Presidents Cup 2007

From SFGate.com

San Francisco officials have reached agreement with the PGA Tour to bring the 2009 Presidents Cup to Harding Park, The Chronicle has learned.

The agreement, an amendment to the previous contract between the tour and city, ends 16 months of uncertainty about Harding’s future as a venue for big-time golf. The course hosted the American Express Championship in October 2005, its first PGA Tour event since 1969. Tiger Woods outlasted John Daly to win in a riveting playoff.

Officials from the tour and city are finalizing language on the contract amendment, two sources said. An announcement is expected early next week, though the Rec & Park commission, Board of Supervisors and mayor’s office still must give their approval, a process likely to take until the end of March.

The Presidents Cup is a biennial, match-play event held in non-Ryder Cup years. It pits top United States players, usually highlighted by Woods and Phil Mickelson, against a team of international players from outside Europe. Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen headlined the international team in 2005, when the U.S. won.

The revised deal also will bring the BMW Championship, one of the PGA Tour’s “playoff” tournaments, to Harding in 2013 or ’14. That event, scheduled this year for Sept. 6-9 outside Chicago, is the third of four postseason tournaments in the tour’s new FedEx Cup schedule, a yearlong points race designed to create a climactic finish to the season.

Harding would host one other elite-field, PGA Tour event in the next 12 years, plus the Schwab Cup, the Champions Tour’s season-ending tournament, in 2010 and 2011.

The original contract between the city and tour called for five marquee events at Harding over a 15-year period. San Francisco officials hoped those tournaments would help pay for the course’s extensive renovation in 2002 and ’03, which was projected to cost $16 million but ran more than $7 million over budget.

Ever since the Woods-Daly duel, as the city grappled with financial problems at its six public courses, the PGA Tour struggled with how to fulfill its commitment to San Francisco. The contract specified that Harding host the Tour Championship or a World Golf Championship event, but tour officials locked those tournaments into other venues.

All along, the Presidents Cup made sense on many levels. It’s usually held in September, a good time for weather in San Francisco; it carries the prestige and exposure city officials sought; and it features a small field (two 12-man teams). Harding does not have the infrastructure to hold a full-field PGA Tour event, typically 144 or 156 players.

“I think Harding was a great course,” Jim Furyk, the No. 2-ranked player in the world, said at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. “I never saw it before the remodel, but it was a treat for the (AMEX), the guys really enjoyed it.”

The Presidents Cup originated in 1994, as the tour sought a team event to fill the gap in years without the Ryder Cup. The United States has a 4-1-1 edge over the international team. Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player have served as captains for the past two Presidents Cups, as they will for this year’s event Sept. 27-30 in Montreal.

Harding is well suited for match play, mostly because of its interesting stretch of closing holes alongside Lake Merced. No. 16, for example, is a short par-4 guarded by a thick grove of trees on the right, giving players the choice of hitting driver (as Daly often did during the AMEX) or safely firing an iron shot to the left (as Woods did).

No. 17 is a short but treacherous par-3 vulnerable to the wind off the lake; No. 18 requires a long drive over water, and the fairway then bends left to a sloping green.

The Schwab Cup is the final event of the season on the Champions Tour, which consists of players age 50 and older. The tournament has been held at Sonoma Golf Club the past four years and is contractually committed there through 2008.

Champions Tour officials have been intrigued by the idea of moving the Schwab Cup to San Francisco. Harding Park’s modest length (6,845 yards from the blue tees) made the course a logical match for Champions Tour players.