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Normally, the PGA Professional Championship isn't much more than a blip on a crowded professional TV golf calendar dominated by the PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions and LPGA Tour, plus all their majors.
This year's championship, run by the PGA of America, is a little bit of an exception. If you're a savvy golf traveler, or golf course architecture fan, there are certain tournaments on TV where it's just as important to see the course as it is to watch who's playing it.
The Western Intercollegiate at Pasatiempo, the week after The Masters at the famous Alister MacKenzie course in Santa Cruz, Calif., is one. This year's PGA Professional Championship - known for years as the "national club pro championship" - is another. It is being hosted April 30-May 3 by Twin Warriors Golf Club and the 27-hole Santa Ana Golf Club, two nice resort courses 25 minutes north of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Golf Channel will televise coverage for two hours each day.
Whereas many major USGA events are contested on private courses, the PGA Professional Championship - featuring all of the best "club pros" from around the country - regularly visits compelling public playgrounds. Last year, Jesse Muller won the Walter Hagen Cup at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa. Other recent hosts include PGA Golf Club, home to three public courses in Florida (2021); Bayonet & Black Horse on California's Monterey Peninsula (2018); Crosswater at Sunriver Resort in Oregon (2017) and Turning Stone Resort in upstate New York (2016).
I've taken golf trips to New Mexico twice, and I tell anybody who will listen that it's among the most under-appreciated golf destinations in the country. The combination of Albuquerque and Santa Fe - about an hour apart - made our list of the World's Top 100 Golf Destinations.
Both visits I came away impressed by the bargains for your golfing dollar. For any 'Breaking Bad' fans out there, you should know that the New Mexico I experienced at cool courses like Black Mesa and the University of New Mexico's famed Championship Course is nothing like the troubled one Jesse and Walter created.
Twin Warriors roams the high desert near the high-end Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa. Architect Gary Panks routed the course in and around 20 ancient Native American cultural sites. A sacred butte known as Tuyuna or "Snakehead" and the Sandia Mountains frame the backdrop.
Just a short distance away is the Santa Ana GC by Ken Killian and the Santa Ana Star Casino Hotel if you like to gamble. Winter can be too cold for golf, and summers a little hot, leaving spring and fall your best options to visit.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not dissing the players by saying you should only tune in for the host courses. They're good, too. The best of the bunch will qualify for the PGA Championship - no small feat. I've played with a handful of top PGA pros who have qualified in the past - guys like Scott Hebert and Brad Dean from northern Michigan - and they can go low.
Don't miss the show.
Comments (1)
Your photos alone are compelling enough, in this article and your 2021 'Trip Dispatch' from New Mexico, to cement this state in my mind as a top destination. I've been to Arizona (similar) and know how singularly attractive, if not breathtaking, these golf venues can be.
New Mexico is on my bucket list; thanks for the insider's perspective!