The LIV Golf-fueled rancor which is inevitable in the coming days at the BMW PGA Championship would curdle the atmosphere at any venue, but that it will do so at Wentworth – the DP World Tour’s headquarters and its field of dreams – will make it only tougher to bear for the European golfing community.
Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s CEO, has bridled at the long-held notion that the BMW PGA is the flagship tournament on the schedule. While he is accurate in promoting the end-of-season DP World Tour Championship to such elevated status on the grounds of reward and field, for the players and fans there is no denying that Wentworth week is historically and emotionally without equal.
It’s often forgotten that until the mid-1980s, this tournament was nomadic. That it has been settled in Virginia Water, just southwest of London, since 1984 connects the continent’s present with its glorious past – specifically, with the decade that witnessed Europe’s golfing renaissance. Fans of a certain vintage will forever associate the deeds of Severiano Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, José María Olazábal and Colin Montgomerie – the men who incited and sustained that revolution – with the tree-lined fairways of the West Course.
For 20 years the tour visited Wentworth not once a year but twice (the second time for the World Match Play Championship), doubling the opportunity to observe heroic deeds first-hand. For most who trod the sweeping contours of the Harry Colt layout, of course, it was enough to witness greatness in person. For others it proved significantly more inspirational.
In the 21st century, David Howell, Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy, Chris Wood, Danny Willett and Tyrrell Hatton have all lifted the BMW PGA Championship trophy before referencing visits to the event as children, fondly remembering proximity to the stars and the eager quest for autographs.
Hatton even tweeted a photograph of himself at the course as a child in the aftermath of his 2020 success and said: “It’s a dream come true for me. As that 5-year-old, walking around here, I always wanted to be inside the ropes playing when I grew up.”
Casey, the winner in 2009, was able to recall his visits in vivid detail. “It’s quite strange actually,” he said. “To think that I used to stand here listening to the sound of a ball off the club and it whistling past your head.”
Tour journeyman Simon Khan enjoyed an unexpected triumph in 2010, one that had his friends behind the ropes in floods of tears. “We used to run around this place watching Seve,” one of them told me. “We used to joke we’d be doing it one day. I can’t believe he’s actually done it.”
Three years later, Khan was defeated in extra holes by Italy’s Matteo Manassero, who proved that attendance in person as a youngster was not essential. He wore green trousers and a navy jumper that day in honour of Ballesteros and the hours of archive footage he had viewed of his hero at Wentworth.
In 2018, another Italian, Francesco Molinari spoke of his joy at winning on a course he’d watched compatriot Costantino Rocca triumph on 22 years before. “I remember it finished on a Monday back then (a bank holiday in England),” he said. “I ran home from school to watch the conclusion.”
You might think that an American such as Billy Horschel was immune to the triggering power of the memory bank. Think again.
Even before he won the title last year, he said: “This event has always had a soft spot in my heart. I remember Colin Montgomerie winning it three years in a row. There’s a lot of memories of shots and holes, and it’s even better in person than it was on TV.”
The course and championship are no strangers to controversy in recent times. The conditioning of the greens has drawn criticism, multiple redesigns have been unpopular, ownership of the club has been problematic, and now this week the presence of LIV golfers threatens the equilibrium, but the good vibes have endured.
There is a shuttle bus which takes spectators around the property all week. Darting between the enormous houses on the estate, the bus once was host to cheery gossip about which famous golfer or star of light entertainment lived where. Now, however, those same folks warily point at imposing gates and mutter nervously about new oligarch ownership.
It’s almost as if the chatter pre-empted this week’s mood: the sense that a dark and incomprehensibly wealthy world is closing in on what really should be the simple business of clattering balls with sticks.
Arrival at the fifth hole always has reminded visitors that there’s golf to enjoy. Maybe the action can provide such a simple balm to the soul yet again, and maybe it needs another dream to come true if it is to really work its magic.
Matt Cooper
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