"Chicago needs a tournament," he said Tuesday while walking down the 10th fairway at Cog Hill. "This is in our heartland. There is no way a market like Chicago should be off this schedule."
Chicago is in danger of losing a PGA Tour event after this week's BMW Championship.With next year's Ryder Cup headed to Medinah, the 2012 BMW will be played at Crooked Stick outside Indianapolis. The 2014 event is set for Denver's Cherry Hills.
Luke Donald is pushing the tour to award the 2013 event to Conway Farms, his home course in Lake Forest. Donald played a practice round there Tuesday.
But the BMW instead could opt to leave Chicago and point to this discrepancy: The 2008 event at Bellerive in St. Louis generated $3.3 million for the Western Golf Association's charitable mission, the Evans Scholars Foundation.
In part because of declining attendance, the 2009 and 2010 events at Cog Hill have averaged $1.8 million.
Cog Hill owner Frank Jemsek said of the possibility of losing the BMW Championship: "It could be nostalgic, but we hope not. We would very definitely like to have the tournament back here, so we'll try."
Kelly, a Wisconsin native and Madison resident, has been trying to help Milwaukee regain a tour event. He also has talked to companies about sponsoring a rebirth of the Western Open, which Cog Hill hosted from 1991 to 2006.
"If BMW doesn't feel like having it in Chicago consistently, I'm one for starting another Western Open," he said. "As hard as I've tried in Milwaukee, I'll try just as hard for here."
Cha-ching: Webb Simpson comes to Cog Hill after winning two of his last three starts, including a grind-it-out playoff triumph over Chez Reavie at the Deutsche Bank Championship. The string of success has vaulted Simpson into the FedEx Cup standings lead over this tournament's defending champion Dustin Johnson.
Whoever sits atop those standings after the Tour Championship outside Atlanta on Sept. 25 wins a cool $10 million. That can buy a lot of range balls.
"We want to win golf tournaments, but when $10 million is at stake, you can't not think about that," he said. "Part of me is kind of happy this week isn't determining who's going to win because you get one more week to focus on the golf. I know in Atlanta it'll be a lot more focus on the $10 million."
Simpson, the father of a young child, joked he would buy more diapers if he lands the prize.
The BMW Championship offers an $8 million overall purse with $1.44 earmarked for the winner. Not to mention more prized FedEx Cup points.
Twitter @kcjhoop
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