TPC Harding Park in San Francisco will host the 2015 WGC-Match Play Championship, in addition to the 2020 PGA Championship and the 2025 Presidents Cup, the PGA Tour and the PGA of America announced.
The 2020 PGA Championship will be the first major played on a Tournament Players Club course and TPC Harding Park will join Tanglewood Golf Club in Clemmons, N.C., (1974) as the only municipal courses to host a PGA Championship.
“Today’s announcement marks an exciting chapter in the history of the Presidents Cup and the World Golf Championships,” Commissioner Tim Finchem of the PGA Tour said. “Not only are we returning to TPC Harding Park, which was a spectacular and hugely successful venue for the Presidents Cup in 2009 and a World Golf Championship in 2005, but we are also furthering this historic and important partnership with the city and county of San Francisco.
“The Tour’s commitment to Harding Park, now further bolstered by that of the PGA of America bringing the PGA Championship here in 2020, ensures golf’s longstanding legacy in this great city.”
After years of neglect, a $16 million renovation that was completed in August 2003 restored the grandeur of Harding Park, which was designed by Willie Watson and opened in 1925. The course was given the TPC designation in 2010.
The remodeling of the aging clubhouse, which dated to the opening of the course, and other facilities was made possible by an agreement between the PGA Tour and a group of local citizens.
That effort was spearheaded by Sandy Tatum, who won the 1942 NCAA individual golf championship and led Stanford two NCAA titles, and is former a president of the United States Golf Association.
The culmination of the project was the 2005 WGC-American Express Championship, in which Tiger Woods outlasted John Daly to win on the second hole of a playoff, where Daly missed a three-foot par putt.
The agreement with the PGA Tour secured Harding Park five PGA tournaments over a 15-year span, with each of those events expected to infuse $50 million into the local economy.
Harding Park hosted the Presidents Cup matches in 2009, with Fred Couples captaining the United States team past Greg Norman’s Internationals by a score of 19 1/2-14 1/2.
The course also hosted the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, essentially the Champions Tour’s tour championship, twice, with John Cook winning in 2010 and Jay Don Blake claiming the title in 2011.
