Leonard set for Senior PGA close to old Texas home on new course with bright future

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Justin Leonard can’t think of a better place than near his old Texas home for his first PGA Tour Champions victory.

Ryder Cup veteran Darren Clarke sees plenty of bigger events in the future beyond the debut of the signature course at the new PGA of America headquarters in the Senior PGA Championship starting Thursday.

“It’s a big boy golf course,” Clarke said. “Looking in the future and for the main PGA and then possibly Ryder Cups and stuff, this is all you want, this golf course. Just brilliant, absolutely brilliant.”

First things first: the second consecutive major for the 50-and-over crowd, with a field that includes back-to-back Regions Tradition winner Steve Stricker and defending Senior PGA champion Steven Alker.

The 50-year-old Leonard is making his 13th Champions start not far from his boyhood home in Dallas, where he lived well into his pro career before moves to Colorado and Florida.

A 12-time PGA Tour winner, including the 1997 British Open, Leonard still has family in Dallas, and his wife and some of his kids are planning to watch him in the first Dallas-area major on any tour since the 1991 U.S. Women’s Open at Colonial in Fort Worth.

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Leonard was a regular at the Byron Nelson and Colonial during his PGA Tour career, but never won.

He said he couldn’t have envisioned the next chance for a hometown victory coming about 30 miles north of Dallas in Frisco, where the PGA of America moved its headquarters and built an expansive campus that includes two 18-hole courses, a 2-acre putting green, a lighted par-3 course, massive driving range, shops and restaurants.

“It would be a lot of fun to do it close to home,” Leonard said. “I’m looking forward to my first win, wherever it is. But if I could pick one, it would probably be here, and that’s the last time I’m going to think about winning for the rest of the week.”

PGA Frisco’s Fields Ranch East course is a par 72 that will play about 7,100 yards for the seniors. While there aren’t any water hazards to go with some deep bunkers, Panther Creek winds through the course.

Architect Gil Hanse said some elevation had to be built in to try to keep flash floods from damaging the course. He said eight holes essentially built themselves as part of the natural landscape, and the other 10 had to be created as part of a rolling layout with large native areas and some trees.

“It’s a tough walk,” David Toms said. “It’s just a big property for us. It’s a long way to get to the driving range, the putting green, the first tee, the 10th tee. For a bunch of old guys, you can walk yourself to death. It’ll be an endurance test I think if it stays warm like this.”

The forecast is for temperatures in the high 80s. While humidity will be a factor, it will be better than 60 years earlier, the last time a men’s major was held in Dallas. Jack Nicklaus won the 1963 PGA Championship at Dallas Athletic Club, with those July temperatures in the 100s.

With the PGA Championship now played in the spring, it is scheduled for Fields Ranch East in 2027 and 2034. There has been talk of a Ryder Cup, and first impressions haven’t changed that.

Clarke said the Ryder Cup appeal comes in the high risk/reward of second shots. Players this week are likely to be more conservative in a stroke play event. They would be more aggressive in match play.

“There’s risk-reward out there. There’s drama out there,” fellow Irishman Padraig Harrington said. “In stroke play, you have to manage that and figure out when is the right time to take a chance.”

Several players said the new venue appeared to require plenty of patience, which most of them said wasn’t their strength. Wind has always played a big role in scoring in the Dallas area, and should do so again.

“It presents a lot of challenges just because conditions like wind that could throw everything off,” said Stricker, who is seeking his third win of the season in a field that is set to include Stewart Cink in his Champions Tour debut four days after turning 50.

“You feel like your homework is never done,” Stricker said. “Everybody is in the same boat for the most part, so it’s just a lot of work in these three days leading up to the tournament.”

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