Westchester Country Club’s 41-year run as the sole host of the metropolitan area’s PGA Tour event will come to an end this summer when The Barclays is relocated to another venue. But a compromise struck between the Harrison club and the tour has the tournament returning to Westchester at least once before 2012.

The agreement, in which the PGA Tour will pay the club $1.1 million to relocate the event in 2008, is expected to be detailed to Westchester members at a town hall meeting this morning and posted on the club’s internal Web site.
A formal announcement from the tour is expected later in the day.

The earliest possible return to Westchester would be 2010, with the Barclays expected to be moved to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. this summer, and to Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J. in 2009.

The tour is also to pay an additional $100,000 this year to the The Barclays’ benefiting local charities, which include Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital and St. Vincent’s Hospital.

The deal is a reversal from the tour’s earlier stance of wanting to terminate outright its existing six-year agreement with Westchester, citing poor attendance and logistical problems at the 2007 Barclays as a reason. That original contract had Westcheser hosting the Barclays at least two more times before 2012. In the modified deal, the $1.1 million buyout would satisfy one of those years on the contract, but the tournament would have to return to Westchester one more time, with the option of a second time at the tour’s disposal.

As part of the announcement today, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem sent a letter of aplology to Westchester members about the events of the past few weeks.

“Some reporters suggested that the movement of The Barclays was due to our view that Westchester Country Club was substandard. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Finchem wrote. “We have great respect for Westchester Country Club—your course, your membership and your great tradition. Our players enjoy playing there. We at the PGA Tour regret any offense created by these misplaced media comments and are sorry for the impressions these comments caused. Our return to your club at least one more time indicates our view that it is a world class facility.”

After the tour sent a Jan. 9 letter to Westchester president Phil Halpern wanting to terminate its contract with Westchester, it was revealed the tour had already been deep in negotiations with Ridgewood.

Though characteristically vague when talking about ongoing negotiations with Westchester, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem did catch my eye with one telling remark – that the tour might only be looking to “accelerate the rotation” of the Barclays around the New York area.

Why is this important? Because it offers another possibility beyond staying at Westchester in 2008, or leaving for good.

Bear in mind that the tour’s contract with the club said that the Barclays would be played three times at Westchester between 2007 and 2012. The first of those tournaments took place last summer. The second was supposed to be this summer, and then the tournament was definitely headed to Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J. in 2009.

By accelerating the rotation, the tour might only want to move elsewhere now—i.e. Ridgewood CC in 2008 and Liberty in 2009—but come back to honor its contract with Westchester between 2010 and 2012.

A handful of conversations yesterday led me to believe this is indeed a point of discussion between the two sides.

Now, why would either side want to do this? Good question.

One, for PR purposes. Should the tour break its contract outright with Westchester, it loses some important credibility points not only with the public, but also with other venues when it sits down to negotiate with them (i.e. “You didn’t honor your contract with Westchester. Why would you honor it with us?”).

And for Westchester, the club can still beat its chest as a worthy PGA Tour venue, but without having to immediately deal with the imposition of hosting another event this summer.

Of course, there’s also the money element. If you read my post below, you know that Westchester may feel its entitled to more of a settlement than the $1 million offered by the tour. And if the tour wasn’t willing to ante up more money just to walk away, then the only other option was to find another palatable option to honor the $3.6 million contract.

It’s not perfect. But it’s an option.

Stay tuned….

We are approaching Week 3 of this Westchester-PGA Tour standoff, and it’s still unclear where this thing is headed.

In fact, everything is unclear at this point. After some heated name-calling between the two, and even the leaking of some juicy documents regarding the future of the Barclays, both sides have gone conspicuously quiet.

How bad is it? Let’s just say this run of unreturned phone calls is eerily reminiscent of my days as a college freshman getting blown off by sorority girls.

Meanwhile, the silence on both ends points to two possibilities:

You always figured the way things were going the past few years between the PGA Tour and Westchester Country Club that professional golf in Harrison was on precarious footing.

What you never expected, or at least what I never expected, is that the tour could be so cold in dismissing one of its longtime partners.

I got the copy today of the two-page letter from tour COO Ed Moorhouse to new Westchester club president Phil Halpern and his successor Rod O’Connor. Give the guy some credit: At least he doesn’t cloud it up with ambiguity.

“We have determined that it would be in the best interests of The Barclays and the playoff events, and frankly, that of the membership of Westchester Country Club to relocate The Barclays to a venue other than Westchester Country Club,” Moorhouse wrote in a letter dated Jan. 9.

Wait, there’s more:

“While we believe we all attempted to make The Barclays work at Westchester in late August, I believe it is simply not possible to stage a tournament at the level we need to stage this event, satisfy the needs and requirements of our players, and accomodate the needs of Westchester membership during that time of year,” Moorhouse wrote.

“In addition to the above, we also were unable to attract a gallery at Westchester Country Club on par with the galleries attracted at other playoff events. This is an extremely important matter for us.”
Seriously, don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

So here’s what we know: We know the tour wants to up and take its tournament out of Westchester and move it to New Jersey as early as this  summer. We know that it has cited poor attendance and an uncooperative membership as a reason.

We know they have a point on both those fronts. But what we don’t know for sure if this is really about appeasing one Eldrick Woods. And we don’t know whether the tour even bothered to tell Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, who as a Westchester member himself, made pretty clear to me that staying at the club on even just a part-time basis was a major priority.

“Absolutely,” Diamond said in August. “I’ll tell you on the record, I’ll fight for that.”

So questions remain, and lots of them. Just two years after Westchester was the center of the golf world by hosting an LPGA event, a PGA Tour event, and a U.S. Open all in the span of six weeks, it will have nothing of that magnitude this summer.

That’s OK by me. There are still plenty of golf stories to follow, both here and elsewhere. I just figured when the tour was ready to leave, it would exhibit a little more class in heading for the door.