Tiger Woods’s PGA Tour event at Congressional Country Club is close to a deal with Cleveland-based Quicken Loans to become the title sponsor of the tournament, perhaps as early as this year, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
Such a development would shore up one piece of the tournament’s fluid future. AT&T, the event’s sponsor since its inception in 2007, had a deal that ran through this year’s event, which will be held June 26-29. AT&T already sponsors the PGA Tour’s annual stop at Pebble Beach and will become the title sponsor of the Byron Nelson Classic, staged in the company’s home town of Dallas, next year.
Greg McLaughlin, the CEO of the Tiger Woods Foundation and the director of the AT&T National, said via text message, “We have nothing to announce at this time.”
McLaughlin, who has overseen the event both at Congressional and when it moved to suburban Philadelphia for a two-year span, will be leaving Woods’s foundation for a job at the PGA Tour, Woods announced earlier this week. Securing a sponsor before the Tiger Woods Foundation — which both runs and benefits from the tournament — begins a search for a new CEO would bring some measure of stability to the event.
The tournament helped Woods’s foundation establish a link to the District, where there are now two campuses of the Tiger Woods Learning Center, which provide educational opportunities to underprivileged kids.
Still, there is the matter of finding a host venue for the tournament beyond this year. Congressional’s deal expires after June’s event, and while negotiations are ongoing with the club over several options — including hosting it every other year — nothing has been finalized.
Quicken Loans was founded by Dan Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers. This would mark its first foray into golf.
— Barry Svrluga