Ed Mate was thrilled last year when he first learned that the BMW Championship would be played in Colorado in 2014. But it wasn’t until the CGA’s executive director visited the site for last week’s BMW tournament that the excitement factor really kicked in.
Seeing the likes of Rory McIlroy (pictured), Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk competing at the same event does indeed tend to raise the excitement level. Those eight were not only in the BMW field last week, but they all finished in the top 10 Sunday at Crooked Stick near Indianapolis.
That’s not only a stellar leaderboard, but it may one day constitute an entire wing of the World Golf Hall of Fame. And Colorado golf fans — and the folks at Cherry Hills Country Club, which will host the event Sept. 4-7 in two years — could see something similar in 2014.
“It all didn’t sink in until this trip,” Mate said. “Now I really see how big a deal it is. I’m starting to realize how awesome this is.”
Mate was one of nine members of the executive committee for the 2014 BMW Championship who made the trip to Crooked Stick last week. Leading the contingent was the 2014 tournament’s general chairman, George Solich, a member at Cherry Hills and an alumnus of the Evans Scholars, the caddie scholarship that benefits from BMW Championship proceeds.
Also traveling to Indianapolis were Cherry Hills head professional John Ogden, Tripp Kerr (who’s overseeing corporate hospitality and ticket sales), Craig Andrisen and former Cherry Hills head professional Clayton Cole (pro-am and corporate outings), Bill Bergner (course conditioning and operations), Scott Fisher (volunteer service), and Jenna Daurio (Solich’s assistant).
The trip, which lasted from Sept. 3-5, was primarily a fact-finding mission to lay the foundation for the 2014 BMW, the third event of the four-tournament PGA Tour playoffs. The executive committee members met with their 2012 counterparts and generally got a feel for the event, which will feature 70 of the world’s top golfers.
Last week at Crooked Stick, the Indianapolis Star reported that the BMW drew 150,000 fans for the week, including 40,000 per day on the weekend.
Solich said earlier this year that ticket sales at Cherry Hills will be limited to 27,000 per day to make for a more enjoyable fan experience, but it will still be a big-time sporting event.
“The biggest impression for me personally was how big the event is, how grand a scale it’s on,” Mate said of the BMW, which traces its roots to the Western Open, which debuted in 1899. “Colorado hasn’t had a PGA Tour event since the International in 2006, but this is the PGA Tour on steroids. It’s much closer to a U.S. Open than a U.S. Women’s Open. There are more grandstands, more corporate hospitality and more moving parts.
“If you had to pick an event to have in Colorado, this would be this one. It’s in a great month — September. And the deck is stacked; the field includes only the top players. The chances of getting a leaderboard like (last week) again are pretty high.”
For Solich and Mate, along with the CGA and CWGA in general, the BMW takes on added significance because its sole beneficiary is the Evans Caddie Scholarship, which has provided college educations to almost 10,000 alumni over the years — including Solich and Mate. The Evans Scholarship at the University of Colorado is a flagship program for both the CGA and CWGA.
Indeed, that’s where Mate’s role comes in. At the tournament, the CGA and CWGA will help the Western Golf Association — which puts on the BMW Championship and administers the Evans Scholarship nationwide — promote and raise the awareness of the scholarship.
“It’ll be neat to feature our partnership with Western Golf and our shared charitable beneficiary, the Evans Scholars,” Mate said.
And, generally speaking, the more successful the BMW Championship is, the more money is raised for the Evans Scholarship. (At left, WGA chairman and Denver resident Jim Bunch poses with BMW champion McIlroy.)
Besides promoting the scholarship, the CGA and CWGA will help recruit the roughly 1,500 tournament volunteers necessary by tapping into their membership base. To meld promotion of the scholarship and filling volunteer positions, the associations may call upon the clubs with caddie programs in the state to marshal specific holes at Cherry Hills.
Next year the BMW Championship will return to the Chicago area — the BMW/Western Open’s home for all but two years since 1962 — so Mate saw last week’s scouting trip to Indianapolis as all the more crucial.
“This year it was particularly important because next year the tournament will return to Chicago, where Western Golf has a lot of infrastructure in place (from hosting the tournament so often in the past),” Mate said. “But (tournament sites) like Indianapolis and St. Louis are more like what we’ll face. The event in 2014 will look a lot more like Indianapolis (than it does Chicago).”
As an executive committee as a whole, Mate is confident that the tournament will put its best foot forward given the leadership of Solich, long a prominent figure in the oil and gas business.
“This is like putting together a major company with a ton of moving parts,” Mate said. “That’s why George is the perfect general chairman. He’s skilled at putting together successful companies, then selling what they have to offer.”
