Aronimink president hopes PGA event is a go

The thought - once the AT&T National, a PGA Tour event hosted by Tiger Woods, left Aronimink Golf Club for the last time in 2011 - was that the Newtown Square facility wouldn't entertain another professional golf tournament unless it was a major championship.

But when the tour contacted Aronimink last fall and asked club officials their degree of interest in hosting the third of four annual FedEx Cup playoff events, the BMW Championship in 2018, president Steven Zodtner said his immediate reaction was: "Let's talk."

After visits by the tour and the Chicago-based Western Golf Association, which conducts the tournament, Zodtner and fellow club officials declared it a go, and a vote of the members on March 4 is all that remains for the PGA Tour to come back to the Philadelphia area.

"This championship dates back to 1899," Zodtner said Thursday. "It's the third-oldest tournament on the PGA Tour behind only the British Open and the U.S. Open. So when they approached us, we felt this fit the profile of something we think is in keeping with our desire to host something on a major level."

He cited the list of past winners of what was once the Western Open, including Woods, Gene Sarazen, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Rory McIlroy. He also mentioned the $8 million purse and a field of 70 contestants vying for 30 spots in the Tour Championship, where the FedEx Cup champion will pocket $10 million.

The BMW Championship has one beneficiary, the Evans Scholars Foundation of suburban Chicago, which awards scholarships to deserving caddies. Zodtner said the foundation and the Philadelphia-based J. Wood Platt Caddie Scholarship Trust have a mutual interest in collaborating on an initiative in honor of the event.

Some sources have considered the members' vote to approve the tournament to be a foregone conclusion, but Zodtner, who is in only his fourth month in office, described his expectation as "cautiously optimistic."

"I hope the membership will be very excited about bringing professional golf back to Philadelphia and the Philadelphia region," he said. "I don't know how I can say it, but I'll find out in two short weeks whether or not I've led us astray or whether this is consistent with what they want. I hope it is."

He hopes the sentiment will be the same as it was in October 2008, when the members voted to bring the AT&T National in for 2010 and 2011.

"It was unanimous in favor," he said. "I remember being in the room and there were no dissenting votes."