George Solich figures there are two ways to approach his job as general chairman for the 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club.

“You can be a figurehead and let everyone else do all the work, or you can dive in — and I’ve dived in and it’s been really fun,” Solich said recently.

Putting on a PGA Tour event is no small matter. Conducting the first one to be held in Colorado in eight years adds to the magnitude. And the fact that it’s a FedEx Cup playoff event — with only the top 70 players in the world competing — ratchets it up another notch.

With the 2013 BMW Championship taking place this week at Conway Farms in Lake Forest, Ill., it will be a year from this month that Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and the like will put Cherry Hills to the test. In fact, it’s less than a year as tournament week is Sept. 1-7.
 

Tournament organizers have been gearing up for a long time, but this week is another big step as Solich and roughly 10 executive committee members and six Cherry Hills staffers are spending a couple of days at the 2013 BMW Championship. It’ll be a valuable live-action lesson for many in the group.

“You can always learn something,” Solich said. “We’ve paired (the 2014 organizers with their 2013 counterparts) and we’re actually spending the day with them. You just get to see it visually. And for any executive committee member who hasn’t seen it, it’s an impressive look. We hope to learn as much as we can in two days.”

This week marks the third BMW Championship Solich personally has attended. As a Western Golf Association director, he’s very familiar with the association that conducts the tournament. Solich is also an alumnus of the Evans Caddie Scholarship program, the BMW Championship’s beneficiary. (Solich, in red, is pictured above on the Golf Channel set at Conway Farms with fellow Coloradan and Evans Scholar alum Bob Webster, a WGA governor.)

As one of the biggest golf events the state has hosted since its last men’s major — the 1985 PGA Championship at Cherry Hills — the BMW Championship has already created quite a buzz in Colorado.

Solich reports that in just the two days of the priority ticket sale that took place last month, the tournament sold $600,000 in tickets. “We set every record ever for a BMW Championship,” he noted. “We’re starting to see a really high demand, which we’re really excited about.”

And with 2,650 volunteers needed for the tournament, more than 2,400 people have already registered. “We’re a year out, so I think that says a tremendous amount considering it costs $145 to become a registered volunteer. We think that’s a terrific number,” Solich said.

In addition, the 2014 BMW Championship’s hospitality offerings are about 60 percent sold.

In short, making next year’s tournament at Cherry Hills a big success is a major priority for Solich and the event’s other organizers.

Three members of the WGA-hired Bruno event team who are working on the 2014 BMW Championship have been based out of Solich’s Energy IV business offices for the last year. And some of the Energy IV staff and interns have been devoting significant time to the tournament as well.

“There are a lot of balls in the air, but it’s been fun,” Solich said.

Note: For those wishing to financially support the Evans Scholarship program, the WGA has launched a “Text to Donate” campaign. Those wanting to contribute can text CADDIE to 50555 to donate $10 to the Evans Scholars Foundation.

(Pictured below is part of the Colorado contingent that traveled to this week’s BMW Championship. Back row, from left: Brittany Brownrigg, Dan Quinn, Dave Lee, Rob Link, Todd Gervasini and Bob Webster. Front row, from left: CGA executive director Ed Mate, Christie Austin, George Solich and Bill Bergner.)
 

If he’s playing great or lousy, and if you’re rooting for him or against him, it’s fun to watch him on the course. The size of galleries and the TV ratings confirm as much.

But it’s been a long time since Colorado golf fans have gotten a chance to see Woods compete in the state. In fact, he hasn’t played a tournament in Colorado in the new millennium. The last time he teed it up “for real” in the Centennial State was at the 1999 International in Castle Rock.

But, barring injury or a major breakdown in Woods’ golf game, what will then be a 15-year Mile High drought for Tiger will end next September.

With the top 70 players in the 2014 FedEx Cup playoff standings advancing to the BMW Championship, there should be a Tiger sighting about 17 months from now at Cherry Hills Country Club.

The buildup to the first PGA Tour event to be held in Colorado since 2006 ratchets up another notch in April as volunteer opportunities for the tournament open up. The event at Cherry Hills will need more than 2,500 volunteers for the Sept. 1-7, 2014 tournament, the third stop in the four-event Tour playoffs.

Volunteer positions open to the general public on April 15, but interested CGA and CWGA members can get a two-week head start, helping early birds land spots on the most desirable volunteer committees.

Volunteer spots will be open to CGA and CWGA members beginning on April 1. Those wishing to sign up then can register by CLICKING HERE. 

The only people who have had earlier access to volunteer opportunities are Cherry Hills Country Club members.

There are 27 volunteer committees for the 2014 BMW Championship. Here’s the rundown alphabetically: access control, admissions, caddie hospitality, child care, corporate hospitality and operations, construction and signage, information centers, marshals, marshal rovers, media center, member hospitality operations, merchandise, Monday corporate outing operations, office staffing, player hospitality, practice area and set-up operations, pro-am operations, product delivery, scoreboards, ShotLink, standard bearers, TV spotters, VIP player transportation, volunteer headquarters, volunteer party, volunteer orientation/training and uniforms, and walking scorers.

Volunteers are required to purchase the 2014 BMW Championship volunteer package, which runs $145. They will need to be available to work various shifts throughout tournament week, depending on which committee he/she is on.

Included in the volunteer package are two golf shirts, a wind jacket, a hat or visor, a commemorative pin, a water bottle, a volunteer credential valid for entry all week, an invitation to the volunteer appreciation party, and food and beverages on days the volunteer works.

But the biggest attraction at Cherry Hills will be watching a 70-player field which will include most of the top golfers in the world.

The top 15 players on the final leaderboard at the 2012 BMW Championship looked like this: Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Robert Garrigus, Adam Scott, Dustin Johnson, Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, Ryan Moore, Bo Van Pelt, Bubba Watson, Ian Poulter, Chris Kirk and Zach Johnson.

Can you say “all-star tournament”?

It’s little wonder why the 2012 BMW was named the Tournament of the Year by the PGA Tour.

It could be argued that the BMW will mark the top assemblage of golfers in Colorado since Cherry Hills hosted the 1985 PGA Championship. The International PGA Tour event at Castle Pines had some great fields in its run from 1986 through 2006, but it missed out on some big names. Woods, for instance, only competed in the tournament twice, in 1998 and ’99.

Besides what the BMW Championship offers field-wise, its proceeds also go to a good cause: the Evans Caddie Scholarship. The full tuition and housing scholarship has sent more than 10,000 caddies to school over the last 83 years. A local Evans Scholarship house, at the University of Colorado, has more than 410 alums.

Overall, tournament organizers expect the 2014 BMW Championship to have a $35 million economic impact on the area.

For more information about the tournament, CLICK HERE. 

Ed Mate was thrilled last year when he first learned that the BMW Championship would be played in Colorado in 2014. But it wasn’t until the CGA’s executive director visited the site for last week’s BMW tournament that the excitement factor really kicked in.

Seeing the likes of Rory McIlroy (pictured), Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk competing at the same event does indeed tend to raise the excitement level. Those eight were not only in the BMW field last week, but they all finished in the top 10 Sunday at Crooked Stick near Indianapolis.

That’s not only a stellar leaderboard, but it may one day constitute an entire wing of the World Golf Hall of Fame. And Colorado golf fans — and the folks at Cherry Hills Country Club, which will host the event Sept. 4-7 in two years — could see something similar in 2014.

“It all didn’t sink in until this trip,” Mate said. “Now I really see how big a deal it is. I’m starting to realize how awesome this is.”

Mate was one of nine members of the executive committee for the 2014 BMW Championship who made the trip to Crooked Stick last week. Leading the contingent was the 2014 tournament’s general chairman, George Solich, a member at Cherry Hills and an alumnus of the Evans Scholars, the caddie scholarship that benefits from BMW Championship proceeds.

Also traveling to Indianapolis were Cherry Hills head professional John Ogden, Tripp Kerr (who’s overseeing corporate hospitality and ticket sales), Craig Andrisen and former Cherry Hills head professional Clayton Cole (pro-am and corporate outings), Bill Bergner (course conditioning and operations), Scott Fisher (volunteer service), and Jenna Daurio (Solich’s assistant).

The trip, which lasted from Sept. 3-5, was primarily a fact-finding mission to lay the foundation for the 2014 BMW, the third event of the four-tournament PGA Tour playoffs. The executive committee members met with their 2012 counterparts and generally got a feel for the event, which will feature 70 of the world’s top golfers.

Last week at Crooked Stick, the Indianapolis Star reported that the BMW drew 150,000 fans for the week, including 40,000 per day on the weekend.

Solich said earlier this year that ticket sales at Cherry Hills will be limited to 27,000 per day to make for a more enjoyable fan experience, but it will still be a big-time sporting event.

“The biggest impression for me personally was how big the event is, how grand a scale it’s on,” Mate said of the BMW, which traces its roots to the Western Open, which debuted in 1899. “Colorado hasn’t had a PGA Tour event since the International in 2006, but this is the PGA Tour on steroids. It’s much closer to a U.S. Open than a U.S. Women’s Open. There are more grandstands, more corporate hospitality and more moving parts.

“If you had to pick an event to have in Colorado, this would be this one. It’s in a great month — September. And the deck is stacked; the field includes only the top players. The chances of getting a leaderboard like (last week) again are pretty high.”

For Solich and Mate, along with the CGA and CWGA in general, the BMW takes on added significance because its sole beneficiary is the Evans Caddie Scholarship, which has provided college educations to almost 10,000 alumni over the years — including Solich and Mate. The Evans Scholarship at the University of Colorado is a flagship program for both the CGA and CWGA.

Indeed, that’s where Mate’s role comes in. At the tournament, the CGA and CWGA will help the Western Golf Association — which puts on the BMW Championship and administers the Evans Scholarship nationwide — promote and raise the awareness of the scholarship.

“It’ll be neat to feature our partnership with Western Golf and our shared charitable beneficiary, the Evans Scholars,” Mate said.

And, generally speaking, the more successful the BMW Championship is, the more money is raised for the Evans Scholarship. (At left, WGA chairman and Denver resident Jim Bunch poses with BMW champion McIlroy.)

Besides promoting the scholarship, the CGA and CWGA will help recruit the roughly 1,500 tournament volunteers necessary by tapping into their membership base. To meld promotion of the scholarship and filling volunteer positions, the associations may call upon the clubs with caddie programs in the state to marshal specific holes at Cherry Hills.

Next year the BMW Championship will return to the Chicago area — the BMW/Western Open’s home for all but two years since 1962 — so Mate saw last week’s scouting trip to Indianapolis as all the more crucial.

“This year it was particularly important because next year the tournament will return to Chicago, where Western Golf has a lot of infrastructure in place (from hosting the tournament so often in the past),” Mate said. “But (tournament sites) like Indianapolis and St. Louis are more like what we’ll face. The event in 2014 will look a lot more like Indianapolis (than it does Chicago).”

As an executive committee as a whole, Mate is confident that the tournament will put its best foot forward given the leadership of Solich, long a prominent figure in the oil and gas business.

“This is like putting together a major company with a ton of moving parts,” Mate said. “That’s why George is the perfect general chairman. He’s skilled at putting together successful companies, then selling what they have to offer.”
 

But if 2014 tournament officials have any say in the matter, it may not be the last visit the championship pays to Colorado.

Earlier this month, it was announced that in 2013 the BMW Championship — a tournament whose sole beneficiary is the Evans Caddie Scholarship — will be played at Conway Farms Golf Club in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Ill. No major surprise there, as the BMW — and its predecessor, the Western Open — has been held in Illinois all but one year since 1962, though this September it will be contested at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Ind., so as not to crowd the Ryder Cup at Medinah near Chicago late that same month.

While the contract with Cherry Hills is a one-year deal, 2014 BMW Championship general chairman — and Cherry Hills member — George Solich (pictured) would like Colorado to be in the mix for future years as well.

“We’d love to have it back in Colorado, but nothing formal has ever been discussed,” Solich said regarding the BMW, the third event of the four-tournament PGA Tour playoffs. “If it goes well, Colorado is a tremendous market. It’s a great fit. It’s an exceptional time of year here (in early September), and you have 70 great players. What could be better?”

But if the BMW Championship, which dates back to 1899 as the Western Open, does return to Colorado, it would probably be at least several years down the road. Several Chicago media outlets report that the 2015 BMW may return to Conway Farms as both the club and the PGA Tour hold a contactual option.

The Illinois-based Western Golf Association, which administers the BMW Championship and the Evans Scholars Foundation, reportedly has an agreement that calls for the BMW to be played in the Chicago area at least every other year. Some Chicago media have speculated that the upcoming lineup for the BMW could be Conway Farms in 2015, Harding Park in San Francisco in 2016 and a Chicago site again in 2017.

But nothing beyond 2014 is set as WGA vice president of tournaments Vince Pellegrino noted that BMW’s contract only runs through 2014.

As for the 2014 BMW Championship, which is set for Sept. 4-7, Solich said it’s been decided that ticket sales will be limited to 27,000 per day to make the event more enjoyable for spectators.

“We want to provide the fans of Denver an exceptional golf experience,” Solich said. “For some perspective, the (2005) U.S. Women’s Open at Cherry Hills on the weekend was drawing over 30,000.”

The 2014 BMW will mark the sixth time an event on the PGA Tour schedule has been played at Cherry Hills, following three U.S. Opens (1938, ’60 and ’78) and two PGA Championships (1941 and ’85). But given the club’s strong commitment to caddies and to the Evans Scholarship, the 2014 event holds a special place for many at the 90-year-old course.

And Solich is a natural fit for general chairman given that he graduated from the Evans Scholars program at the University of Colorado, and he’s now a WGA director. With the Evans Scholars being one of the largest privately funded scholarships in the country — typically providing more than 800 full tuition and housing scholarships in any given year — proceeds from the BMW Championship make up 15 to 20 percent of the E.S. funding.

“It’s a great honor” to be general chairman, said Solich, a prominent figure in the oil and gas business. “To have one of the first Western Open/BMW Championships west of the Mississippi in the long history of the event is pretty neat.”

Even though the tournament is still 2 1/2 years away — and Cherry Hills is hosting another major event this summer, the U.S. Amateur — Solich and other 2014 BMW Championship organizers are busy laying the foundation for the Tour event stop. They’re building the organizations and setting the parameters on many fronts — spectators, hospitality, parking, security, government relations, player relations, etc.

One of the first items in the hopper is hospitality sales, which Solich said will begin this summer. Ticket sales, the other primary source of revenue for the tournament — and therefore, the Evans Scholars Foundation — will come later. Solich said the championship will be seeking 1,500 volunteers, but that solicitation probably won’t begin until early next year.

“Economically, this is going to be a very solid draw,” Solich said. “And obviously the better we do, the better the Evans Scholars Foundation does, so clearly we’re motivated.”

But Cherry Hills is making sure it has its ducks in a row. The primary priority at this point is the U.S. Amateur, which will be played Aug. 13-19 at the club, with CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora serving as the second course for the stroke-play portion of the event Aug. 13-14.

“We have a great venue for a great championship,” Solich said. “And I’m equally proud to share the event with CommonGround.”