PGA Tour BMW Championship at Wilmington boosted Delaware economy

Patrick Cantlay earned $2.7 million for his one-stroke victory in the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship last August at Wilmington Country Club.

Turns out the Delaware economy was a bigger winner.

Delaware’s first PGA event infused approximately $30 million into the state’s economy, according to the Delaware Tourism Office, it was revealed Tuesday during a Department of State presentation to the General Assembly’s Joint Finance Committee.

“Just a really great success,” Delaware Secretary of State Jeffrey W. Bullock told government officials after emphasizing that First State attractions extend well beyond the popular Atlantic Ocean beach communities.

The BMW Championship, which is held at different courses every year, attracted more than 126,000 fans for events leading up to the tournament and the Aug. 18-21 competition. Those fans stayed at area hotels and visited local restaurants and other businesses.

“Wilmington really showed well. I can’t imagine them not thinking about coming back. If they don’t consider it again, I’d be amazed,’’ Paul Bouchard, managing partner at Wilmington’s Tonic Seaford & Steak, told Delawareonline/The News Journal after the tournament.

Another million television viewers likely took a peek at the action and camera views that showed the picturesque, tree-lined Wilmington Country Club course in all of its opulent glory.

The BMW Championship reacquainted area fans with big-time professional golf. The LPGA Championship had drawn huge crowds to DuPont Country Club in Rockland from 1994 through 2004 following the popularity of the LPGA McDonald’s Championship there from 1987-93.

The Bell Atlantic Classic on the Senior (now Champions) PGA Tour took place just across the Delaware border at Hartefeld National Golf Club, in Avondale, Pennsylvania, in 1998 and 1999.

Wilmington Country Club opened in 1901 and relocated to its present site north of the city, in Montchanin, in the 1950s. President Joe Biden is among its members. Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the South Course, which opened in 1959 and covers 7,534 yards from the championship tees.

It had previously hosted the 1913 U.S. Women’s Amateur, 1965 and 1978 U.S. Junior Amateur, 1971 U.S. Amateur, 1978 U.S. Girls Junior, 2003 U.S. Mid-Amateur and 2013 Palmer Cup. It was also the scene of an exhibition match between Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in 1966 that Nicklaus won by two strokes.