PGA Tour event returning to Crooked Stick

The BMW Championship will return to Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel in 2016, tournament officials announced Tuesday.

“We are thrilled to be bringing the BMW Championship back to Crooked Stick Golf Club, where we had such a successful event in 2012, thanks in large part to the tremendous community and business support in the market,” Vince Pellegrino, senior vice president of tournaments for the Western Golf Association, which conducts the event, said in a statement.

Andy Pazder, PGA Tour chief of operations, said the BMW Championship is coming back to Crooked Stick in part because the event “received overwhelming community support in its first visit.”

The 2012 BMW Championship was named that year’s “Tournament of the Year” by the PGA Tour. Rory McIlroy won the 2012 event over a field that included Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, who all finished inside the top 10.

The week-long event brought in 150,000 spectators and generated an economic boost of about $30 million for the region, event organizers said.

But there also were difficulties with the event, including complaints of huge traffic jams near the course, a shuttle system that spectators deemed slow, and a course that many participants deemed too easy. Some players claimed the rough areas outside the fairways needed to be thickened to make the course more difficult. McIlroy finished 20 under par.  

The 2012 BMW Championship raised nearly $3 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation, which event organizers said was a record.

Founded in 1964, Crooked Stick was designed by Pete Dye and is considered one of the state’s premier courses. In addition to the 2012 BMW Championships, it hosted the 1991 PGA Championships won by John Daly. The course also hosted the 1993 U.S. Women’s Open, 2005 Solheim Cup and 2009 U.S. Senior Open.

The 2014 BMW Championship concluded Sunday at Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado. Billy Horschel won the title, beating Bubba Watson by two strokes. The 2015 championship will be held the week of Sept. 14-20 at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Illinois.