Scenes from the 2023 BMW Championship

The 2023 BMW Championship marked the first men’s pro golf tournament I’ve attended in years. Held at the North Course on Olympia Fields Country Club in Illinois as the second round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, fifty of the game’s best were once again in my home state.

With special contributor (and fellow Chicagoland native) Kris McEwen in tow, we spent much of the second round galavanting around the grounds capturing moments from a day that would see Max Homa break the course record with an astounding 62. Additionally, I also wanted to gauge the atmosphere of the event hosted by an organization wrapped up in change and intrigue.

In the spirit of full transparency, Kris and I attended the event on a PGA TOUR media credential, which allowed us access to the media center along with the ability to snap a few photos. Aside from the championship’s volunteer staff not knowing where said media center was located (a story for another time entirely), any opportunity to cover TOUR events in this capacity is exciting and relatively seamless.

The impressive grandstand behind the 17th tee at the 2023 BMW Championship.

Briefly: the media center is exactly what you’d expect. Rows of tables arranged in a lecture-style format with TV screens showing live action and a scoreboard at the head of the room. Journalists type away at their laptops preparing the framework of articles to be published after the round. In this case, a second doorway lead to a makeshift cafeteria where breakfast, lunch and refreshments was provided to media. This is a great opportunity to bump into veteran broadcasters and press or to simply take a break from the summer sun.

The atmosphere at any professional tournament is a mixture of excitement, awe, and spectacular confusion among the gallery. It’s evident who has been on a golf course and who has not, and even then dozens of attendees are huddled around billboards with course maps that are only moderately helpful. For a brief moment we are all strangers in a strange land, so the driving range and practice green are a good initial attraction.

The weather was absolutely perfect — sunny, not too hot or breezy, and enough cloud cover to provide short breaks from sunburns. Since only the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup race were competing, crowds were a bit sparse on a Friday afternoon. This allowed fans who had taken the day off from their jobs ample access to their favorite golfers on a course that offers superb vantage points to view the action. As Kris pointed out to me while we found a location surrounded by tee shot landing areas, older golf courses with close green-to-tee-box proximity offer the best theater.

Having the opportunity to view the best players on the planet eat up a historical golf course should never be taken lightly. There were moments throughout our afternoon when I had to remind myself that experiences like this were once the most important thing to me as a sports fan. Not sitting behind a keyboard, ridiculing every little thing about a sport and its cast; but rather breathing the same air and walking the same grounds as Max, Rory, Rickie, Jon, Scottie and more.

Scottie Scheffler escapes a greenside bunker while Jon Rahm watches. (Photo: K. McEwen)

A moment that sticks out for me came from Rory McIlroy as we watched him play the par-4 11th hole. At under 400 yards, it presents a shorter challenge for tour pros, especially those with the firepower of Rory, who easily carried the left fairway bunkers off the tee. His approach from the left first cut landed softly in the middle of the green and caught a slope that guided his ball to within 10 feet to the delight of the fans.

Rory McIlroy surveys his surroundings at the par-4 11th hole at Olympia Fields CC.

Moments later as he waited for playing partner Lucas Glover to putt, Rory stood off to the side, leaned on his putter and observed the crowd. We’ll of course never know exactly what he was thinking in that moment, but Rory appeared to simply be taking in his surroundings as opposed to the eventual task at hand. For a man who has all but carried the PGA TOUR on his shoulders during the organization’s most tumultuous time in its history, it appeared to be a moment of mindfulness and calm.

There were plenty of smaller moments like this that we observed from almost every player. Such is the joy of going to a TOUR event and seeing it live. Whether it is Max Homa brushing off a fly from his hat, Rickie Fowler setting down his water bottle before a shot, or Rory scanning the gallery, it’s a humanizing moment devoid of headlines or “hot takes.” Instead, it’s an opportunity to just be there and to remember why you wanted to be there in the first place.

Members of the gallery at the 2023 BMW Championship watch Jordan Spieth. (Photo: K. McEwen)

I don’t know what I expected to happen instead, if I’m honest. Sometimes it’s easy to get wrapped up in the drama of LIV Golf, organizational upheaval, press conference sound bytes and more. Was there a small part of me that wondered if the equivalent of small “water cooler” whispers would be heard throughout the gallery about the latest rumors and drama? Perhaps.

But none of that happened. The gallery was respectful (for the most part), kids still jostled for position against the ropes to see their favorite players, and conversations were overheard about which college a player was from, what the latest betting odds were, or the location of the nearest concession stand. In a way, attending the action that mattered was a pleasant reprieve from the noise surrounding it every other day.