A second Ryder Cup in Texas? It’s all but cemented at Frisco’s Fields Ranch
If the coffee at the soon-to-be-completed Omni PGA Frisco Resort doesn’t give you a sufficient morning jolt, a peek at the scorecard of Gil Hanse’s Fields Ranch East Course certainly will.
The sprawling and spectacular track — part of a 660-acre complex that houses Hanse’s East Course, Beau Welling’s West Course and the PGA of America’s impressive new home — opens with what we can safely refer to as major numbers. Major as in the numerous championships that will be played there, including the 2027 and 2034 PGA Championship and the 2025 and 2031 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
And major in terms of sheer distance — like an opening three-hole stretch that can play to 1,699 yards, including a 633-yard first hole that often plays into a stiff breeze.
Don’t come here half-asleep, the East Course seems to be saying.
Spoiler alert: It’s yet to be announced and won’t officially be done for years, but the common knowledge among all the key players is that if the course gets satisfactory marks during its run hosting the 2027 PGA Championship, it’s certain to be added as the 2041 Ryder Cup site. This would mark the second time the championship has come to the Lone Star State — in 1967, the United States convincingly topped Great Britain at Champions Golf Club in Houston with Ben Hogan as captain.
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And while the new complex, which sits on a rare bit of rolling land on the northern tip of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, will best be known for the 26 PGA of America championships scheduled over the next dozen years, there’s an interesting bit of behind-the-scenes symbiosis that’s led to the finished work.
Hanse, a golf architect who can’t squeeze enough room into his planner for major course redesigns these days, and self-described project “underdog” Welling formed an interesting and complementary team to make a special piece of property into something that will change the dynamic of golf in the state of Texas.
The courses were unveiled to the media last week, and both said they were excited about the possibility of collaborating again in the future.
Welling not only created the plan for the West Course, a challenging yet playable layout that rolls through the former ranch land, but he also developed the entire site plan, meaning he accounted for details like massive crowds, TV towers and even future concession stands.
It’s all part of a property that’s expected to drive massive tourism and growth in and around the yet-to-be-finished Omni, a resort that will include a two-acre putting course; an entertainment area named The Dance Floor with a massive TV screen to be programmed by PGA of America officials; and a par-3, 10-hole short course called “The Swing.”
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Although they’re very different creatures — for example, when Welling mentioned at a recent dinner that he’d had someone dress up as Sasquatch to walk outside the window at his wedding, Hanse laughed in disbelief and asked to see pictures — the combination created magic in this bucolic Texas pasture.
“I knew innately from the original phone call, this was going to be such a massive, special thing and we just wanted to be a part of it and to get to be able to work alongside Gil. His guys, as you know, are special. I certainly consider him friends of ours now, and we really had a great time with all this,” Welling said. “We talked about collaborating and it’s not some marketing thing we’re talking about. I think the two firms really got to appreciate each other and I think part of that is that we’re real people.
“Like we don’t just sit around and talk about golf all the time. So I remember great dinners or we talked about music, we talked about football and we talked about whatever, so it was just really a wonderful great experience.”
That’s when the question came of whether this was the first time the two had worked together.
“Yes,” Hanse said, looking over at Welling. “And hopefully not the last.”
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Big week for Texas ex Harrison Frazar
Harrison Frazar has always been the lesser-known of two University of Texas roommates who were among the powerhouse Longhorn teams that won seven Southwest Conference titles in a row under coach Jimmy Clayton from 1989-1995.
Justin Leonard was the four-time conference tournament medalist and the 1994 NCAA individual champion who went on to win the 1997 British Open and the 1998 Players Championship, among 12 PGA Tour titles.
Frazar picked up a couple of All-SWC mentions, and also got to the PGA Tour, but won only once, the 2011 St. Jude Classic.
And Frazar's Tour career ended soon after, with back ailments and other injuries derailing him. He last played anything close to a full Tour schedule in 2013-14 when he missed 11 of 15 cuts.
"I took six years off ... injuries, physical, mental, you name it," he said. "I felt like I had some unfinished business. This Tour owes me nothing other than a chance to Monday qualify, a chance to work my way in. And I committed to it. I've got an incredible support group at home who have given me the runway to go try to do this. You know, here I am, right? But I feel like I've got something still left to prove."
He picked up a lot of confidence last week at the Constellation Furyk & Friends. After shooting a 65 at the TPC Sawgrass Dye's Valley to win a Monday qualifier, Frazar fired a final-round 65 to finish second, two shots behind winner Steve Stricker.
This first career PGA Tour Champions top 10 — and his first on either tour since the 2012 Sony Open — accomplished two things. It got Frazar in the field for this week's SAS Championship near Raleigh, N.C., and he improved to 52nd on the Schwab Cup money list, well within the top 72 that will qualify for the Schwab Cup playoffs beginning next week.
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Birdies and bogies
• University of Texas recruit Tommy Morrison has yet to start his career in Austin, but he already has a pretty impressive playing partner in an upcoming major amateur event. The 6-foot-10 Morrison combined with former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo to shoot a best-ball score of 9-under-par 63 at Winter Creek Golf Club in Blanchard, Okla., on Monday, tying for medalist honors. The result qualifies the tandem for the 2023 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship slated for May 20-24 at Kiawah Island Club in South Carolina. Romo, 42, shot 66 on his own ball with eight birdies — five of which were used for the team score — while Morrison finished off a 72 with a pair of birdies.
• Geoff Hill, a former tournament operations manager for the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, has a new job as the tournament director of the Cologuard Classic, an event on the PGA Tour Champions in Tucson, Ariz. Hill most recently served as VP of operations at Circuit of the Americas. He previously worked as a tournament operations specialist for the Champions tour, where he oversaw the Senior Players Championship. A graduate of the University of Arizona, Hill was born and raised in Tucson, and his family still resides there.
• The driving range at Jimmy Clay and Roy Kizer in Austin is being overseeded and those working on their games will have to hit from mats for the next two weeks.
Tim Schmitt is the managing editor for Golfweek, golf coordinator for the USA Today Network and lives in Round Rock. Garry Smits of the USA Today Network also contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Look for Ryder Cup to come to Frisco Texas in 2041 with new course
