FRISCO, Texas — PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh stepped to a podium on Monday, looked back through massive windows at two sprawling golf courses behind him — one designed by architect Gil Hanse and the other by Beau Welling — then turned back toward the 500-or-so attentive guests invited to the opening of the organization’s breathtaking new home and smiled.
“Welcome to our field of dreams. Build it and they will come,” Waugh said in his typical wry style. “And in this case, it’s 500 of our closest friends in the future. It’ll be all 28,000 of our PGA professionals and millions of golfers that enjoy this, this land, and all the future players, You know, you realize that in most places that I’ve spent most of my life if we’d done this it might be a blurb in a sports page that we moved our home here.
“But we are in Frisco — in Dallas — and it’s front page news. And it’s incredible what’s happened here. You know you’re on to something if (Dallas Cowboys owner) Jerry Jones is sitting in the back row. I certainly hope this doesn’t reflect on the time that I come to AT&T (Stadium) in the future where I might sit.”
The move from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was certainly a bold one. PGA Frisco — which was born from an incentives package the organization couldn’t ignore — sprawls over 600 acres of former ranch land and has grown into a $550 million mixed-use project. The facility, which is just over 100,000 square feet, includes practice bays, indoor putting greens, conference rooms, and a massive foyer/conference area where Monday’s presentation took place.
Among those on hand for the ceremony were a number of Dallas Cowboys legends — Tony Dorsett, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Drew Pearson, Billy Joe DuPree and the aforementioned owner, Jerry Jones, as well as LPGA Hall of Famer Kathy Whitworth and former WNBA superstar Nancy Lieberman.
“I’ve been very lucky to work all over the country, but I really think that this project will be the epicenter of golf here, right here in Frisco, Texas,” said PGA of America president Jim Richerson. “That will do things to promote and bring people from different backgrounds into the game, that will do things to bring people from different backgrounds in the industry of golf that will utilize golf in a way to bring people together from the business world from the sports world, and from the golf world and a very unique way that’s never been done before.”
Here’s a look at the new facility, which will see 26 high-profile events over the next dozen years, including a pair of PGA Championships (2027 and 2034), the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in both 2025 and 2031, two KitchenAid Senior PGA Championships (2023 and 2029), a pair of National Car Rental PGA Jr. League Championship (2023 and 2024), and three PGA Professional Championships in 2024, 2030 and 2033.
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