The 2019 Kitchen Aid Senior PGA Championship set for May 21-26 at Oak Hill Country Club promises to infuse millions of dollars into the local economy.

Greater Rochester Enterprise President & CEO Matt Hurlbutt and Kitchen Aid Senior PGA Championship Director Bryan Karns discussed the tournament and its local impact during our Greater Rochester Enterprise Why ROC conversation Wednesday.

Karns said the decision to bring the 2019 Championship to Oak Hill Country Club was an easy one. “I think it starts with the long history that the PGA of America has with Oak Hill, with this community,” he said. “Every time we’ve come here in the past, whether it’s a PGA Championship or it’s a Ryder Cup in 1995, we’ve always hit it out of the park – certainly in the things that we measure success on and that’s volunteer recruitment, corporate support, it’s attendance in general and just really the way the community embraces us. And so, with our extension with Kitchen Aid we were looking for new venues that number one – the community would really support their initiatives – but also the golfers would really be excited about coming back to and this really checked both of those boxes, number one having a great community and two having one of the greatest golf courses in the United States.”

Hurlbutt’s team at Greater Rochester Enterprise prepared an economic impact analysis for the tournament to determine the amount of money it could bring to our region. “We found a $44 million impact for the region,” he said. “That’s in terms of visitors coming to the region, the construction that’s taking place to support the activities at Oak Hill, 350 direct jobs as well as 250 additional jobs as people are eating in local restaurants, visiting local ammenities and some of the features – museums and things. But additionally, it allows Greater Rochester Enterprise to showcase the region. We’ve got people coming to view the golf at Oak Hill, but also learn more about the outstanding companies that are here, that are growing, innovating, and why they’re here.”

The ripple effect of the event will go well beyond the gounds at Oak Hill. “We’ll have people tuning in from throughout the world so they’ll know that Rochester is an outstanding place to golf,” Hurlbutt noted. “We’ll have some opportunities to showcase Oak Hill as well as some of our food and beverage assets in the fact that Kitchen Aid is a main sponsor, and we’re bringing visitors here for them to understand more about the Rochester region, its economy, the companies that are here and growing, so we leverage it as well for the work that we do.”

Karns said world class golf will be matched by world class culinary expertise. “Certainly for your golf crowd you have some of the greatest golfers in the world, but you also have some of the greatest chefs in the world – Stephanie Izard, Tom Colicchio, Alex Guarnaschelli. They’re chefs that you see on The Food Network and The Cooking Channel, so people are really excited about that. We have local chefs like Steve Eakins from Radio Social, Joe Zolnierowski from Nosh and then Chris Roth from Oak Hill, so there’s a lot of really exciting cooking going on. People can see all of the Kitchen Aid applicances and products that they really could imagine exist. So it’s a lot of fun and it just brings a new element for people to come out and experience that week.”

To learn more about the 2019 Kitchen Aid Senior PGA Championship, visit SrPGA.com.

To learn more about Greater Rochester Enterprise, visit RochesterBiz.com.