By Rob Schneider – Managing Editor, Dallas Business Journal
The PGA of America’s move to northern Frisco means a lot of things for the fast-growing suburb and North Texas.
The move from Florida is a high-profile relocation for the city, region and state and the first major international sports organization in Texas.
It also brings a heavy swing of development to the area with PGA Frisco (our 2020 Deal of the Year for our Best Real Estate Deals event), a $520 million mixed-use development that includes the headquarters.
The PGA America development also has dual 18-hole golf courses that will bring six televised golf championships to Frisco over the next 12 years.
On Tuesday, the PGA gave a tour of its new headquarters that is currently under construction and scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022.
Click here for a tour of the facility and some renderings of what it will look like in the future.
The first floor of the PGA of America headquarters has an education center that will be used to train, certify and develop the nearly 28,000 PGA members who work across the country. That training will all be done in the facility in Frisco.
The building will have an indoor component that will allow members to learn more about putting, pitch and chip shots and other aspects of the short game of golf that weren’t possible at the organization’s previous facility in south Florida.
“It (allows us) to teach the associates and professionals about short game chipping and pitching and all the scoring clubs that take place that we’ve never had an opportunity to do before,” said Dawes Marlatt, Senior Director of Education and Employment for the PGA of America. “It’s going to offer us some things that we just couldn’t do outside.”
He said everyone who wants to become a PGA member comes through three career tracks: teaching and coaching, golf operations, and executive management leadership. All potential members must go through the initial level of training at the Frisco facility.
The first floor also includes three giant seminar rooms for education and a full green screen studio for the PGA to produce content.
The building features a giant staircase dubbed the “Grand Stands,” designed with interaction in mind.
Sandy Cross, Chief People Officer said the PGA has been working with design firm Page on the project for the last three years and that the pandemic didn’t change the vision it would be set up.
“We made sure that there were what we refer to as ‘natural collisions’, that would occur … where people are coming together, building relationships with their colleagues. And that’s where the innovation starts to blossom,” she said.
Cross said the building would house approximately 150 employees when the facility opens in 2022. That number could grow from there as the building ultimately can house 300-plus employees. Seventy-nine employees from Florida are already currently in DFW, and there are 39 open positions right now.
According to Jimmy Terry, senior Director of PGA Golf Properties for the PGA of America, the development is a little over 600 acres, 550 used for golf.
In addition to the two 18-hole golf courses, there will be a 10-hole short course called The Swing and a 75,000-square-foot putting course (the equivalent of 3.5 golf courses) called The Dance Floor.
A PGA Golf Experience district for retail and entertainment will be between the PGA headquarters and the Omni hotel and next to the putting course.
Terry said the entire site is being designed for golfers and non-golfers alike.
“I like to say it’s inviting for non-golfers as well as being able to challenge the greatest players in the world,” he said. “You come out to PGA Frisco and never hit a golf shot on the golf course and have a great time.”
The facility is committed to 26 golf championships in its first 12 years, with six televised major championships.
The first of those would be the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in 2023, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2025 and the PGA Championship in 2027. Then the rotation would happen again in 2029, 2031 and 2034.
And while nothing is guaranteed, the hope is for a Ryder Cup along the way as well.
The Tour championships will only be played on the east course with the other championships using both courses.
While the golf courses are technically designed and ready now, Terry said they require two years of maturation before anything on a large scale is played there.
But there is still time for adjustments.
“We invite certain guests to come out to give it a try because when you build something, you really don’t know what it’s like until you play it, right?”
