The PGA Tour is following the LPGA Tour and the
Senior PGA tour to St. Louis.
The American Express Championship will be held Sept. 10-16,
2001, at the Bellerive Country Club in west St. Louis County.
The tournament is part of the World Golf Championships, a series
of events that features the best golfers from the PGA Tour and five
other major golf tours around the world.
The locations change each year, so the event is not a permanent
stop in St. Louis. However, PGA Tour commissioner Timothy Finchem,
who announced details of the event today at Bellerive, said St.
Louis is one of six areas around the country targeted for a future
tour stop.
St. Louis already plays host to the LPGA's Michelob Light
Classic and the Senior PGA Tour's Boone Valley Classic, which next year
becomes the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Senior Match Play Championship.
The city has not been home to a regular PGA Tour event for several
years, though Bellerive hosted the PGA Championship in 1992.
Tiger Woods is expected to be apart of the field at the American
Express Championship.
"This will be an event that attracts the same kind of talent we
attracted for the PGA in 1992, maybe even better,'' said Jerry
Ritter, chairman of the event for Bellerive.
Event director Michael Garten said there is "no guarantee''
that Woods, winner of golf's three of four major golf championships
this year, will be in St. Louis. However, he has participated in
all previous World Golf Championships. And as Ritter noted, Woods
is a spokesman for American Express.
"I say with 99.9 percent confidence, Tiger will be here at
Bellerive,'' Garten said.
