For the first time in a half-century, the PGA Tour is coming back to the Baltimore area.
The 2021 BMW Championship will be played at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md., marking perhaps the biggest stage yet for which the private club to showcase itself to the golf world.
The Western Golf Association, which runs the BMW Championship with the PGA Tour, made the announcement official on Feb. 13. The news was first reported by the Chicago Tribune.
Golf News Net reported in June 2018 that sources indicated Baltimore would host the BMW Championship in the coming years.
#BREAKING: On Teeing It Up podcast (37:35), @RyanBallengee said sources have told him that @BMWchamps is headed to Baltimore in near future. #Pgatour #golf https://t.co/Ffr3Bs6bfr
— Jeremy Schilling (@jschil) June 12, 2018
However, that plan had been potentially thrown into disarray when BMW had planned to walk away from its long-term sponsorship of what's now the second of three FedEx Cup playoff events. Then BMW changed its mind and agreed to a three-year extension as title sponsor of the former Western Open at an estimated $15 million - $18 million per year.
Oliver Zipse became the company's chairman on Aug. 16, 2019, and his influence meant BMW stuck with this event rather than moving their sponsor dollars from this event to the PGA of America's Ryder Cup.
In recent years, the BMW Championship, which hosts the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings after the playoff opener, The Northern Trust, has moved around the country every other year. The Chicagoland area hosts one year, then the tournament moves to other parts of the country. Denver's Cherry Hills, Indianapolis' Crooked Stick and Philadelphia's Aronimink have been such high-caliber hosts outside the Chicago area.
Olympia Fields in the Chicagoland area will host in 2020, and in future years the tournament is expected to return to Denver's Cherry Hills Country Club.
Caves Valley Golf Club has hosted some of the biggest events in golf, including the US Senior Open, the UL International Crown and the Senior Players Championship.
The 2020-2021 season will see the PGA Tour come to the Baltimore-D.C. area twice, with the Wells Fargo Championship moving for one year from Quail Hollow in Charlotte to TPC Potomac in suburban D.C. as Quail Hollow hosts the Presidents Cup.