MARK WILLIAMS: This morning we have an announcement to be made, and I'll introduce the panel up on the table, from left to right. We'll start with Mr. Steve Fader from Caves Valley, the president of Caves Valley Golf Club. Next to him, Matt Fitzpatrick, tournament professional, PGA TOUR; Mr. Vince Pellegrino, WGA senior vice president of tournaments, and on the right-hand side, Mr. Ed Glotzbach, general chair of the 2026 BMW Championship.
And I'd like to introduce Vince to go ahead and make some comments.
VINCE PELLEGRINO: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Wilmington Country Club. Thanks for being here. I'm Vince Pellegrino. I'm the senior vice president of tournaments for the Western Golf Association.
Really excited to be here in Delaware and looking forward to a fantastic week. As we kick things off, we'd like to make an exciting announcement about the future of this championship.
It's my great honor to announce two future sites for the BMW Championship, both that have hosted previous championships. First off, the 2025 BMW Championship will be played at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland, near Baltimore; and the 2026 BMW Championship will be played at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri.
This announcement represents the culmination of years of work between the Western Golf Association, our wonderful partners at BMW, the PGA TOUR and these two incredible clubs. Just want to thank our partners at BMW for being so supportive of these partnerships that we have with these two incredible venues. We could not be more thrilled to be returning to the site of the 2021 and 2008 BMW championships.
Thank you.
MARK WILLIAMS: Slide across to Mr. Fader from Caves Valley.
STEVE FADER: Thank you. So we are one year from having hosted this event in 2021. We are thrilled to have them back in 2025. It was by all accounts just a terrific tournament, if you remember that six-hole playoff that we had. And I don't know that we'll do anything as thrilling as that in 2025, but we'll certainly shoot for it.
But we are ecstatic to work with again the Western Golf Association, BMW, and importantly, Evans Scholars and the new house that we are building at College Park. As a result of the tournament last year, we have two kids already in the Evans Scholars program out of Baltimore. We are happy to extend that partnership and to do good things with the Evans Scholars Foundation and for the City of Baltimore.
MARK WILLIAMS: Mr. Glotzbach, you are the general chair of the 2026 event at Bellerive. Your comments.
ED GLOTZBACH: Thank you. Bellerive is really excited to host the BMW Championship in 2026 again. We have a long history of major championships, with the most recent one being the 2018 PGA Championship, and as Vince mentioned in 2008, we hosted the BMW before.
St. Louis is a great sports town, so Bellerive isn't the only entity excited, the whole town is going to be excited, and this announcement gets out and the city and the region come out to really support the organizations and the championship.
We've also got a long history of support for the Evans Scholars, and have a very active caddie program which we continue to grow. Every year, we've got an Evans Scholar house at the University of Missouri that we have been participants in, and then we've got a lot of members who are graduates of Evans Scholars. So it's an important thing.
An important thing for Bellerive is to be able to give back to the city, using these championships as a way to do that.
To Western Golf and BMW, we are really, really appreciative of the chance to host this again, 2026. Going to be exciting.
MARK WILLIAMS: And Matt Fitzpatrick, U.S. Open champion, No. 12 on the FedEx standings coming into this week. Comments on the announcement that's just been made.
MATT FITZPATRICK: Yeah, two fantastic golf courses. My own experience, unfortunately, I didn't make Caves Valley last year, but played it socially and really enjoyed the golf course. Obviously made for an incredibly exciting event with the six-hole playoff between Patrick and Bryson.
And then Bellerive, the 2018 PGA, also, was a really, really enjoyable week. It's a fantastic facility, and thoroughly enjoyed playing the golf course. So yeah, looking forward to playing both of them in a few years' time.
MARK WILLIAMS: Thank you, gentlemen. If we have any questions, please raise your hand.
Q. Curious with the playoff structure, I don't know if "energy" is the right word, that BMW delivers, the only one that gives you something new every year?
MATT FITZPATRICK: What do you mean by "give something new"?
Q. Rotating venues.
MATT FITZPATRICK: Yeah, I think it's great for the game to go to these different places. You know, the only one I've played was Olympia Fields. Really enjoyed that. Looking forward to this week, obviously, as well. I think it's nice to go and play, you know, different golf courses that sell differently every time.
I know that the scoring was really, really tough when I played at Olympia, and I know it was obviously quite low last year at Caves Valley. So I think it's kind of nice to have the mix-up when it comes to the Playoffs.
Q. I don't think the WGA has any history in Massachusetts, but with Boston kind of off the radar screen right now, has there been any thought to exploring that market?
MATT FITZPATRICK: Or Brookline, or something.
Q. Matt, I'm talking about the BMW, if you don't mind.
MATT FITZPATRICK: We can go to Brookline (laughter).
VINCE PELLEGRINO: Certainly, we are always looking at new markets for the championship, and really work with our partners at BMW and the PGA TOUR to look at venues coast to coast and not only expose the golf fans to the BMW brand but also to the Evans Scholars Foundation.
So we are looking at different markets. We haven't necessarily talked about that one specifically at this point in time, but certainly everything's on the table moving forward.
Q. When did you get here?
MATT FITZPATRICK: Sunday night.
Q. Have you had a chance to see the course?
MATT FITZPATRICK: No, not yet.
MARK WILLIAMS: Thank you, gentlemen, for the announcement, we appreciate your time.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports