Photographs by Charles Cherney
There is a history display of the Western Golf Association (WGA) at its headquarters in Glenview. The first panel notes the WGA was founded in 1899. The second panel shows that Chick Evans won the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur in 1916, “using his success to fund caddie scholarships.” The third panel spotlights 1930, the pivotal year in the organization when the WGA launched the Evans Scholars Foundation, sending two caddies on full scholarships to Northwestern.
Two caddies? Ol’ Chick could never have imagined what became of his idea, especially since 2000. Indeed, to accurately portray the last 25 years on the history display, the WGA should use a business bar graph with the arrow pointing straight up.
The WGA and its growth truly are way off the charts.
“The Evans Scholars is the greatest untold story in golf,” says WGA President and CEO John Kaczkowski, using a common refrain as an opener to tell the tale of the association’s noble mission to send caddies to college.
The most recent chapter of that story might be among its best. The WGA has achieved many notable achievements since 2000 (see sidebar), all leading to the most important set of figures that trumps everything else: Currently, there are 1,190 Evans Scholars in school, nearly a 50% increase from 820 Evans Scholars in 2000. The WGA awarded a record 360 scholarships for the 2025-26 academic year. The momentum has the WGA shooting to reach 1,500 Evans Scholars in school by 2030.
“It’s truly astounding,” said Vince Pellegrino, an Evans Scholar at Indiana who now serves as the WGA’s Senior Vice President of Tournaments. “When I started here in 2000, I never thought something like that was possible.”
Pellegrino credits Kaczkowski and the WGA’s board for having the vision to generate such progress. For his part, Kaczkowski, who assumed his current position in 2010, points to the work of the entire WGA staff, which has grown to more than 100 people now housed in a sprawling 25,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2019.
“We’re doing a better job of telling our story,” Kaczkowski said. “We’re helping caddies get to college and it just resonates with people.”
A big driver in the growth is having BMW as the title sponsor of the WGA’s marquee event and the tournament be part of the FedExCup Playo s, beginning in 2007. That also led to the decision to move the event in and out of Chicago, beginning in 2012; the 2008 BMW was held at Bellerive in St. Louis and then returned to Cog Hill for three years through 2011. This year’s BMW will be held at Caves Valley Golf Club outside of Baltimore Aug. 14-17.
• Currently, there are 1,190 Evans Scholars in school, an increase from 820 Evans Scholars in school in 2000. The WGA awarded a record 360 scholarships for the 2025-26 academic year.
• To accommodate the growing number of Scholars in school, coming from more places throughout the country, the WGA has increased the number of its university partnerships. New Scholarship Houses have been established at Oregon (2016), Washington (2018), Kansas (2018, with a new House opened in 2024) and Penn State (2019). It also started sending Scholars to Notre Dame, UChicago, UIC, Maryland, Rutgers, Howard and Iowa, where they live together in residence halls. It will be sending Scholars to Delaware, South Carolina and John Carroll this fall.
• The BMW Championship became a PGA Tour FedExCup Playoff event in 2007 and has raised more than $60 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation since then. Last year, the BMW in Denver raised a record $10.2 million, as the event was recognized as Tournament of the Year for the sixth time.
• In 2019, the WGA added the NV5 Invitational on the Korn Ferry Tour to its tournament roster and started operating the Women’s Western Amateur and Women’s Western Junior with the Women’s Western Golf Association, bringing the total number of championships to six (including the BMW Championship, Western Amateur and Western Junior).
• The WGA moved into its new headquarters in Glenview in November of 2019, uniting a staff that had been working separately at offices in Golf, Oak Brook and downtown Chicago. The WGA now has more than 100 employees, with most based in the Chicagoland area.
• The WGA has worked to grow youth caddie programs, particularly where programs are uncommon. Its caddie services team is currently supporting more than 300 clubs nationwide in their youth caddie efforts, including 100 clubs with new and/or reinvigorated programs. In 2024, it placed 344 new youth caddies at its partner clubs.
—Ed Sherman