The PGA of America is bringing what its CEO called the “Silicon Valley of Golf” to Frisco, detailing Monday how moving its headquarters to the Collin County city will bring new innovations to a game that dates to the 1450s.

Seth Waugh [Photo: Ben Torres/Tony Fay Public Relations]

The facility will have an innovation lab, educational facilities, and two championship golf courses among its amenities, elevating the game to new heights, PGA CEO Seth Waugh said at an event Monday in Frisco where he introduced plans for the headquarters. 

“I think this is so much bigger than our headquarters and so much bigger, frankly, than a couple of golf courses,” Waugh said. “It’s really trying to create a community of golf, … a laboratory, a university, and destination not only to play, but to learn everything associated with the game.”  

The headquarters will anchor the 600-acre, Fields mixed-used development being co-developed by Hunt Realty and Karahan Companies. It has an initial public-private investment worth more than half a billion dollars.

PGA headquarters will create new energy for innovation

Waugh equated what will happen in Frisco to the evolution of Silicon Valley in California.

“If you think about what happened in Silicon Valley, it was a guy named Hewlett and Packard building a computer in their garage, and now it’s the biggest engine on the planet in terms of changing the world, right?” Waugh told attendees. “And that was driven by the location of Stanford [University] as kind of the anchor tenant and that energy that came.”

READ NEXT PGA of America Will Bring Innovations, Economic Impact to Frisco with HQ Move

He said that what the PGA is creating in Frisco will include a retail experience, a golf experience, the accompanying resort, and surrounding areas being developed by the Hunt family, according to D CEO. The new site will also “create an energy about this and a curiosity” that will ultimately be the community of golf.

“The best analogy I could come up with was Silicon Valley because I think it takes some of the same things,” Waugh said. “That’s not because I’m saying it, it’s not because we’re the anchor tenant, but it has all the factors that exist.“

PGA wants moving forward in its DNA

The PGA’s partners on the new campus are the city of Frisco, Frisco ISD, and Omni Stillwater Woods, a joint venture led by Omni Hotels, Stillwater Capital, and Woods Capital.

To help direct the PGA’s future, the organization recently appointed a chief technology officer. “We want to create that DNA internally of thinking forward,” Waugh said.

The PGA of America, which has 29,000 members, said it will host two PGA championships at the new facility for men and women, with men’s tournaments in 2027 and 2034.

The PGA will hold two PGA Championships at the Frisco facility. [Photo: by Ben Torres for Tony Fay Public Relations]

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