PGA TOUR BMW Championship in Wilmington boosts Delaware economy

Patrick Cantlay earned $2.7 million with a one-stroke win at the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club last August.

Delaware’s economy turned out to be the bigger winner.

Delaware’s First PGA Event About $30 million has been pumped into the state’s economy, according to the Delaware Department of Tourism, according to a State Department presentation to the state legislature’s Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday.

Delaware Secretary of State Jeffrey W. Block told government officials after emphasizing that First State attractions extend well beyond popular Atlantic beach communities.

The BMW Championship, held each year on various tracks, attracted more than 126,000 fans to the tournament and the events leading up to the competition from 18-21 August. Those fans stayed in area hotels and visited local restaurants and other businesses.

“Wilmington have done really well. I can’t imagine them not considering coming back. I would be surprised if they don’t consider it again.”

An additional one million TV viewers seemingly got a peek at the action and camera views of the picturesque, tree-lined Wilmington Country Club course in all its glorious glory.

The BMW Championship has rediscovered professional golf avid fans in the region. The LPGA Championship followed his popularity from 1987 to his 1993 LPGA McDonald’s Championship, which drew huge crowds to Rockland’s Dupont Country Club from 1994 to 2004.

The senior (current champion) PGA Tour’s Bell Atlantic Classic was held across the Delaware border in 1998 and 1999 at the Hartfeld National Golf Club in Avondale, Pennsylvania.

Wilmington Country Club It opened in 1901 and moved to its current location in Montchanin, north of the city, in the 1950s. President Joe Biden is among its members. The South Course, designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., opened in 1959 and covers his 7,534 yards from the championship tees.

Previously, it hosted the 1913 U.S. Women’s Amateur, 1965 and 1978 U.S. Junior Amateurs, 1971 U.S. Amateur, 1978 U.S. Women’s Junior, 2003 U.S. Mid-Amateur and the 2013 Palmer Cup. rice field. It was also the scene of an exhibition match in 1966, in which Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus won by two shots behind him.