2019 BMW Championship By Brian Weis

2019 BMW Championship

History Rurns to Medinah as Club Prepares for 2019 BMW Championship

By Brian Weis

A new chapter is being added in August to Medinah Country Club's storied championship history, as the PGA TOUR's top stars compete for the BMW Championship's George R. Thorne trophy and a spot in the season-ending TOUR Championship.

Conducted by the Western Golf Association, the BMW Championship is the penultimate event in the PGA TOUR FedExCup Playoffs, featuring the top 70 players in the FedExCup standings. Only 30 will qualify to move on to next week's TOUR Championship, the final leg of the Playoffs.

The 2019 BMW Championship marks the fourth time the WGA's professional golf event has been contested at Medinah - the first since 1966, when Billy Casper claimed his second of four Western Open titles.

"Medinah holds an important place in the history of the Western Golf Association and in the history of golf in America," said Vince Pellegrino, WGA Senior Vice President of Tournaments. "The Ryder Cup, PGA Championship and the U.S. Open all have been played here, and we look forward to adding another memorable chapter to this club's great history."

The event is being played on Medinah's famed Course No. 3, a Tom Bendelow design that has hosted six major championships and the 2012 Ryder Cup; the course is consistently rated one of the finest and most challenging in the United States.

Founded in the 1920s by a group of Shriners, Medinah Country Club boasts three golf courses, all originally designed by Bendelow. The massive 120,000-square-foot clubhouse designed by Richard Schmid is a unique architectural blend with Byzantine, Oriental and Louis XIV influences.

Medinah Country Club is one of the Chicago area's best-known venues for championship golf. Course No. 3 has hosted the Ryder Cup (2012), three U.S. Opens (1949, 1975, and 1990), two PGA Championships (1999, 2006), four Western Opens (1939, 1962,1966 and 2019), and other events in the pre-PGA TOUR era.

Players who have won at Medinah include such luminaries as "Lighthorse" Harry Cooper, Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson, Gary Player, Hale Irwin and Tiger Woods.

In addition to hosting the BMW Championship, Medinah has been a steadfast supporter of the Evans Scholars Foundation, the sole charity of the BMW Championship.

Supported by the Western Golf Association, the Evans Scholars Foundation has awarded full tuition and housing scholarships to more than 11,000 caddies since 1930.

More than 115 of those caddies have come from Medinah.

BMW Championship At A Glance
Conducted by the Western Golf Association to benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, the BMW Championship is the second of three events in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup and determines the final field of 30 for the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Event Title: BMW Championship
Date: August 13-18, 2019
Location: Medinah Country Club, Medinah, IL
Purse: $9.25 million in prize money
Field: 70 finalists in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup
FedExCup Playoffs: Penultimate event, Top 70 players
Defending Champion: Keegan Bradley
Title Sponsor: BMW of North America, LLC
Conducted By: Western Golf Association
Volunteers: Estimated 2,000-plus volunteers
Beneficiary: Evans Scholars Foundation

More Information:
https://bmwchampionshipusa.com/

Revised: 07/02/2019 - Article Viewed 76,919 Times - View Course Profile

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.