About 30,000 golf fans are expected to bring $5 million to Maryland when they visit a Mitchellville golf course in May for the PGA?s inaugural Melwood Prince George?s County Open. And state and local politicians celebrated the tournament?s arrival at a news conference Wednesday as yet another sign of the county?s growth.
“Do you realize what?s about to happen in Prince George?s?” asked Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is the Republican candidate in Maryland?s Senate race. “Prince George?s is about to have the PGA in the neighborhood. This is a big deal for this community.”
The PGA Nationwide Tour will visit the Country Club at Woodmore from May 21-27. Golfers will play 72 holes over four days for a total purse of $600,000 and a top prize of $108,000. Melwood, an Upper Marlboro center that helps people with developmental disabilities, will host the event and stands to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars raised in conjunction with the tournament.
Bill Calfee, the tour?s chief of operations, said an event in Boise, Idaho, recently raised a record $1 million for its charitable host.
“All those net profits go in and stay in the community,” Calfee said.
The open has been months in the making and is significant news for golf fans in the wake of the PGA Booz Allen Classic?s departure from TPC Avenel in Potomac. The Nationwide Tour was started in 1980 as a way to give aspiring PGA tour members entrance to the professional side of the sport.
With international stops in Panama and New Zealand this year as well as actual PGA tour members in its ranks, the Nationwide Tour has evolved beyond its original intent, Calfee said.
“It has grown into one of the most highly competitive tours in the world,” Calfee said.
The Country Club at Woodmore is at the center of a gated golf course community just south of U.S. 50. According to tournament director Teo Sodeman, the 72-par, 7,049-yard course designed by Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay has often been called a “hidden gem” and was recently named by Golf Digest magazine as one of Maryland?s top 10 greens.
“As of spring 2007, the golf course at Woodmore will no longer be hidden,” Sodeman said.
