When good things happen in threes

Web.com Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am celebrates three years at Nicklaus-designed Reserve at Lake Keowee over first three days of play

Web.com Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am celebrates three years at Nicklaus-designed Reserve at Lake Keowee over first three days of play

This week, the Web.com Tour, along with a who’s-who of celebrities in sports and entertainment, heads to Greenville, S.C., for an event uniquely played on three area golf courses. This will be the third year the Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course at The Reserve at Lake Keowee will serve as host course for the first three rounds of the BMW Charity Pro-Am—with two other nearby courses, the Thornblade Club and Green Valley Country Club also serving as venues. Thornblade Club will host Sunday’s final round.

The tournament kicks off Thursday and Golf Channel will provide daily coverage from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. ET. With its three-course rotation and celebrity/amateur format, the BMW Charity Pro-Am boasts the largest field on the 25-event Web.com Tour schedule. Fields are generally 156 or 144, depending on the time of year, but this tournament gets underway with 168 professionals, plus a slew of celebs.

The field of Web.com Tour athletes includes 53 Web.com champions with 96 total Web.com wins; plus 17 PGA Tour champions with 36 total Tour wins. There is one major champion in this week’s field, 2003 British Open winner Ben Curtis, and players representing 13 countries.

Thursday through Saturday, amateurs, celebrities and pros rotate between three courses, with the 10 lowest-scoring pro-amateur teams, six lowest-scoring pro-celebrity teams and the lowest 65 pros (and ties) advancing to play Sunday’s final round at Thornblade Club. Celebrities play once at each course on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The professional winner of the overall 72-hole event will take home $121,500 from the total purse of $675,000. All past winners of the tournament have gone on to play on the PGA Tour.

The celebrities scheduled to participate, include (in alphabetical order): Steve Azar, country music artist; Lucas Black, actor (NCIS: New Orleans); Mark Bryan, Hootie and the Blowfish guitarist; Chandler Catanzaro, Arizona Cardinals placekicker; Javier Colon, musician and winner of The Voice, Season 1; Lisa Cornwell, Golf Channel broadcaster; Jay DeMarcus, Rascal Flatts bass guitar; Jeffrey Donovan, actor (Fargo); Debbe Dunning, actress (Home Improvement); Dean Felber, Hootie and the Blowfish bass guitarist; Colt Ford, country music artist; Dennis Haysbert, actor (24 and The Unit); Sam Hennings, actor (Memphis Beat); Oliver Hudson, actor (Nashville); Richard Karn, actor (Home Improvement); Kira Kazantsev, Miss America 2015; Jim McMahon, two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback; Frankie Muniz, actor (Malcolm in the Middle); John O’Hurley, actor/TV personality (Seinfeld, host of Purina’s National Dog Show); Terry O’Quinn, actor (LOST); Kevin Rahm, actor (Mad Men); Rob Riggle, actor (The Hangover and Step Brothers); Ed Roland, Collective Soul lead singer; Joe Don Rooney, Rascal Flatts lead guitar; Gary Valentine, actor/comedian (Here Comes The Boom); Tim Wakefield, former Boston Red Sox pitcher; and Patrick Warburton, actor (Seinfeld).

To get the tournament underway, The Reserve at Lake Keowee hosted a “Big Break: Warrior Edition” event Wednesday—a golf skills competition with proceeds benefitting the Upstate Warrior Solution and the Wounded Warrior Project. U.S. military veterans, celebrities, Web.com Tour pros, and junior golfers teamed up for the first-time event.

The Reserve at Lake Keowee opened for play in 2002 and is often included in round-ups of the best courses in South Carolina. For more information on the Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, visit reserveatlakekeowee.com.

A field list of participating Web.com Tour pros is below.