Writing from Chicago
    Monday, March 12, 2013

    At least one BMW Championship – traditionally called the Western Open – will be played at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest.
    The 2013 iteration has been locked in by the Western Golf Association and the PGA Tour. Conway officials want the 2015 playing as well, and will get it if the first edition goes well. The club originally demanded both the 2013 and 2015 tournaments be in the same contract, but the deal signed gives the club and PGA Tour a mutually-agreed option to play there in 2015.
    “Many of our volunteers and contributors to our championships and scholarships live in the city’s northern suburbs, and this gives us the opportunity to reward their support by showcasing the world’s top golfers on a course in their own backward,” Vince Pellegrino, the WGA’s tournament VP, said in the WGA's release.
    That, and title sponsor BMW’s interest in marketing to the north shore crowd, were among the ingredients that went into the formula that dislodged the tournament from Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont – considered by some WGA directors driving from far off Highland Park and vicinity to be on the other side of the moon – and moved it north. Others included Luke Donald’s membership at Conway Farms and player dissatisfaction with the Rees Jones renovation of Cog Hill’s Dubsdread layout, a Dick Wilson design.
    The deal confirms the WGA’s contract provision with the PGA Tour that at least every other BMW is played in the Chicago area, and puts the local playings on an odd-numbered year basis. This year, the tournament is at Crooked Stick Golf Club, near Indianapolis, and in 2014, it’s at Cherry Hills Country Club, near Denver.
    So the BMW / Western returns to the northern suburbs of Chicago for the first time since 1972, when Jim Jamieson won the Western on a cold, rainy week at Sunset Ridge Country Club, and for only the seventh time in its history. It has been a rare visitor to the neighborhood since the 1899 inaugural at the Glen View Club.
    In the release, Donald said of his home summer club, “(I)t provides such a different test every time you play it, (it) is sure to make the BMW Championship a thrilling event for players and fans alike.”
    Conway is a Tom Fazio design that winds through a housing development. Officials plan to cut down trees to allow room for corporate tents and other infrastructure associated with big-time golf. Spectators will have to be shuttled in, for the small parking lot at the clubhouse will accommodate only players, and the grassed auxiliary lot near it will be filled by tournament operations.
    The Western had been played at Cog Hill since 1991, with 2008 the exception. Jemsek Golf used that year, when the BMW was played at Bellerive Country Club in Town & Country, Mo., to bring in Jones for his $5.2 million renovation of Dubsdread. The hope was to get a U.S. Open. Instead, the Jemsek family lost the favor of several Tour players, including mild-mannered Steve Stricker, who had won the Western there.
    The announcement updates the lineup of confirmed and potential BMW tournament sites thusly:
    2012: Crooked Stick Golf Club, Carmel, Ind.
    2013: Conway Farms Golf Club, Lake Forest, Ill.
    2014: Cherry Hills Country Club, Cherry Hills Village, Colo.
    2015: TBA (potentially Conway Farms)
    2016: TBA (potentially Harding Park Golf Course, San Francisco)
    – Tim Cronin