Bassmaster Classic to Return to Green Pond for Record Fifth Visit
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
The Super Bowl of bass fishing is coming home again, for the fifth time, to a lake that by now knows the choreography by heart.
B.A.S.S. announced that the 2027 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour will return to Green Pond Landing and Events Center March 19–21, with competition once more on Hartwell Lake, the 56,000‑acre reservoir that separates South Carolina from Georgia and, increasingly, the ordinary from the mythic in professional fishing. It will be the fifth time the Classic has played out on Hartwell’s points and humps—2008, 2015, 2018, 2022 and now 2027—giving the lake the distinction of hosting the event more than any other venue in the world championship’s history.
“When Green Pond was just and idea and a dream, we hoped to see it becoming a premier national professional fishing destination,” said Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns. “Today we have seen that dream realized as it sets the record for Bassmaster Classics.”
The announcement comes as work at Green Pond is under way to add six launch lanes and new docks as part of a master plan to enhance facilities at the venue.
Anderson County Parks Director Matt Schell said the additional lanes have been on Bassmaster’s wish list for Green Pond for years.
“Welcoming back the fifth classic on Hartwell to Green Pond, the first community to host five times in their 60-year history is a big deal,” said Schell. “Especially since we have only been a player for a relatively short time.”
Anderson County set to work on the digging and removing of rocks from the site in mid-December, running equipment and teaming up with the Roads and Bridges department to haul away more than 400 truckloads of rock and dirt which is being repurposed at other county locations.
The clock was ticking on the work since any construction lakeside is prohibited from March 1-July 1 to protect the spawning habitat of the fish. Work will resume again this Summer after bids have been approved and the new work is expected to be completed as early as year’s end, but definitively before the Bassmaster Classic returns in March of 2027.
By that time new electrical facilities at Green Pond will allow for RV pedestals, new lights on the weigh-in road and other improvements.
The total cost of the project is approximately $3.5 million and is being funded almost entirely by a Sports Water Recreation grant and a Sports Fish Restoration Fund grant.
Schell said that each Bassmaster Classic has come on the heels of major upgrades and improvements at Green Pond.
“It’s been a long haul, an 18-year journey from the first Classic leading up to our fifth,” said Schell.
For Upstate tourism officials, the announcement is less a surprise than a kind of confirmation. In 2022, when the Classic last came through Greenville and Anderson, an estimated 154,932 people cycled through Classic Week events—launches at Green Pond Landing, weigh‑ins, the sprawling Outdoors Expo, and the usual array of sponsor activations—leaving behind more than 25.5 million dollars in economic impact. Those numbers put the 2022 edition among the best‑attended Classics on record and helped fix Greenville in the minds of sports‑tourism planners as a place that can handle a national championship in waders rather than cleats.
“Hartwell Lake has consistently delivered elite‑level competition and dramatic moments on bass fishing’s biggest stage, while Greenville and the surrounding Upstate region have proven to be outstanding hosts for anglers and fans alike,” B.A.S.S. CEO Chase Anderson said in announcing the 2027 return. The draw, as he described it, is a particular combination: a world‑class fishery, an engaged fan base and a set of local partnerships that can turn a three‑day tournament into a week‑long civic spectacle.
The lake’s résumé helps. Hartwell has already produced four Classic champions and some of the sport’s more replayed finishes. In 2008, Alton Jones won with 49 pounds, 7 ounces, figuring out just enough about cold‑front fish to outlast a decorated field. Casey Ashley, the local favorite from nearby Donalds, took the 2015 title with 50‑1, casting a chrome underspin into blueback‑herring schools as the hometown crowd roared. In 2018, Jordan Lee claimed the second of his back‑to‑back Classics with 47‑1, cementing a brief, incandescent run that made him the sport’s first true millennial superstar. Jason Christie’s 2022 win, at 54‑0, came only after a last‑day charge that reinforced Hartwell’s reputation for late plot twists.
For local tourism officials, the Classic’s return is as much about identity as it is about room nights. “The Bassmaster Classic shows how tourism can be a true community engine—supporting jobs, local businesses and the quality of life our residents enjoy every day,” said Heath Dillard, president and CEO of VisitGreenvilleSC. The event, in his telling, is a kind of civic mirror: it reflects “strong partnerships, incredible natural assets and a region that knows how to come together to host a world‑class event.”
If Greenville has become the sport’s big‑city backdrop—arena weigh‑ins, convention‑center expos, crowds snaking around the block—Anderson remains its working waterfront. Launches will again be staged out of Green Pond Landing, the county’s purpose‑built tournament facility on the Anderson County side of the lake, which has quietly become one of the most recognizable docks in bass fishing.
“It is both an honor and a privilege to welcome the Bassmaster Classic back to Anderson County, Green Pond Landing, and Lake Hartwell for a record fifth time,” said Neil Paul, executive director of Visit Anderson. “County leadership has committed to forging one of America’s premier facilities at Green Pond, and they continue to equip Visit Anderson with the resources to secure these marquee events. The Classic places the gaze of the fishing world squarely on our lake and our ramp as we ready for March 2027—a tremendous chance to showcase what we’ve built. We take immense pride in delivering a championship-caliber experience to anglers and guests alike, and we anticipate another record-breaking spectacle.”
Part of that story, he said, is about the health of the fishery itself; part is about infrastructure. With Green Pond Landing, Anderson County can offer a launch facility that anglers and tournament organizers now talk about in the same tone they reserve for legendary lakes.
Paul was careful to spread the credit around: to Anderson County leaders who have continued to pour money into Green Pond to keep it among the nation’s best, and to the same officials who fund Visit Anderson’s efforts to bring events of this scale to the lake in the first place. He ticked off a list of partners—the team at VisitGreenvilleSC, regional tourism offices, the state of South Carolina, the Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—and then circled back to B.A.S.S. itself for entrusting its “crown event” to Hartwell five different times. The subtext was clear: the Upstate intends to set the standard by which future Classics, wherever they are held, will be measured.
For the anglers, the stakes are more personal. The Classic remains the most coveted title in professional bass fishing, with a 300,000‑dollar first prize and a kind of career‑shaping gravity that no other tournament quite matches. The 2027 field will again be made up of the sport’s top qualifiers, each trying to puzzle out a familiar lake that never fishes quite the same way twice in late March. Around them, Classic Week will unfurl in its usual, slightly surreal fashion: weigh‑ins that feel like rock concerts, an Outdoors Expo that can flood a convention center with boats and camo, fan festivals, sponsor displays and more localized community events that spill from Greenville into Anderson and the smaller towns around the lake.
For now, some details remain undecided—or at least unannounced. Tournament officials say they will release specifics on takeoff locations, weigh‑in venues and the full slate of fan activities closer to 2027. The basic outline, however, is set: Greenville and Anderson will again share the stage; VisitGreenvilleSC and Visit Anderson will serve as hosts; and Hartwell Lake will once more be asked to play the role it has, over the last 15 years, perfected—that of a reservoir where, for three days in March, a particular corner of Anderson County becomes the center of the bass‑fishing universe.
