Bucket List: 6 Top Tournaments to Attend in 2015

Satiate Your Golfing Jones at These Sensational Tour Events

Chris Duthie

2014’s BMW Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club proved there are few better ways to enjoy golf than by attending a PGA or LPGA tournament.

Whether it’s for the superstar sightings, the collective excitement or the eye-popping pleasures of watching gifted athletes in action, there’s something indelibly memorable about being there—live.

For your 2015 Bucket List, here are six tour events you’ll want to see in person:

1. Waste Management Phoenix Open (Jan. 29-Feb. 1): Played at the recently renovated TPC Scottsdale, this always-electric winter extravaganza will celebrate its 80th staging with a $6.3 million purse and another multimillion dollar donation to dozens of Arizona-based charities. Defending champion is Colorado’s own Kevin Stadler.

2. ATT Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (Feb. 12-15): Few vacation destinations compare to the heavenly surroundings of Pebble Beach Golf Links, and fewer still are steeped in so much history. Through the decades, a win at Pebble Beach has become a career touchstone for nearly every professional golfer that has played its hallowed grounds.

3. LPGA Founders Cup (Mar. 19-22): Never mind that it’s staged at the glorious confines of Wildfire Golf Club at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa—the Founders Cup is a must-attend. Now in its fifth year, the event was created especially to honor the original 13 women who founded the LPGA Tour in 1950.

4. Kingsmill Championship (May 14-17): Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, is one of America’s most popular vacation destinations, and it—along with Kingsmill Resort—also hosts the LPGA’s popular Kingsmill Championship. After, you can test your mettle on Kingsmill’s River Course (pictured below), regarded among Pete Dye’s better designs.

Photo: © Chris Duthie

5. The Open Championship (July 16-19): If you’re passionate about golf, bucket list the British Open, especially since it’s returning to the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. This year’s $9.2 million tournament purse is little more than a story sidespin to a timeless championship venue that dates back to the early 1400s. Still, how cool would it be to see Rory McIlroy defend his title?

Photo: © Chris Duthie

6. RICOH Women’s British Open (July 30-Aug. 2): Extend your stay a bit longer for another thrilling event, the Women’s British, this year hosted by the Trump Turnberry Resort in Turnberry, Scotland. Another storied locale, it was here at the 1977 British Open that Tom Watson bested Jack Nicklaus in their famous “Dual in the Sun.”

Photo: © Chris Duthie

RELATED LINKS

WM Phoenix Open Gives Back and Goes Green

BMW is PGA Tour’s ‘Tournament of the Year’

Take Your Game to Historic Colonial Williamsburg

Chris Duthie is a contributor to Colorado AvidGolfer, the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.