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.
The U.S. Amateur returns to Hazeltine in 2024, 18 years after last week's Ryder Cup star Dustin Johnson played in it. The club also is pursuing a U.S. Open in the 2030s. It last was played there in 1991.
Fafinski calls the current Hazeltine National membership "blessed" for the previous generation of members who had the "foresight" in the 1990s to strike a deal with the PGA of America that brought the 2002 and 2009 PGA Championships and the 2016 Ryder Cup in one package.
"What the membership pulled off in 2016 allowed us to go back and get another one," said Fafinski, co-founder and CEO of the Fafinski, Mark & Johnson law firm. "The membership is really proud that we're going to be the first club that ever hosted a second Ryder Cup in America."
The 2025 Ryder Cup will be played at Bethpage Black in New York before it comes back four years later to Chaska. In Europe, it will be played in Rome in 2023 and Ireland in 2027.
Superstars Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson likely will captain U.S. teams — New York fans love Phil — before the Ryder Cup comes back to Minnesota. Iowan Zach Johnson could be in the pipeline as well.
"Gosh, I have no idea," Fafinski said about a 2029 captain. "That'll be fun to figure out the puzzle who does the next three Ryder Cups before it comes back to Hazeltine."
This year's U.S. captain Steve Stricker brought the Ryder Cup back to his home state of Wisconsin. He said he knows who it won't be. It won't be him.
"It was an unbelievable experience, don't get me wrong," Stricker said. "I'm glad it's over."
Wherever it goes, the Ryder Cup will grow three times before it comes back to Minnesota.
"The key things — the first-tee experience, the merchandise tent — will be even bigger," Fafinski said. "Just the scale of the event continues to be larger and larger and that's not going to change. We are fortunate we have room to grow. My expectation is that 2029 will be bigger and even better."
If the Hazeltine National membership is lucky, what might not change much is a U.S. team that beat Europe 19-9 Sunday, breaking records in the modern-scoring era for points won and margin of victory. Eight of the 12-player team are under 30. Even last week's star Johnson will be only 45 by 2029.
"Nine, 10 of those guys might be on the team in 2029," Fafinski said. "It's crazy how good these kids are. They have no fear. They don't have a lot of scar tissue. They just let it go. They're going to be fun to watch these next eight years."
