How Golf Tournaments Find Venues

The USGA, PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions, Korn Ferry Tour, LIV Golf, PGA Section Events (club professionals), State Golf Associations, High School, and College Events are all a few months away from stating their 2025 seasons and schedules. One of the popular questions is what golf courses are hosting events."Why are they playing there?" is a, possibly rhetorical, question that comes up from time to time. 

No organizing body is immune to such talk. Chambers Bay, host of the 2015 US Open, and Bolingbrook, host of the 2024 LIV Chicago event, are two examples of courses that spent an unusual amount of time under the spotlight.

Some golf courses are better than others - some are a better all-around test, some tougher than others, some easier than others, some favor certain types of players, and some favor no one (the best kind). 

Some golf courses are just better than others, though that is in the eye of the beholder.

The PGA Tour plays annually at East Lake in Atlanta; Country Club of Jackson in Jackson, MS; Harbour Town in Hilton Head; and TPC of Louisiana in New Orleans.  Surely those are the very best courses in their respective areas, right? Maybe, but there are a host of other courses around that would like to have a quiet word.

How the major tours decide where to play its events is complex for a myriad of reasons, which might become a future article. Some facilities cannot host due to space, lack of interest, lack of sufficient challenge, etc. Some facilities host because of close proximity to prominent available sponsors, influential membership, potential revenue opportunities, or just because of history.

Now what about PGA Section events? They are not picky on sites like the Tour events might want to be, right? Well ... yes and no.

Let's say we wanted to find a place to play the Section's Professional Championship - doubling as the National Championship qualifier.  Surely there are clubs out there that would want to host such a prominent event. All 41 PGA Sections have a golf cart company as a sponsor. Think of all the facilities out there that are a worthy test of hosting. Think they would be okay giving up their tee times during the late summer or early fall?  Would they make more money with the tournament or regular play?  With that, do you think we still have a potential host?  What kind of golf carts do they have?  Are the club's golf carts the same brand as the golf carts made by the sponsor? Do we need to look for another golf course? 

Okay let's now use the same example but instead let's find a list of all facilities that have the sponsor's golf carts. Now take that list, cross off any that are not 'worthy' venues (lack of PGA professional, not enough of a challenge, weird layout, too short, etc.), and reach out to all the remaining venues and see who is interested in hosting on the desired dates. Depending on the golf cart company, you may find a great set of options or you may find there is not much available.

When the FedEx Cup Playoffs began, FedEx made it clear they wanted to have their own Playoff event near their headquarters in Memphis, TN. With the Tour deciding to play the Playoff events in late August and early September, "playing there" meant playing a Tour event in Memphis in stifling summer heat.

So yes, sometimes we are "playing there."

As cliche as it sounds, at the end of the day, a tournament will be held at a golf course somewhere.  Everyone plays the same venue, everyone prepares, learns the course, plays the same hole locations, someone finishes with the lowest score and, as they say, to the victor go the spoils.