PGA of America's move to Texas is now official; A&M's Sam Bennett amateur champ

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 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, Fla., 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,” PGA of America president Jim Richerson said. “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.”

More:Patrick Reed’s lawsuit against Brandel Chamblee is a whopper

The new facility 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 Championships (2023 and 2024), and three PGA Professional Championships in 2024, 2030 and 2033.

Texas A&M star Sam Bennett’s U.S. Am win includes rainbow moment

The joke goes that the golf course Texas A&M star Sam Bennett grew up playing in the tiny town of Madisonville is nothing but a cow pasture. Or as one family friend following Bennett during last year’s Cabo Collegiate — which Bennett won — told me, “that might be giving cow pastures a bad name.”

Bennett plays pretty good courses these days, and that will only improve after he captured the 122nd U.S. Amateur championship last week. After claiming the title with a 1-up victory against Ben Carr of Georgia, Bennett earned an invitation to the 2023 U.S. Open at The Los Angeles Country Club and a likely invitation to the 2023 Masters.

Bennett, who became the first golfer from Texas to win the Havemeyer Trophy since Kelly Kraft in 2011, sports a tattoo on his arm that the final words his fallen father spoke to him: “Don’t wait to do something.”

The world’s third-ranked amateur said he felt his father was watching over him during the final round, and a rainbow at The Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J., was the sign he needed.

“That was pretty cool,” Bennett said. “Probably everybody saw, but the rainbow, right when me and Ben finished, that rainbow right when we got done. I know he was, and a few good breaks and stuff like that, the golfing gods and him were working in my favor.”

More:Former Longhorn and No. 1 amateur Brad Elder leads Texas Golf HOF inductees

Texas ex Kaitlyn Papp’s clubs make it to Ottawa

Things are trending in the right direction for Texas ex Kaitlyn Papp, who posted her best start during her rookie season on the LPGA at the ISPS Handa World Invitational when she finished T-38. This week, the 24-year-old Papp is at the CP Women’s Open which is being held near the Canadian capital of Ottawa.

And while Papp made it safe and sound to the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club, she sent a panicked message via social media on Monday that her golf clubs had not accompanied her.

“My suitcase AND my clubs are in Terminal 1 of the Toronto airport and haven’t been 'found' yet. I’m playing in the LPGA event this week and need them ASAP. Please get my bags to Ottawa,” she tweeted.

Good news, though, as the clubs arrived after being rushed by Air Canada. The event starts on Thursday.

More:Former Texas golf star Scottie Scheffler to the LIV Golf tour? Not a chance, he says

Scottie Scheffler getting strokes? That’s different

There's a sizable chunk of Scottie Scheffler's DNA that longs for nasty weather, difficult conditions and the grind of grueling competition.

So having a 10-stroke lead on the field — a major handicap — heading into the first round of the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta is almost off-putting. It goes against his nature.

"It's going to be a little weird, the only tournament of the year where you actually start with strokes ahead of the field," he said Wednesday morning.

After a meteoric rise in which he won four times in six starts, culminating with his first Green Jacket at the Masters last April, the University of Texas product hasn't found the winner's circle in his last 11 tournaments, but he's hardly fallen way off. Although he has missed three cuts since Augusta — most notably at the PGA Championship — he's also racked up a pair of second-place finishes and placed T-3 at last week's BMW Championship.

When was the last time that Scheffler, who helped the Longhorns win three Big 12 championships, got strokes in a match?

"It's been a while, yeah. It's nice being on this end of the strokes versus having to give them up to everybody, which is nice, like I have to do at home," he said. "I'd have to really think. I can't remember anything off the top of my head if I was ever the one getting strokes. I'm not going to give you a hard 'no,' but I can't think of any off the top of my head."

Tim Schmitt is the managing editor for Golfweek, golf coordinator for the USA Today Network and lives in Round Rock. Golfweek’s Cameron Jourdan also contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PGA of American officially moves to Texas