LEMONT, Ill. — In what likely will be the last time the BMW Championship is played at Cog Hill, some of the PGA Tour’s top players are not sorry to see it leave the public course south of Chicago.
The most biting comment Wednesday came from Steve Stricker, reputed to be one of the most polite players in golf.
Stricker is among those who fell out of love with Cog Hill when Rees Jones was hired to redesign the course in 2008 in an effort to land the U.S. Open. The greens were raised. The bunkers were deepened. The course was lengthened. Steep ridges in the greens led to impossible putts for a shot that was only slightly off its mark.
Cog Hill owner Frank Jemsek didn’t get the U.S. Open, and now the BMW Championship is leaving.
“They need to get their money back, I guess,” Stricker said. “It’s too bad what happened here.”
“I know we all wish it had turned out differently,” Phil Mickelson said. “But there was a lot of other guys to choose from that probably could do the job, and maybe if they just start over, it could turn into something special.”
The BMW Championship moves to Crooked Stick in Indiana — the Ryder Cup will be in Chicago a month later — and it will go to Cherry Hills in Colorado in 2014. It is to return to Chicago in 2013, with Conway Farms in the northern suburbs on the short list of courses.
The Associated Press
