Ridgewood May Host Again

I loved Ridgewood as host for the Barclays this weekend.  As it turns out, so did the players.  (Not that they have a good eye for architecture, but this counts for something.)

The Tour may want to come back there for another edition of the tournament.

"It's obvious from the players' reactions and the success of the event that we certainly would like to come back here," said Pete Mele, executive director of The Barclays, who plans to contact Ridgewood in the fall. "It's just a matter of how soon the club would be willing to host this again."

Liberty National in Jersey City will host next year. Westchester in Harrison, which hosted last year's Barclays, will do so again by the year 2112. That leaves plenty of openings.

Ridgewood is receptive to hosting The Barclays, the first of four events in the FedExCup Playoffs, but a playing membership of more than 400 will need to huddle up and discuss it. Will it be three years from now? Five? Seven?

"If they would like to come, we would like to have them," said Alex Khowaylo, the former Ridgewood president who helped broker the deal to bring The Barclays to his Paramus club. "When? That depends on so many things. We have to see how much the support stays with the membership."

"I talked to some of the skeptics who weren't really in favor of having the event here," Khowaylo said, "and they said, 'I'm glad I was here, this is a wonderful event, everything is great, and it was the right decision.' "

Khowaylo said he spoke with several members who were initially opposed to hosting The Barclays and after attending, they changed their stance from negative to positive.

Still, Barclays was disappointed with the tournament.  And Barclays Pres Bob Diamond had this to say about it:

"I think if we don't see a change, we'll be disappointed," Diamond said. "We'll see."