Global InformationKemper Open information
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Location | Potomac, Maryland |
| Established | 1968 |
| Course(s) | TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm |
| Par | 71 |
| Length | 6,889 yards (6,299 m) |
| Tour(s) | PGA Tour |
| Format | Stroke play |
| Prize fund | US$5,000,000 |
| Month played | June |
| Final year | 2006 |
| Tournament record score | |
| Aggregate | 263 Billy Andrade (1991) 263 Jeff Sluman (1991) 263 Adam Scott (2004) |
| To par | −21 as above |
| Final champion | |
 Ben Curtis | |
| Location map | |
  TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm Location in the United States  TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm Location in Maryland | |
The Kemper Open was a golf tournament on the PGA Tour from 1968 to 2006.
Perhaps more so than any other "regular" PGA Tour stop, the event wandered about, not just from course to course within a given metropolitan area, but along the East Coast. Originally sponsored by the Kemper Corporation, the inaugural event was played in 1968 at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton, Massachusetts, before moving to the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina the following year, where it stayed through 1979. (The Wells Fargo Championship is now held in Charlotte.) The event moved in 1980 to Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb northwest of Washington, D.C., and to TPC at Avenel in 1987 in neighboring Potomac.
Kemper Insurance dropped out as sponsor after the 2002 edition and was replaced by Friedman Billings Ramsey, which renamed the event the FBR Capital Open for a single year in 2003. Booz Allen Hamilton became the main sponsor in 2004, with the tournament being titled the Booz Allen Classic. The event returned to Congressional for a year in 2005 to accommodate renovations at Avenel.
The purse in 2006 was $5.0 million, with $900,000 going to the winner; due to rain delays it concluded on Tuesday without a gallery.[1] In 1992, Washington Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien, the reigning Super Bowl MVP, was given a sponsor's exemption into the tournament,[2] but shot rounds of 80 and 91 and missed the cut by 28 strokes.[3][4] As the Kemper Open, it was often played two or three weeks prior to the U.S. Open, making it a prime tune-up event; later it was either the week prior or after and many top players skipped it.. For 2007, the PGA Tour announced that it would reschedule the event for the fall, and Booz Allen declined to renew its sponsorship. The fall date was in turn canceled to make way for the new AT&T National, to take place at the same time as the Classic had.
Also in 2006, the tournament ended on Tuesday due to persistent storms in the D.C. area. The conclusion of what turned out to be the final Booz Allen Classic was not televised.
A new format (invitation only), new host for the tournament (Tiger Woods), and a return to Congressional Country Club marked the July 2007 stop in Washington for the FedEx Cup, the AT&T National. For record-keeping purposes, it is not a "successor" tournament officially, even though it is the "new" tour stop in the same region.
During the 1970s, the Kemper Open was among the highest purses on tour, exceeding the majors.
- ^ "Curtis finally wins title after rain delays". Spokesman-Review. Spokane, Washington. wire reports. June 28, 2006. p. C2.
- ^ "Rypien gets invitation to Kemper". Free Lance-Star. Fredericksburg, Virginia. wire reports. March 31, 1992. p. B1.
- ^ "Rypien gets strokes from fans". Spokane Chronicle. Washington. wire reports. May 29, 1992. p. C3.
- ^ Ginsburg, David (May 30, 1992). "Rypien misses Kemper cut". Kentucky New Era. Hopkinsville. Associated Press. p. 2B.