt top 125 card. From the quest to win $18 million to simply staying exempt on the world’s biggest tour, there are a number of tournaments within a tournament in the near future.
The fall series visits Napa, Jackson, Mississippi, Las Vegas, Japan, Mexico, Bermuda, and Sea Island, Georgia. I hope it works out well for all the fall series pros because they are certainly going to accumulate their frequent flier miles. Of course keep in mind that the first non-exempt player for 2023, the 71st ranked Justin Thomas, had a bad season by his standards and still found a way to bank $3.1 million. It used to be that all the journeymen and bubble boys from golf’s past were called “rabbits” because they were only able to nibble at the green money. Those days are very long gone.
The 2024 PGA Tour calendar starts in January and includes 36 tournaments concluding just prior to Labor Day. After that the second stringers will get to fight it out for one of those exempt spots. There will be tournaments that the game’s elite are expected to play and they include the four majors, the three Fed Ex Cup playoffs, the Players Championship, and eight Signature Status events. Last year the powers that be called them elevated and designated events. Some will have cuts while others will be no-cut 72 hole tournaments.
A Northern California golfing staple, the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, will have a definite makeover now that it has the Signature behind it. The purse size will be a gaudy $20 million with the winner pocketing $4 million. The pro-am structure will change radically with 70 professionals in the field pairing up with 70 amateurs for just Thursday and Friday at the Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill. The 70 pros will play Pebble Beach over the weekend with nary an amateur in sight. I’m not sure whether this is good or bad or just for one year, but I do regret that Monterey Peninsula is no longer part of the rotation. It was a fun course to watch on television with its ocean views.
The Signature Series and its no-cut events like Pebble Beach bring out an interesting question. Guaranteed no-cut money is anathema to the merit oriented world of competitive golf (unless of course you play on the LIV Golf Tour). It makes sense that you wouldn’t have a cut when there are just 30 in the Tour Championship, but in no-cut big money tournaments for the 50 along with 20 more seems like getting on the easy money train. From the sponsor perspective, if Rory McIlroy is playing in your local Signature Series tournament, your fan base is more likely to buy a ticket if they know that rounds of 75-75 will still get him a weekend tee time.
When all is said and done, all of this is very little about “growing the game” and a whole lot about the money. Yet as I speak poorly about the money grabs of the game’s top players, it is important to note that those very multi-millionaires truly want to be a part of next month’s Ryder Cup Matches in Italy between Team Europe and America. While the 24 Ryder Cuppers do get to designate a sizable check to a charity of their choice, they don’t get paid to play in the Ryder Cup. Yes they will get notoriety and become more marketable but they are also playing for national pride. Team USA is coming off a big win in 2021 in Wisconsin. Now they’re trying for a back-to-back road win. Of course that hasn’t happened in Europe since 1993.
