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The BMW PGA Championship is an annual men's professional
golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...
tournament on the
European Tour The European Tour, currently titled as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons, and legally the PGA European Tour or the European Tour Group, is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European ...
. It was founded in 1955 by the Professional Golfers' Association, and originally called the British PGA Championship.


History

The BMW PGA Championship has usually been played each May, on the weekend of the UK's Spring Bank Holiday, over the West Course at the
Wentworth Club Wentworth Club is a privately owned Golf course, golf club and country club in Virginia Water, Surrey, on the south western fringes of London, not far from Windsor Castle. The club was founded in 1922. Beijing-based Reignwood Group bought the c ...
in
Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. The PGA European Tour has its headquarters at the club and as the tour's home tournament, the BMW PGA Championship is often regarded as the flagship event on the European Tour. The tournament switched to September in 2019 as part of a revamp of the golfing calendar in which the US
PGA Championship The PGA Championship (often referred to as the US PGA Championship or USPGA outside the United States) is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. The PGA is one of the four men's major golf champi ...
moved to May. It has usually had the highest prize money of any event which the tour organises, but this changed in 2009 with the introduction of the Race to Dubai, and the $10 million
Dubai World Championship The DP World Tour Championship is a golf tournament on the European Tour and is the climax of the Race to Dubai. It is contested on the Greg Norman-designed Earth course at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The title spo ...
at the end of the season. There are other more lucrative events than the BMW PGA Championship which are part of the European Tour schedule, such as the majors and the
World Golf Championship The World Golf Championships (WGC) were a group of annual professional golf tournaments played from 1999 through 2023 created by the International Federation of PGA Tours as a means of gathering the best players in the world together more freque ...
events, but these are organised by other bodies. It is also the European Tour's designated "Premier event" for the purposes of the
Official World Golf Rankings The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. It was started in 1986. The rankings are based on a player's position in individual tournaments (i.e. not pairs or team events) over a "rolling ...
, with a minimum of 64 ranking points available to the winner. The winner of the tournament is given an exemption into that season's U.S. Open and the next three Open Championships. In 2000,
Colin Montgomerie Colin Stuart Montgomerie (born 23 June 1963) is a Scottish professional golfer. He has won a record eight European Tour PGA European Tour#Order of Merit winners, Order of Merit titles, including a streak of seven consecutive ones from 1993 to 1 ...
became the only player to win three years in a row. In 2021,
Billy Horschel William John Horschel (born December 7, 1986) is an American professional golfer who currently plays on the PGA Tour. Early years and amateur career Horschel was born and raised in Grant, Florida. He attended Bayside High School (Palm Bay, Flori ...
became only the second American to win the event, the first since
Arnold Palmer Arnold Daniel Palmer (September 10, 1929 – September 25, 2016) was an American professional golfer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most charismatic players in the sport's history. Since embarking on a professional career in ...
in 1975.


Winners


Media coverage

Currently in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, all four rounds of the BMW PGA Championship are shown live by
Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...
with highlights being shown by the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
.


Notes


References


External links


Coverage on the European Tour's official site
– official
BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...
golf site {{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 European Tour events Golf tournaments in England Sport in Surrey BMW Recurring sporting events established in 1955 1955 establishments in England