What changes are coming to Kentucky’s annual PGA Tour event in 2025?

Rory McIlroy’s exhilarating, long-awaited triumph at the Masters last weekend provided an electric start to professional men’s golf’s major championship season.

If the sport wasn’t already on your radar, then the Northern Irishman’s playoff victory at Augusta National Golf Club — which gave him a career grand slam of major championship wins — certainly vaulted golf to the forefront as spring arrives.

Locally, that means Kentucky’s annual stop on the PGA Tour is now on the horizon.

This year’s edition of the ISCO Championship — to be held July 10-13 — will feature plenty of changes compared to recent editions of the PGA Tour event.

The most notable of these changes is the venue. After being contested at Champions at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville since 2018, the ISCO Championship is moving to Hurstbourne Country Club in Louisville.

The change in host venue from Central Kentucky to Louisville was announced last July, at a news conference that featured a variety of speakers, including Kentucky Lt. Governor Jacqueline Coleman, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg and PGA Tour senior director of tournament business Chandler Kaplan.

Now, in a recent interview with the Herald-Leader, two men closely involved with the tournament spoke about the move from Nicholasville to Louisville, as well as the future of Kentucky’s annual PGA Tour stop.

“We wouldn’t be interested if this event was not in Kentucky, if the PGA Tour wanted to move it or whatever. That’s not something we would support,” said Jimmy Kirchdorfer, chairman and CEO of ISCO Industries, the tournament’s presenting sponsor. “We have great bourbon here, horse racing, basketball, (is what) we’re known for. But we also have professional golf at the highest level. Having a major last year. Now having a PGA Tour event again on an annual basis, and continuing what had already been here.”

Both Kirchdorfer and T.R. Hollis, the tournament director, stressed the importance of keeping the ISCO Championship in the commonwealth.

The tournament, formerly known as the Barbasol Championship, was first contested in Alabama starting in 2015, before it moved to Nicholasville in 2018.

When the tournament arrived in Kentucky, it became the state’s first regular season PGA Tour event since the Kentucky Derby Open, which was held in Louisville from 1957-59.

Kirchdorfer told the Herald-Leader that he envisions the ISCO Championship staying in Kentucky, while moving around to different courses in the commonwealth.

“My vision is to really move it around,” Kirchdorfer said. “Now bring it to Louisville, Hurstbourne Country Club. And I wouldn’t be surprised if, over the tenure of this event, it moved around Kentucky quite a bit, just to showcase our state.”

Kirchdorfer, alongside three other businessmen, purchased Louisville’s Valhalla Golf Club in 2022. Valhalla was the site of last year’s PGA Championship, won by Xander Schauffele.

(The tournament was marred by the death of a security guard who was hit by a shuttle bus and the arrest of top golfer Scottie Scheffler, both of which occurred prior to the second round of the event.)

“It’s important to me to have an annual tour event in Kentucky,” Kirchdorfer said. “It highlights our state to television viewers around the world and golf fans around the world and players that come in, as well as provides economic impact, charity dollars and community activities, community events, sporting events for people to come out and enjoy. So I envision it in Kentucky for a lot of years to come.”

ISCO Championship moves to Hurstbourne Country Club in Louisville

Hollis told the Herald-Leader that the ISCO Championship “is in the best position it’s probably ever been in” entering the tournament’s first year in Louisville.

Kirchdorfer’s ISCO Industries — a total piping solutions provider that is based in Louisville — was the title sponsor of the tournament for the first time last year. ISCO has the title sponsorship rights for the event through 2027.

“Last year was, I would say, a breath of fresh air, having Jimmy and ISCO Industries come on as the title sponsor, very involved,” Hollis said. “Like I keep saying, the right pieces are in place to really make this a special, unique, differentiated stop on the PGA Tour, and how lucky we are to have all of those pieces together right here in Kentucky.”

With the event shifting to Louisville, pro golf fans will now get a look at what Hurstbourne has to offer as a PGA Tour venue.

Hurstbourne is a private, member-owned club on Louisville’s east side. It was founded in 1966. The course takes up 243 acres and was originally designed by Chick Adams.

Last summer, PGA Tour chief competitions officer Tyler Dennis said the ISCO Championship’s move to Hurstbourne is an opportunity to highlight a “premier Kentucky golf venue.”

“There’s a good buzz about it, the new venue, that really will enhance the field, quality of the field, that comes to this event,” Kirchdorfer said.

Hollis, the tournament director, said his job encompasses everything from general sales and marketing, to business development and government relations, as the tournament nears.

“Everything that I’m doing as tournament director on the sales front, marketing front, ticketing front, volunteer front, it all just goes back to trying to make a premium experience for all of our key stakeholders,” Hollis said. “So for the players coming in and seeing Kentucky to the PGA Tour coming in, to NBC and Golf Channel coming in to Kentucky, and of course, our fans, both here in Louisville and in Kentucky and then worldwide.”

ISCO Championship to take place in July 2025

The parameters surrounding the 2025 ISCO Championship at Hurstbourne will be similar to what golf fans came to expect from previous editions of the tournament in Nicholasville.

A field of 156 players, including 50 players from the DP World Tour, will contest this year’s ISCO Championship in July. The event will award 300 points toward the FedExCup, and it will carry a $4 million purse.

“Not every city, not every state, gets to host a PGA Tour event on an annual basis,” Kirchdorfer added. “So we thought it’s a great opportunity. In Kentucky we love to show our hospitality to people from around the world, and we’ll have players from around the world, spectators, a lot of eyeballs on us from television viewers. I think they will see Kentucky shine.”

Kirchdorfer also said the Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute will be the charitable partner for this year’s ISCO Championship.

Other committed partners for the tournament include Elijah Craig bourbon, the Anheuser-Busch brewing company and Pepsi.

Once again, the ISCO Championship will take place at the same time as the Genesis Scottish Open. The majority of the best golfers in the world will be playing in the Scottish Open, which takes place one week before The Open Championship, the final major of the year.

Tickets are now on sale for the ISCO Championship and can be purchased at iscochampionship.com. Children who are 15 years old and younger with a ticketed adult will receive free general admission to the tournament.

Last year’s ISCO Championship — the final one to be held at Keene Trace — was won by British golfer Harry Hall, who emerged from a five-man playoff to win the tournament.

The 2024 ISCO Championship had an 8-under-par cut score, which set a PGA Tour record for the lowest 36-hole cut-line score in an individual, stroke-play event.

Hollis said golfers who have already committed to play in the ISCO Championship this year include Harry Higgs, Joel Dahmen and nine-time PGA Tour winner Brandt Snedeker.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

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Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription