BMW PGA is far from just another lucrative tourney
NEXT week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth is not just another highly lucrative sponsored tournament.
It is the British Professional Golfers Association premier event and it has been on the golfing calendar continuously since 1955.
A look down the list of past winners quickly explains its importance – Peter Alliss, Tony Jacklin, Peter Oosterhuis, Neil Coles, Arnold Palmer, Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Jose Maria Olazabal, Colin Montgomerie, Paul Casey, Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy.
It was the first tournament I won as a professional golfer back in 1969 at Ashburnham Golf Club.
Winning such a prestigious event early in my career – I was just 20 – gave me the confidence to believe I could succeed in the difficult world of professional golf.
I won just over £1000, which I thought was an enormous sum (I still do!). It allowed me to relax for the rest of the season.
By comparison, next week’s winner will collect just short of $1.2m, a life-changing amount.
The West Course at Wentworth has undergone enormous changes since last year’s event with new greens, reshaping of fairways and changes to bunkers.
As someone who has been associated with Wentworth since joining as an assistant pro, under Ryder Cup player and fellow Scot Tom Haliburton in 1970, these changes are the most exciting developments I have seen.
The course will now compete with the best anywhere in the world.
It is almost unprecedented that an event on the European Tour offers more prize money than the corresponding tournament on the PGA Tour.
But with the Wentworth tournament being part of the new Rolex Series, the BMW PGA edges the Dean & Deluca Invitational at Colonial in Texas and this has encouraged nearly all the European Tour players competing in America to return.
Justin Rose is the local favourite, but he will have stiff opposition from the likes of Open Champion Henrik Stenson, an in-form Ian Poulter, Tyrell Hatton, Thomas Pieters, Tommy Fleetwood, former Wentworth Golf Scholar Ross Fisher and local resident Ernie Els.
It’s a huge disappointment to all involved with next week’s BMW PGA at Wentworth that Rory McIlroy has been forced out with his on- going back issues.
Keith Pelley tried to put on a brave face in his statement but he could not hide his understandable disappointment .
It has been a difficult 2017 so far for Rory and this lingering injury means his playing time has been severely restricted which does not bode well for his preparations for next month’s second major of the year the US Open.
It will also be an opportunity for Andrew “Beef” Johnston to find some form and confidence having struggled so far on the PGA Tour.
Andrew, who lives not far from Wentworth in North Middlesex, earned his PGA card at the end of last year but has found it hard going.
He’s presently a lowly 181 on the FedEx Rankings official money list with $183,758, well short of what will be needed to retain his card.