Bradenton ready to bask in the global spotlight as PGA tournament tees off this month
In London, England, it was 34 degrees on Thursday. In Stuttgart, Germany, it was 26.
On the back lawn of The Concession Golf Club in East Manatee, it was 79 and sunny.
That striking contrast, in a nutshell, represents the importance of the World Golf Championships, planned for Feb. 25-28, to the Bradenton area.
The most significant golf tournament ever played in the Bradenton area will showcase Manatee County for a TV audience estimated at 800 million households worldwide.
NBC Sports is expected to air footage of the area that is sure to remind Germans, Brits and other Europeans who might ordinarily be in Bradenton right now of what they are missing because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tourney will help whet the pent-up demand for travel, said Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The PGA had just 45 days to move the tourney from Mexico City to the Bradenton area. COVID concerns shifted the tournament back to Florida. Before moving to Mexico, the Trump National Doral in the Miami area hosted the tournament.
“If that doesn’t get your blood flowing, you’re in the wrong business,” Falcione said of the quick shift.
While The Concession was able to accommodate the tourney, it won’t able to accommodate fans.
In a nonpandemic year, the tourney might attract 15,000 to 20,000 fans a day, and there is a lot of work that has to be done to handle a gallery of that size, Bruce Cassidy, owner of The Concession, said.
Cassidy said he hopes the PGA will return with another big tourney in a few years, but with 18 months, rather that 45 days notice, to make preparations.
“This was a kickoff event. Somewhere in the next two or three years we would like to have another,” Cassidy said.
Ty Votaw represented the PGA at a media preview of the tourney held just off the 18th green on Thursday.
“If it works for Bruce, we would like to come back,” Votaw said.
Bradenton resident Paul Azinger, who had 12 PGA Tour wins in his career and will be covering the tournament for NBC Sports, said NBC cameras will put a spotlight on the beaches, and amenities that make the Bradenton area such a popular destination.
“I was here before I-75 existed and before there was a University Parkway. There was no Lakewood Ranch. Everything here seems so nice and has been done right,” Azinger said.
Area golf courses have attained a level of that was lacking in the 1970s when Azinger said he was cutting his teeth as a golfer.
“This really sets the standard for the area,”Azinger said of The Concession. “This has become a great golf destination.”
The tournament is the “icing on the cake” for the Bradenton area, which previously hosted the World’s Strongest Man Competition and the WNBA, Falcione said.
“We are all about building relations and exceeding expectations,” Falcione said.
Azinger teased Falcione that he would have all the bases covered when he brings the world championships of darts and foosball to the area.
Manatee County beaches are already well known internationally, and the World Golf Championships will help spotlight the attractions of East Manatee, including Lakewood Ranch and the Premier Sports Campus a few miles away, Falcione said.
This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 2:59 PM.
