Alright, many of you probably could care less about golf, but to me this is exciting news. After loosing the Booz Allen Classic I was worried DC would be without a tour event. Apparently the event will be held over the July 4th holiday somewhere in the DC area. My guess the tour event will be held at Woodmont in Rockville (Michael Jordan, his agents and formerly Red Auerbach are/were members) or Westfields in NoVa. I doubt Congressional wants a regular tour event and TPC Avenel is remodeling their course. I can't wait until we get the US Open in 2011 at Congressional, here in Bethesda. Here's the article:

PGA Tour teams with Tiger Woods Foundation for new Washington tourney
Washington Business Journal - 5:12 PM EST Tuesday, February 27, 2007
by Neil Adler
Staff Reporter

The PGA Tour is coming back to Washington.

The tour announced Tuesday that it has signed a long-term agreement with the Tiger Woods Foundation for a tournament in the Washington area beginning this July.

Golf superstar Tiger Woods will be in D.C. March 7 along with the tour's commissioner, Tim Finchem, to reveal the tournament details, including the site, title sponsor, purse and charitable vision.

"After an extensive search, we are very excited about our partnership with the Tiger Woods Foundation to bring a PGA Tour event back to our nation's capital over the Fourth of July holiday celebration," Finchem says in a statement.

The Washington area had hosted a PGA Tour event for years, but the local tournament was taken away last year after McLean-based consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton withdrew its sponsorship of what was called the Booz Allen Classic.

Local golf enthusiasts got their first taste of the tournament in 1980, when it came to Congressional Country Club in Bethesda before moving to TPC at Avenel in Potomac seven years later. The local tourney has had a variety of names, including the FBR Capital Open, the Kemper Insurance Open and the Kemper Open.

Good news. This area is way too big and important and has too many quality golf courses for there not to be a PGA event.

I agree, this is great news.

It's going to be at Congressional in Bethesda and will be called the AT&T National. I'm really surprised, I can't imagine why Congressional would want the event.

Read the following articles very carefully.

PGA to announce site for new event
by Chay Rao | Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
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As suddenly as it was gone, the PGA Tour is back and maybe at a Montgomery County course.

Today, tour officials and the world’s most popular golfer are expected to announce in Washington where a new golfing tournament will be played over the Fourth of July and who will sponsor it.

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and Tiger Woods are expected to name the site and the sponsor of a tournament that could bring professional golf back to Montgomery County.

Last week, Finchem announced that the Tour had reached a long-term agreement with the Tiger Woods Foundation to be the host organization and beneficiary of a tournament to be held in the metropolitan area from July 2-8. Woods is expected to participate regularly in the tournament.

‘‘This is a wonderful opportunity to expand awareness and interest in the work we’re doing for millions of kids across the country,” Woods said on his Web site, www.tigerwoods.com

‘‘I’m grateful the PGA Tour selected us as partners and am very excited my Foundation will host another amazing event, this time in our nation’s capital.”

There are indications that Montgomery County may have an inside track on being the site for the new tournament. While Potomac’s TPC Avenel, which is owned by the PGA Tour, will not be available this year — it will undergo extensive renovations to the clubhouse and course this summer— Bethesda’s Congressional Country Club has a long history with professional golf. It was the original site of the Kemper Open — later the Booz Allen Classic— when it moved here in 1980 and the site of the 1997 U.S. Open, in which Woods, in his second year as a professional, played.

Congressional, which will host the 2011 U.S. Open, is capable of hosting an event just four months away, club President Stuart Long told The Washington Post on March 1.

‘‘The tour and our club are very experienced in running these kinds of events,” Long told the newspaper. ‘‘It’s not going to be a problem.”

Congressional will not be a permanent home for the tournament, which does not have a title sponsor yet, Long told the Post. The club’s members will vote to hold the Woods tournament for the next one or two years, but then a new site in the area would have to be found. Officials in Montgomery County hope that it will remain a fixture in the county, possibly at TPC Avenel.

‘‘We are extremely excited about the PGA Tour returning to the area and we are looking forward to this opportunity,” said Christina Ellis, communications manager for the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development. ‘‘It is huge for the county and the state.”

According to statistics provided by the county, a PGA Tour stop has traditionally been a real boon for Montgomery: When the Kemper Open⁄Booz Allen Classic was held at Congressional and later at TPC Avenel, the economic impact — factoring in concessions, sales, hotel stays, etc. — exceeded $30 million, with a tax revenue of $200,000 for the county. In 1997, when both the U.S. Open and the Kemper Open were held in Montgomery County, almost $100 million was spent and the county collected almost $400,000 in tax revenues.

With the possibility of a tournament that regularly features Woods, the world’s best golfer, the benefit to the county could match the 1997 figure.

‘‘Clearly, the impact of Tiger Woods is enormous,” Ellis said, ‘‘but we also would want to build on the fact that we have recent history of a well-attended event in the county. A lot of this came about quickly. We will reach out to anyone we can to let them know that the county would stand ready.”

In the past few years, the area’s PGA Tour stop lost some of its luster. Although many of the world’s top players participated in the Booz Allen Classic at Congressional in 2005, when the tournament moved back to Avenel last year in the week after the U.S. Open, the field was filled with less-than-notable names. After the PGA Tour tried to move the tournament to the fall calendar, Booz Allen Hamilton, a Virginia consulting giant, decided not to sponsor it again. Because no sponsor could be found, the PGA Tour removed the event from its schedule entirely.

Now, nine months after Ben Curtis walked away with the winner’s trophy from the final Booz Allen Classic in June, professional golf may return to Montgomery.

‘‘It’s a great opportunity,” Ellis said. ‘‘It is a chance for the county and state to get national and international exposure.”

Copyright 2007 Post-Newsweek Media, Inc./Gazette.Net

AT&T is title sponsor for local PGA Tour event
Washington Business Journal - 12:35 PM EST Wednesday, March 7, 2007
by Neil Adler
Staff Reporter

Telecommunications industry giant AT&T will serve as the title sponsor of a new PGA Tour event to debut this July in the Washington area, the tour and the Tiger Woods Foundation said Wednesday.

Golf superstar Tiger Woods, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and AT&T Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre were on hand Wednesday at a news conference in Washington to provide further details on the event, called the AT&T National and to be held the week of July 2-8.

The tournament will have a $6 million purse. The Tiger Woods Foundation will host the event and serve as the primary charitable beneficiary. Additionally, each year the tournament will recognize members of the U.S. Armed Services.

"It's appropriate that during the week Americans celebrate their freedom, the AT&T National will benefit young people and will pay tribute to the men and women serving in our Armed Forces," Whitacre says in a statement.

Which course in the Washington area will host the tournament has yet to be announced, even though PGA tour officials said about a week ago that the host course would be revealed along with other details at the March 7 news conference.

PGA tour officials say they hope to announce a host course in the next month or so. The tour said Feb. 27 that it had signed a long-term agreement with the Tiger Woods Foundation for a tournament in the Washington area.

The Washington area had hosted a PGA Tour event since 1980, but the local tournament was taken away last year after McLean-based consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton withdrew its sponsorship of what was called the Booz Allen Classic.

The tournament was first held locally at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda before moving to TPC at Avenel in Potomac several years later.

The event's newest sponsor, San Antonio-based AT&T (NYSE: T), already is the title sponsor of PGA tourneys in Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Antonio and Monterey, Calif. Finchem says AT&T has helped generate more than $100 million for local charities through its existing golf sponsorships.

"I'm thrilled the AT&T National is helping facilitate my foundation's East Coast expansion," Woods says in a statement. "We plan to make a lasting impact in this community -- both on and off the course."

Woods to Host PGA Tour Event at Congressional

By Leonard Shapiro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 7, 2007; 1:30 PM

Describing it as "a momentous day for us" and "a dream come true," Tiger Woods came to the nation's capital today to announce that he plans to play in a PGA Tour golf tournament at Congressional Country Club that will become his signature event on the professional golf schedule.

"Our intention is to stay here [in Washington] and have this be our home event," Woods said. "Hopefully in perpetuity."

Woods said the only thing that would keep him from playing this year would be family considerations centered on the birth of his first child. Woods's wife, Elin Nordegren, is pregnant, and the child is reportedly due in July.

Woods appeared at the National Press Club today with PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and AT&T Chairman Ed Whitaker to announce that AT&T has signed up as the title sponsor of the event scheduled July 5-8. The event will be called the AT&T National.

Finchem confirmed that Congressional is the preferred site for the tournament, both in 2007 and 2008, pending approval by the Bethesda, Md., club's 2,500 members in a vote that should be tallied by the first week in April.

Finchem said the purse would be $6 million for the tournament, and that it likely will be an invitational event with a smaller field than the usual 156-man tournament that Washingtonians have witnessed since the tour moved here from North Carolina in 1980.

The field will likely be about the same size as signature invitational tournaments hosted by Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer because of concerns about pace of play with a full-field event at the height of Washington's usually hot, muggy summers. Nicklaus hosts the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, and Palmer the Bay Hill Invitational in Orlando, Fla.

The AT&T National tournament will be televised by CBS Sports on the weekend, and by The Golf Channel on Thursday and Friday.

The Tiger Woods Foundation will be the main beneficiary of charitable proceeds from the tournament, which will be run by the foundation's staff, headed by Greg McLaughlin, executive director of the foundation and a former tournament director for Chicago's Western Open.

Finchem said that if Congressional does not work out, Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., would be a possible venue. He also indicated that once renovations were completed at the tour-owned TPC at Avenel in Potomac, Md., that club also would be a possible contender to host future events.

Alright, I don't mean to rain on the parade, but why is this event being held on the 4th of July? God forbid the tournament wanted to be here for reasons other than the fact that DC is the nation's capital. The stereotype of being a government/patriotism/American-only town is really getting old.

Also, the Live Earth concert is supposed to be on July 7th and we're in the running to host. If we have a major concert and a major PGA Tour event during what is already one of our busiest holidays of the year, the city is going to be packed.

I really hope Congressional's members okay this thing. Those people are so stuck up. Congressional is one of the Old Money clubs in MoCo. I'll bet those cocksuckers would just love to reject Tiger Woods.