By Stan Olenik Editor-Publisher, The Golf Club

A week ago, while researching a story on the retirement of a longtime leader in the BMW Charity Pro-Am’s volunteer corps, we checked the tournament website for routine background. Instead, we found a web banner announcing that the event was leaving Carolina Country Club and moving to The Country Club of Spartanburg — a reveal that, at the time, had not been publicly announced.

Our reporting of the change of venue — whether the result of accident or carelessness — set off a round of careful, clumsy, and sometimes contradictory explanations as tournament officials tried to walk back what their own website had already made public.

After we asked for comment the banner was quickly replaced with the “correct” version still listing Carolina as the companion course, even though the original banner turned out to be accurate.

Follow-up reporting confirmed that the PGA Tour had informed Carolina Country Club it was losing the event. According to a message sent to members, owner Tim Dunlap told them the Tour was breaking its contract to move the tournament elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the Tour had been visiting The Country Club of Spartanburg in recent years, as it often does when evaluating new potential host sites.

When we contacted Spartanburg after the premature banner appeared, no one would comment. Eventually, the club sent an email to its members saying negotiations were underway.

At that point, based on everything we had gathered, we reported it appeared the deal was done and only the paperwork remained.

The media embargo — broken when the web banner was posted again

Last week, The Golf Club received an advisory for an official media event scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday at The Country Club of Spartanburg. The notice included strict embargo language:

“No information may be published, broadcast, or shared publicly prior to 10:30 a.m., or until an official press release is distributed.”

Even though our reporting already confirmed the venue change — and even though we had uncovered details showing the process had been underway for some time as Spartanburg completed course renovations — we chose to observe the spirit of the embargo.

We held the additional reporting to give the event the chance to make its announcement on its own terms.

But early this morning, at approximately 4:30 a.m., the same banner we uncovered a week ago reappeared on the BMW Charity Pro-Am website.

Once again, the tournament’s own site revealed the news before the embargoed announcement — and once again, it confirmed that our reporting was correct.

So while media outlets were warned not to publish anything, BMW broke their own embargo first. We decided the publishing of the banner with course listing was a press release allowing us to publish our story.

Whether the embargo applied to all media or only to outlets — like us — that reported the original leak is unclear. But the optics are unmistakable:

Two major announcements. Two premature web postings. Same outcome both times.

And now, it’s official — because the banner is back

With the tournament’s own site once again showing Spartanburg as the 2026 companion course to Thornblade, there’s no need for qualifiers or hedging. The BMW Charity Pro-Am is moving to The Country Club of Spartanburg, exactly as the first banner revealed and exactly as today’s formal announcement will state.

And exactly as we had reported.

Further details will come at this morning’s media session, including what the shift means for the event footprint, sponsorship structure, and the PGA Tour’s involvement.

But as was the case the first time, the news didn’t break at a press conference.

It broke on BMW’s own homepage — twice, fool me once, etc etc etc.