HAVEN, WIS. – The Ryder Cup's return to Hazeltine National in 2029 is so far off, the Chaska club won't name a tournament chair or form committees for another two or three years.
Then again, it might not seem so long if you consider this: Young U.S. star and two-time major champion Collin Morikawa will be only 32 when the Ryder Cup returns to the same American venue for the first time in its history.
"It's already been five years since our Ryder Cup, can you believe that?" Hazeltine National President Bob Fafinski said. "It seems like just last year to me. It's just amazing how time goes."
Four of Hazeltine's championship committee members, including Fafinski, spent three days at the Ryder Cup's 43rd playing last week at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, They networked with PGA of America officials and studied the latest trends in corporate hospitality. They also learned about a competition and a spectacle that morphs and grows when it is played every two years, alternately between sites in the United States and Europe.
"This event just keeps getting bigger and better," Fafinski said. "It's amazing how popular it has become."
Hazeltine National's 2016 Ryder Cup was such a logistical, financial and competitive success — the U.S. won for the first time in eight years — the club in 2018 reached an agreement with the PGA of America to hold the 2019 KPMG Women's PGA and bring back the Ryder Cup just 12 years after it left.
The 2028 tournament announced was moved to 2029 last year when the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the Ryder Cup schedule — including the 2020 event at Whistling Straits — a year.
Such famed American courses as Jack Nicklaus' Muirfield Village, the Country Club near Boston, Oakland Hills near Detroit and Medinah near Chicago all are former Ryder Cup venues, but none has held it a second time.