The local PGA tournament needs a new home. Henrico and a local businessman think they have the solution.

The Crossings sits strategically between the GreenCity project site and the revamped Virginia Center Commons.

When news broke late last year that the Dominion Energy Charity Classic would be losing its title sponsor and host venue Country Club of Virginia after 2025, Giff Breed and Dennis Bickmeier put their heads together.

Breed, a local businessman, golf booster and owner of Independence Golf Club in Powhatan, helped bring the PGA Tour Champions tournament to the region in the first place eight years ago and didn’t want to see it leave the region.

Bickmeier, as executive director of the Henrico Sports & Entertainment Authority, was determined not to let the event – and its estimated $34 million annual economic impact – leave Henrico County.

“Dennis said, ‘We can’t lose this tournament.’ That just started this whole domino effect,” Breed said.

Less than a year later, they think they’ve found the solution to at least one part of the tournament’s double whammy of a problem.

Henrico’s Economic Development Authority on Thursday purchased The Crossings Golf Club for $3 million as part of a public-private partnership ultimately aimed at transforming the public course into the new long-term home of the popular annual golf tournament.

In conjunction with the acquisition, the EDA has struck a deal to lease the 268-acre Crossings property to Breed’s company Pros Inc., which owns Independence.

The Crossings is now closed for business while Breed’s firm begins an $11 million overhaul and reinvention of the daily fee course to bring it up to the caliber of being able to host a pro tournament, with the Tour Champions event as its main target.

The catch, however, is that there’s no guarantee the Tour Champions event will agree to play there or even remain in the region. There’s no if-you-build-it-they-will-come certainty.

Henrico and Breed don’t formally have an agreement in place with the tournament – just a hope that their efforts continue that domino effect and result in a local company jumping in to replace Dominion as title sponsor and spur Tour Champions to have the confidence to sign on at the reinvented Crossings course.

“It’s an aspiration. There’s no commitment (from the PGA),” said Henrico EDA Director Anthony Romanello. “Having the PGA Tour Champions and other professional tournaments is absolutely the aspiration.”

Steve Schoenfeld, executive director of the Dominion Energy Charity Classic, said that while his group has no formal agreement with Henrico or Breed, he’s heartened by the effort and hopes it will help with his efforts to secure a new sponsor.

“The fact that there are other community leaders expressing the desire to find a home for (the tournament) and keep it here I think sends a real message,” Schoenfeld said.

Undeterred by the lack of a formal agreement, Breed said renovations on the course are expected to begin later this year with the goal of having the course ready to host the tournament in October 2026.

In the path of progress

A rendering of the planned layout for the revamped course.

Breed and Bickmeier hit upon the idea of The Crossings mostly out of necessity.

Breed said backup venues to replace CCV were limited. His Independence course is a high-end public course, but the infrastructure and logistics of hosting a nationally televised and widely attended tournament were likely more than the club or Powhatan County could manage.

And with Henrico making it clear it wanted the event to stay within the county limits, the options were limited. No serious contenders had stepped up among the private courses in Henrico and Breed said they even pondered finding land on which to build a new course from scratch.

The only other option was a public golf course and there’s only one such 18-hole course in Henrico: The Crossings.

Located in northern Henrico just off Route 1, The Crossings opened in 1960 as Ethelwood Golf Course. It was originally built as a 9-hole extension of Hermitage Country Club. In the 1970s it became a public course under the name Half Sink Golf Course, before a portion of the grounds had to be moved to make way for Interstate 295. The Crossings as we know it today opened in 1979, designed by course architect Joe Lee.

The Crossings also happens to sit within the path of progress of major developments, including athletics and tourism-centric projects at nearby Virginia Center Commons, the Henrico Sports & Events Center and the proposed GreenCity and its potential 17,000-seat sports arena.

“This whole area has just been reenergized,” Bickmeier said. “We in our own terminology keep calling it a sports tourism corridor and the Crossings just sits right in the heart of it.”

Giff Breed

Added Breed: “From our seat, you can’t help but notice what’s going on with GreenCity and what the county is doing over there. So naturally you’re sort of drawn to say, ‘OK, how close can we get to that, how can we get to be a part of that team?”

Bickmeier and Breed took the idea to EDA Director Romanello, who quickly got on board. Next, they made their first approach to Matthew Hall, a Charles City businessman who had purchased The Crossings in 2016.

After being initially turned away, a deal was struck.

Hall declined to comment Thursday.

Breed said The Crossings and its general layout give him the foundation to build a pro-caliber course.

“Back in the day The Crossings was the premier public golf course,” he said. “The journey that you’re on from the first tee to the 18^th hole is really a good one. So, the bones of the course are great and that’s really what attracted us to it.”

But it still needs some work.

One goal is to lengthen the course from its current 6,600 yards to 7,400 yards to accommodate the pros.

Also on the list is replacing of much of the turf on the fairways and greens, removing some trees and making the course’s lakes bigger and its streams wider.

“We sort of know what the tour would expect out of a facility,” Breed said of the planned upgrades.

Breed said he’s enlisted golf course architect Lester George, whose work has helped shape dozens of courses, including locally at Country Club of Virginia, Kinloch Golf Club, the Kanawha Club and Salisbury Country Club. Also helping in the design effort is well-known local golfer Vinny Giles.

Aspen Construction will handle the renovations, Breed said, and Phil Owenby who was the original general manager of Kinloch, will be the GM at the revamped course.

While the big bet is on luring the Tour Champions tournament, all involved are also looking at how to use the property in other ways.

Dennis Bickmeier

Plans are to use the new course for Henrico public high school teams and potentially for local university play.

Bickmeier’s office will help with programming, which will look to compliment what’s being done with youth golf at the county-owned Belmont Golf Course, which was renovated a few years ago in a similar public-private partnership involving First Tee of Greater Richmond.

“Given the success they’re having at Belmont, it’s in the right hands, the right stewardship,” Bickmeier said. “I just put them all under the umbrella of community pride. The PGA Tour Champions event has an element of community pride to it. What Belmont is doing shows community pride. The smile on my face is reflective of where I can see all of this coming together and blending well for our community.”

Breed said other pro golf events are also an opportunity..

“We are building this to host a professional golf tournament. If it’s not the PGA Tour Champions, we’re going to go after an LPGA event,” he said.

‘We’re going to have a sponsor’

The Crossings has changed ownership three times since 2014.

Breed said the project’s $11 million budget will be funded from a variety of sources, namely from corporate support.

“We’re going to reach out to our corporate partners throughout the county, the region and the state and hopefully they’ll share the vision of what we’re trying to do.”

Anthony Romanello

Romanello said no additional funds from the county will be put into the project beyond the $3 million to purchase the property.

“Our job is really to set the table and let the private sector do the rest,” Romanello said. “This was never about (the county) operating a golf course. We’re not in the golf business. Giff is and that’s why the partnership is so important.”

Bickmeier said there are potential grant funds in play that his office will assist with.

The revived course will not bear The Crossings name. Breed aims to set a precedent and sell naming rights to the course, not just for the potential Tour Champions event but for the course year-round.

“If it’s XYZ Co. National, that would be wonderful,” Breed said.

But ultimately, using the course as the lure for the next iteration of the DECC is the group’s endgame.

Breed, Ramonello and Bickmeier are all confident in their strategy that giving the tournament a new home will help it land the coveted title sponsor and that the venue and the sponsor can be in place in time to host the event as needed in October 2026.

“I do think it helps with that runway, of ‘Hey, look, if you have 50% of the two biggest things knocked off the list, let’s go focus on the other one,’” Bickmeier said.

“We are committed financially, we are committed with sweat equity to this thing and hopefully that helps him secure a title sponsor,” Romanello said.

Breed took it a step further.

“We have the utmost confidence that we’re going to have a sponsor, keep this event in the region and host it at the new golf course,” he said.

Steve Schoenfeld

Schoenfeld, while reiterating that the tournament has no official deal with Breed and the county, said he too shares their enthusiasm and hope.

“The fact that they would think of us and the potential of integrating our tournament into the fold of a reimagined golf course is amazing. It’s just a tell of the region and the people that live here.”

He said the tournament has had discussions with potential sponsors to replace Dominion beginning in 2026, but nothing is close to being finalized.

“Our hope is this news might bring attention to the fact that we’re looking for a local company that’s willing to step up to help keep the tournament here,” Schoenfeld said.

Breed again took it a step further. He said even the contractor he’s hired for the project knows what they’re aiming for.

“They’re telling us we’re going to be ready in October 2026 to host a PGA Tour Champions event,” he said. “We are 100% aiming at October of 2026.”

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