Washington's PGA Stop May Have Run Its Course

Scheduling, Venue Factor Into Unease

When Billy Andrade heard in January that the Washington area stop had been removed from the PGA Tour's summer schedule, he said he was both stunned, and terribly saddened.

Andrade's first professional victory, in his fourth season as a professional, had come at TPC Avenel in 1991 in a tournament then known as the Kemper Open. He had friends and family living in the area at the time and said he'll never forget the reception he received after he defeated Jeff Sluman in a dramatic one-hole playoff.

"I look back, and I have so many great memories," said Andrade, who also won a week later at Westchester. "The whole area has such a rich tradition in golf. We've been going there since 1980, and now they're off the schedule? I just really feel bad for the fans who supported great golf for so many years, the people who ran the event, all the volunteers, and now we may not have a tournament there any more? It doesn't seem right."

Andrade will be back in town this week to play in what could be Washington's final PGA Tour event. Why the Washington area, the eighth-largest media market in the country, was removed from the prime portion of the professional golf schedule has never been fully explained by the PGA Tour. Washington still might be added to a series of lower-profile fall events; a final decision is expected by the end of this month.

Commissioner Tim Finchem, who declined to be interviewed for this story, said in January that, "our struggle with the summer was finding a structure of dates that would allow us to build in terms of quality. We concluded our best chance of building a successful event in Washington was in the fall."

But recent interviews with tour and local tournament officials yielded a wide variety of factors that also played into the tour's decision to jettison Washington.

A Package Deal

Memphis-based FedEx began a chain of events by paying $40 million to sponsor the tour's new four-event, end-of-season playoff system that will begin in August 2007. FedEx also had been one of the title sponsors for the Memphis stop on the PGA Tour, and its commitment to the new fall series was predicated on having the Memphis event played the week before the U.S. Open.

That's the same slot officials of McLean-based Booz Allen Hamilton, Washington's title sponsor, had been seeking since signing a three-year sponsorship deal that began with the 2004 event. Booz Allen chief executive Ralph Shrader told tour officials he did not want the event stuck in the week after the Open, its place this year and in 2004, when most prominent players take the week off. When the tour wanted Booz Allen to make an eight-year commitment to continue as Washington's title sponsor, Shrader balked unless he could be assured his event would be held before the Open.

Citing concerns that TPC Avenel's greens and fairways generally do not weather hot summers well, Shrader was against moving the tournament to August or early September to become one of three events preceding the Tour Championship in the new FedEx Cup format.

Washington golf courses are generally at their peak in May and June, a two-month window cluttered with a number of events vying for a schedule slot, including several longtime, high-profile tournaments such as the Colonial, the Byron Nelson Championship and the Memorial. Adding Memphis to the mix took away another week. The tour's decision to shift the Players Championship to May starting in 2007 eliminated one more date and left Washington out of options.

Disagreements over the place on the schedule were matched by concerns over the venue. When TPC Avenel opened in 1987, many pros labeled it second-rate, particularly compared to the Kemper Open's original home at nearby Congressional Country Club. Players said the course had too many gimmicky holes while too many others looked and played alike.

One tour source said the uncomplimentary comments from players about the course -- and the sub-par fields that often resulted -- was a factor in the scheduling decision.