The BMW PGA Championship is played over Wentworth Club’s West Course in Virginia Water, Surrey, from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 September 2026, with the event week opening on Tuesday 15 September. It is the DP World Tour’s flagship tournament, a Rolex Series event, and the one week of the year when the tour’s headquarters hosts the tour’s own championship.

It is also, for anyone based in or travelling through southern England, the most accessible big-field golf tournament in Europe. That accessibility is both the appeal and the planning problem.

The date and what it sits next to

September 2026 is dense. The Amgen Irish Open runs 10–13 September at Doonbeg, the BMW PGA follows immediately at Wentworth on 17–20, and the FedEx Open de France takes Le Golf National on 24–27. Three Rolex-calibre weeks in a row, in three countries, each an easy flight apart.

For a golf traveller that is an opportunity rather than a conflict. Two of the three can be combined without unreasonable effort, and the Irish Open into the BMW PGA is the natural pairing — Shannon or Dublin into London on the Monday, with a couple of days for golf in between.

The West Course

Harry Colt laid out the West Course in 1926, and its centenary falls in the year of this championship. It is heathland golf of the classic Surrey type: sandy soil, pine and birch, heather, and the rhododendrons that give Wentworth its distinctive look in the television pictures.

Ernie Els has revised it repeatedly over the past fifteen years or so, in his capacity as the club’s champion-in-residence — he won the PGA Championship here four times. The first round of work came around 2010, and after the 2016 championship the course closed again for a further redevelopment that rebuilt five greens, reduced the bunker count, and installed sub-air systems beneath the greens, the first such installation in England. It plays to roughly 7,247 yards.

The sub-air detail is not trivia. It allows the greens to be kept firm and fast into late September on heavy Surrey soil, in a month when English weather does not cooperate. Without it, the championship’s move to a September date would produce much softer, more receptive greens and a very different competition. With it, the course can defend itself.

What the course asks: the West is a strategic driving course rather than a bombing one. The Els work sharpened the emphasis on position off the tee, and the closing stretch — particularly the reachable par-5 18th — reliably produces movement on the leaderboard on Sunday. It is one of the better finishing holes in European golf for spectators precisely because it offers a genuine decision rather than a formality.

Getting there

Wentworth sits in Virginia Water, in Surrey, close to the M25 and roughly 20 minutes from Heathrow. This is the easiest major European golf tournament to reach from an international airport, which is a large part of why it draws the crowds it does.

By rail is the recommended route. Virginia Water station is served from London Waterloo, and the walk or shuttle from the station to the course is short. Driving to Wentworth on championship days means the M25, local roads that were not designed for tournament volumes, and car parks that fill early.

Accommodation spreads across Windsor, Ascot, Egham, Staines, and the Heathrow hotel cluster. Windsor is the pleasant choice and prices accordingly; the Heathrow hotels are the practical choice if you are flying in and out and want a short transfer at both ends. London itself is entirely viable — the rail connection makes a central London base workable, which is unusual for a golf major-scale event.

Tickets and the week’s shape

Tickets are sold through the DP World Tour, with general admission, the Treetops option (formerly Ticket+), and premium hospitality experiences. The event sold out on four of five days in 2025, so this is not a tournament to leave to the week before.

The days have distinct characters:

  • Tuesday and Wednesday — practice and the pro-am. Genuinely the best access of the week for watching players at close range, getting autographs, and walking the course without crowd management. Underrated by first-time visitors.
  • Thursday and Friday — full field, two courses’ worth of tee times compressed onto one, and the best opportunity to follow a specific player through a complete round.
  • Saturday and Sunday — the largest crowds and the best atmosphere, particularly around the 18th. Sunday is the one that sells first.

Wentworth’s spectator infrastructure is mature and the tournament village is substantial. This is a well-run, comfortable event to attend, and the September date usually means pleasant conditions rather than the heat that can make summer tournaments a chore.

Playing Wentworth

The honest answer for most visitors: you probably cannot, at least not the West.

Wentworth is a private members’ club, and access for non-members is limited in a way that Doonbeg’s or St Andrews’ is not. Unaccompanied visitor tee times on the West Course are not part of the club’s normal offering. Play is generally available through a member, or occasionally through corporate and charity days.

The realistic alternative is that Surrey and Berkshire contain one of the greatest concentrations of heathland golf anywhere, much of it accessible to visitors. Sunningdale, Swinley Forest, The Berkshire, Woking, West Hill, and Worplesdon sit within a short drive, and several take visitor bookings. A trip built around the championship plus two or three rounds on the Surrey heath is a considerably better week than one spent trying to talk your way onto the West Course.

That combination — a Rolex Series event, twenty minutes from Heathrow, in the middle of the best heathland golf in the world — is the reason this week is worth planning properly rather than attending on impulse.