For 2nd time in the last decade, a Colorado-based BMW Championship named PGA Tour Tournament of the Year, this time after the event at Castle Pines GC raised a record amount for Evans Scholars Foundation
By Gary Baines – 12/12/2024
BMW Championships held in Colorado — and BMW Championships in general, for that matter — are getting into a very nice habit.
The two times the Centennial State has hosted the FedExCup Playoff event, it’s been named PGA Tour Tournament of the Year. That includes this year, when the event was conducted at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, with the announcement coming on Thursday morning.
A decade after the 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club earned the honor, the 2024 edition at Castle Pines drew attendance of 138,500 for the week and raised a record amount — $10.2 million, according to Thursday’s release — for the tournament’s sole beneficiary, the Evans Scholars Foundation, which funds the Evans Scholarship for caddies.
To put that $10.2 million figure into perspective, the previous record for donations to the ESF by the BMW Championship was $5.6 million for the 2021 tournament that was held near Baltimore. Last year’s event at Olympia Fields in Illinois raised $5.5 million for the cause.
Also at the 2024 PGA Tour Tournament Meetings this week in Orlando, the BMW Championship was honored for “Best Tournament Sales”.
Duffy Solich (left) and brother George celebrate a successful 2024 BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club after the tournament concluded in late August.
George Solich, the philanthropist and oilman who was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame on Dec. 1, played key roles in bringing both the 2014 and 2024 BMW Championships to Colorado, and in making them big successes. And his older brother Duffy Solich, also a University of Colorado Evans Scholars alum, served as tournament chairman for this year’s BMW Championship. In part due to their work in conjunction with the tournament, the Solich brothers were both inducted into the Western Golf Association’s Caddie Hall of Fame this year, and Duffy was named the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame’s Golf Person of the Year for 2024.
The BMW Championship, which is hosted by the WGA in conjunction with the PGA Tour, landed the Tournament of the Year honor for the second straight year and the sixth time overall.
“We did break every record (for the BMW Championship),” George Solich said earlier this fall. Almost “140,000 people in attendance, every hospitality record, every sales record, every merchandise sales record. It was fabulous.
“Every constituent — whether it was player, caddie, fan, media — has given us high praise, lots of accolades. So we’re on Cloud 9 for sure.”
This year’s BMW Championship, held in late August, was won by 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley. Besides its success from attendance and money-raising standpoints, the tournament proved one of the tougher tests of the year on the PGA Tour. The winners of just four tournaments had lower scores — relative to par — than champion Bradley did at Castle Pines (-12): the U.S. Open (-6), the Memorial (-8), British Open (-9) and the Masters (-11).
“On behalf of the PGA Tour, congratulations to the Western Golf Association and BMW on the BMW Championship being named 2024 PGA Tour Tournament of the Year,” PGA Tour chief operations officer Tyler Dennis said in Thursday’s release. “The WGA and BMW have perfected the recipe for success, and partnering this year with Castle Pines Golf Club and an engaged Denver community took the event to new heights in delivering both a premium fan experience and record-setting charitable contributions for the Evans Scholars Foundation.”
The BMW Championship, which prior to 2007 was known as the Western Open, previously was named PGA Tour Tournament of the Year in 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2023, All the net proceeds from the event — which rotates venues around the country — benefit the Evans Scholarship. Since the 1960s, one of the Evans Scholarship houses has been based at CU, which has produced about 540 E.S. alums. Evans Scholarships provide for full tuition and housing for the caddies who earn them, and it’s estimated that the scholarship is worth an average of more than $125,000 if renewed for four years. Over the years, 12,285 caddies have graduated from the E.S. program, with 1,190 more currently enrolled at 24 universities nationwide.
Since 2007, the BMW Championship has contributed $60.2 million to the Evans Scholars Foundation.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com