The Fried Egg – Olympia Fields Country Club is set to host the PGA Tour’s 2020 BMW Championship on their famed North Course. It will be the second consecutive year the event is hosted in the Chicagoland area, with Medinah Country Club’s Course #3 hosting in 2019. The 2020 BMW Championship will be hosted on an undetermined date in August and will serve as the second event of the FedExCup Playoffs with the Tour’s top 70 players in attendance.
The North Course is the crown jewel of the 36-hole Olympia Fields facility. Originally, the North Course was the final of four courses at Olympia Fields. Designed by Willie Park Jr., The North Course has hosted two U.S. Opens (1928 & 2003), two PGA Championships (1925 & 1961) and five Western Opens. The latter being the event the BMW Championship replaced when the FedExCup was introduced in 2007. Olympia Fields last hosted the Western Open in 1971.
Okay so I get that Olympia Fields is actually a good 30 miles south of Chicago but this is still a win for Chicago golf enthusiasts. Olympia Fields is an AMAZING club with two extremely unique and distinct courses and boat loads of history. Notably, Olmpia Fields is one of the few gems in the Chicagoland area south of Madison. Most of the baller ass clubs are in the Western and Northern suburbs. Notwithstanding Beverly and Dubs Dread, there isn’t much championship golf in South Chicagoland generally. Olympia Fields fills a huge void and I would imagine they knock it out of the park this time around.
This will be their first major men’s event since the 2003 U.S. Open. If you recall (you don’t, that’s okay) 19 golfers opened Sunday under par, more than any U.S. Open in recent history at the time. Chicago’s weather was a real bitch too, with night temperatures dipping into the 30’s and fucking with the course. On top of that, the pros actively complained that it wasn’t a traditional U.S. Open experience and for those reasons pro golf put Olympia Fields on probation. USGA, PGA, The Hooters Tour. All of them laid off for years and now it’s coming back. Let’s hope the PGA doesn’t find out about the time a member tried to burn the club down this summer. That would suck.
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