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      BMW PGA Championship Evolved Into a Top International Event

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      The tournament, long a staple for European players, has become an international event for the world’s top golfers.Billy Horschel remembers watching the BMW PGA Championship as a child.Unlike this week’s tournament, the event was played in May, which coincided with the first week of school summer break in Grant, Fla., a fishing town midway down the state’s east coast where Horschel, 37, grew up.Instead of heading to the golf course that week, the 10-year-old Horschel said he asked his mother to let him stay home and watch the televised golf at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, where the idea of the Ryder Cup was born in 1926.And it was good golf to watch. Some of the greats of the European Tour (now the DP World Tour) were winning the event in the 1990s: José María Olazábal and Bernhard Langer, both two-time Masters champions; Ian Woosnam, a Masters champion and force on the European Tour; and Colin Montgomerie, the Ryder Cup great who won the tournament in 1998, 1999 and 2000.“I was a golf fanatic as a kid and I still am,” said Horschel, who now lives up the Florida coast in Ponte Vedra Beach. “I remember saying I want to be part of that tournament one day.”In 2019, when the BMW PGA Championship was moved to the fall, Horschel played in it for the first time because there was no conflict with his PGA Tour schedule.“It was amazing to be able to walk on that course,” he said. “Like any tournament, TV never really does it justice. Right away I fell in love with the golf course. I understood what it required.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      BMW PGA Championship: Tommy Fleetwood Still Seeking American Success

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      Heading into the BMW PGA Championship in his home country, the English golfer talked about the Olympics and playing in the United States.The season might be over on the PGA Tour, but there are still some important events in Europe, beginning with this week’s BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.Among those participating will be England’s Tommy Fleetwood, 33, who won the silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Paris and finished 20th in the Tour Championship in Atlanta earlier this month. Yet for all his accomplishments, Fleetwood, ranked No. 12 in the world with seven career wins on the DP World Tour, is still searching for his first victory in the United States.Fleetwood, who finished in sixth place last year at Wentworth, spoke recently about the Olympics and his quest to finally break through in the United States.The conversation has been condensed and edited.Were you satisfied with this season on the PGA Tour?I feel good about a lot of things about the year. Whenever you make it to the Tour Championship, it’s always a success. Having said that, I wish I had contended in more tournaments.What do you need to do to go to the next level?Honestly, it’s all been very, very close. It’s easy when you get to this point to think “OK, I’m going to look for a magic answer or rebuild things.” I think I can continue to do the majority of the same things and build on the consistency I’ve had and tweak a couple of small areas.“Having an Olympic medal that you’ll pass down to generations will never not be special,” Fleetwood said.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Under Wentworth, Remnants of World War II

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      The BMW PGA Championship will be played at the club, where a bunker was built by the British military to be a site more secure from bombing than central London.When golf pros and fans pull up to England’s Wentworth Club for the BMW PGA Championship, they’ll be driving in over a little-known slice of World War II history.About 30 feet under the club’s parking lot is a sprawling bunker that was constructed by the British military and used after the war’s outbreak in 1939.The ultraexclusive golf club, where the tournament will be played from Thursday through Sunday, sits on the Wentworth Estate in the village of Virginia Water, in Surrey, about an hour southwest of London. Now home to some of the most expensive property in the country, Wentworth was once one of many country estates requisitioned by the British military during the war.The site was intended to be a more secure alternative to central London, especially if German bombing eventually forced evacuations from the city.“In the war planning in the late 1930s, it was identified as a possible future seat of government,” said Alex Windscheffel, a senior lecturer in modern British history at Royal Holloway, University of London, in Surrey. “You have to remember, in the late 1930s, there’s a lot of fear about the bombers” and what they could do to cities.But the government stayed in London after all, so Windscheffel said, Wentworth “still gets used, but I don’t think it’s ever used quite in the way that was imagined.” The Wentworth Club declined to comment for this article.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      PGA Tour Meets With Saudi Fund in New York to Discuss LIV Golf Deal

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      More than a year has passed since the tour agreed to a deal with LIV Golf, but there is some hope an in-person gathering in New York could create momentum.More than a year after the PGA Tour announced plans to combine forces with the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund’s upstart LIV Golf league, the two sides met in Manhattan on Tuesday in hopes of — finally — making headway on getting to a deal.Given a series of starts and stops in talks aimed at a proposed deal, an accord remains far from certain. But executives from the tour and the Saudi wealth fund, which backs LIV Golf, alongside their advisers, were focused on hammering out details of an agreement, three people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.Also involved in the talks is at least one executive from the consortium of U.S. investors that has already committed to investing in the tour, the people said. The meeting is expected to continue on Wednesday, and could also spill into additional days, they said.The flurry of activity demonstrated an eagerness by both sides to get a deal done. The standoff between the PGA Tour and its Saudi-backed rival has divided the sport, frustrating fans and players alike.No players attended the meeting, the people said, though several have been in other meetings about the deal. A report that Tiger Woods was New York spurred speculation about his presence, but one of the people said Woods was in town for a golf event supporting his foundation.Plans for the meeting came together within the past week, with the hope that an in-person gathering would generate some momentum, the people said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supporting the Next Wave of Female Golfers

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      Playing the sport is expensive, but several organizations are reaching out to help smooth the way in golf — and life.Alexis Lamadrid, a 17-year-old golfer from Phoenix, birdied the last five holes at Old Barnwell in Aiken, S.C., to win Underrated Golf’s event in June at one of the best new golf courses in the country.“I didn’t really think about it,” Lamadrid said in an interview.What she was thinking about was how the tour has helped her gain greater knowledge about the world. It was founded in 2019 by Stephen Curry — who led the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal in the Paris Olympics and is a star for the Golden State Warriors — with a mission to give opportunities to underrepresented young golfers.“Golf can take me so many places,” Lamadrid said. “Golf has helped me open my eyes to things that are related to golf. If I don’t go professional — everyone has that dream — golf has so many opportunities.”Another young female golfer, Salma Ibrahim, 18, who grew up in Los Angeles to parents who immigrated from Somalia, hit her first golf shots after her father, a distance runner, watched Tiger Woods on television.“He hated distance running — he wanted to teach me golf,” she said. Her six siblings also learned the game.In addition to competing around the country, she’s found other things in the sport to transport her beyond the tee.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chi Chi Rodriguez, the Golf World’s Swashbuckling Champion, Dies at 88

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      He won eight PGA Tour tournaments and two senior majors — but it was his flair on the greens that made him one of the sport’s most popular players.Chi Chi Rodriguez, whose flamboyance on the course and passion for the game of golf transformed him into one of its most popular players through his more than three decades on the pro tours, died on Thursday. He was 88.His death was announced by the PGA Tour. The announcement did not cite a cause or say where he died.In a sport played out at lush country clubs where respectful crowds idolize often bland players with comfortable roots, Rodriguez broke the mold.Growing up in a poor family in Puerto Rico, he almost died at age 4 from vitamin deficiencies. At 7, he helped out in the sugar cane fields where his father, Juan Rodriguez Sr., whacked away with a machete for a few dollars a day.The boy who would be known as Chi Chi also began caddying at a course that drew affluent tourists. He taught himself to play using limbs from guava trees to propel crushed tin cans into holes he had dug on baseball fields, and when he was 12 he shot a 67 in a real game of golf. After playing in Puerto Rican tournaments, he joined the PGA Tour in 1960.Rodriguez was 5-foot-7 and about 120 pounds. But he used his strong hands and wrists to get off long low drives, and he was an outstanding wedge player, offsetting his sometimes balky putting game. “For a little man, he sure can hit it,” Jack Nicklaus told Sports Illustrated in 1964, relating how Rodriguez often outdistanced him off the tee on flat, into-the-wind fairways.Rodriguez won eight tournaments on the PGA Tour, then became one of the top players on the Senior (now Champions) Tour, capturing 22 events, including two majors: the 1986 Senior Players Championship and the 1987 Senior PGA Championship. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Golf Course Atop Ancient Native American Earthworks to Be Removed

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      After reaching a settlement with an Ohio country club to acquire its lease on the Octagon Earthworks, the state historical society intends to open the site as a public park.After more than a decade of at-times acrimonious back and forth, Ohio’s state historical society has reached a deal with a country club that operates a golf course on land it owns that contains ancient Native American earthworks that were built as sacred sites some 2,000 years ago.Under the agreement, the society, known as the Ohio History Connection, will acquire the club’s long-term lease on the property and open the site for full public access, the society announced on Thursday.The financial terms were not disclosed, but the settlement allows both parties — which were initially millions of dollars apart in their negotiations — to avoid a jury trial to determine the fair market value of the lease. The Ohio Supreme Court had ruled in 2022 that the historical society could use eminent domain to buy out the lease from the Moundbuilders Country Club, which has operated a private golf course atop the Octagon Earthworks since 1910.The History Connection, which acquired the land containing the earthworks in 1933 and has since leased it to the club, will take over the lease on Jan. 1, according to the settlement.“Our guiding principles throughout this process have been to enable full public access to the Octagon Earthworks while ensuring Moundbuilders Country Club receives just compensation for the value of its lease on the property,” Megan Wood, the executive director and the chief executive of the History Connection, said in a statement. “And now we have accomplished those things.”The mounds in Newark, about 40 miles east of Columbus, are part of a network of eight archaeological sites in Ohio, known as the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, that were created one basketful of earth at a time, using pointed sticks and clamshell hoes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      British Open: It’s the Short Holes That Often Befuddle Golfers

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      At the British Open at Royal Troon, a short hole called the Postage Stamp has ended many title runs.The British Open at Royal Troon in Scotland this week might help answer a question vexing professional golf. Is the antidote to golfers hitting increasingly long drives creating holes that are even longer? Or is it the opposite: incredible shortness?Troon, which is hosting its 10th Open this week, is famous for the Postage Stamp, the name given to its par-3 eighth hole, which is 123 yards on the card but may play under 100 yards this week if the tees are moved up and the pin is put in the front of the green. A tiny green surrounded by five bunkers, the hole has been a feature of the course since 1909.It’s also a hole length that any golfer can hit. But under pressure, with the wind blowing and a tricky pin position, it’s a length that tests the skill of the most elite golfers.This year, Troon will also have its opposite. It will have the longest hole in Open history, the par-5 sixth hole that will measure 623 yards. It beats by three yards the 15th hole at Royal Liverpool in last year’s Open.A view of the par-5 sixth hole at Royal Troon in Scotland last August.David Cannon, R&AIn some ways, lengthening holes for top pros is akin to billionaires competing to have the longest yacht: It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Pros hit the ball so far that length alone doesn’t deter them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More