MORGAN HILL—Fry’s Electronics has ended its title sponsorship with the PGA Tour, thus ending speculation of the Frys.com Open returning to Morgan Hill.
PGA Tour officials over the weekend announced the change for the event, which was held locally at CordeValle Golf Club in San Martin beginning in 2010, but shifted venues to the Silverado Country Club in Napa in October 2014.
The tournament has already secured a fresh five-year contract with new title sponsor Safeway, according to the PGA, and will be re-named the Safeway Open. The tournament will remain on the north course at Silverado.
Meanwhile, tournament organizers’ long-term goal of eventually hosting the tournament at Fry’s Electronics owner John Fry’s private course in Morgan Hill, known as The Institute, will not happen.
Fry’s previously sponsored PGA events in Arizona, California and Nevada.
“We’d like to thank John Fry, Kathy Kolder and everyone at Fry’s for their tremendous support as title sponsor of the event since its inception in 2007,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem in a press release.
Organizers have said that previous Frys.com Open tournaments—which attracted golfing superstars such as Tiger Woods and Ernie Els to South County—generated more than $10 million to the local economy during the week of the fall event. These revenues come largely from hotel, restaurant and other hospitality sales.
In 2013, the last year the Frys.com Open was held at CordeValle, the tournament donated more than $1 million to charity. The tournament reportedly brought more than 10,000 spectators per day to the San Martin golf course.
John Fry, owner of Fry’s Electronics and a Morgan Hill resident, has sought for several years to build a 170,000 square foot castle-like structure on his 192-acre southeast Morgan Hill property in order to secure his bid to host a PGA event. The structure would serve as a clubhouse for Fry’s private golf course on the property and the headquarters of the American Institute of Mathematics. Fry is a co-founder of AIM.
However, the castle project has been held up a number of times over the last decade, due to planning and permitting obstacles. In 2013, Fry was still negotiating with PG&E and Morgan Hill officials over how to build the structure without limiting the seismic safety of a transmission gas line that runs through his Foothill Avenue property and near the construction site.
As of early last year, Fry’s castle/clubhouse project was fully permitted to begin construction, although building had not yet started.
Frys.com Open and Fry’s Electronics representatives could not be reached for immediate comment.
Check back for more details regarding this developing story.
