ST. LOUIS — For Bellerive Country Club, the opportunity to host the PGA Tour's Presidents Cup has been 20 years in the making.
It dates back to September 2001, when the Creve Coeur country club was supposed to host the American Express World Golf Championship. While the 9/11 terrorist attacks canceled the event, the lead-up to it left a lasting opinion of St. Louis and Bellerive for those at the PGA Tour’s headquarters.
“That is an event we’ve referred to around our bosses as the greatest event that never happened,” said Matt Rapp, the PGA Tour’s senior vice president of championship management. “The ticket sales for that, the hospitality sales, that’s left an impression — a very, very positive impression.”
Two decades later, Bellerive is poised again to be home to one of the PGA Tour’s premier international events. The PGA Tour announced Wednesday that Bellerive will host the 2030 Presidents Cup, a biennial competition that includes a U.S. team squaring off an international squad. The event will be held in September 2030.
Wednesday's announcement comes three years after Bellerive hosted the 2018 PGA Championship, which drew massive crowds. Bellerive will be just the seventh U.S. golf course to host the Presidents Cup, which the PGA Tour launched in 1994. While the 2030 event will showcase Bellerive, it’s also expected to generate a significant economic return for St. Louis.
“The revenue is going to rain in," Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said Wednesday. “A lot of people compete for this event and I think it says a lot for our state, it says a lot for the St. Louis region that we can host a Presidents Cup because everybody else would love to have that in their cities."
The PGA Tour told the Business Journal it expects the 2030 Presidents Cup could have an economic impact of around $70 million for St. Louis.
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