PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh said the potential of turning the Dallas suburb of Frisco into what he terms “the Silicon Valley of golf” is the driving force behind his organization’s impending move from Palm Beach Gardens to north-central Texas.
The Frisco City Council approved plans Tuesday to turn a 600-acre largely undeveloped parcel into a new headquarters and two championship golf courses for the PGA of America, which has been based for more than 50 years in Palm Beach Gardens and has been housed in a two-building complex adjacent to PGA National Resort since 1981.
Waugh said a contingent of about 100 of its staff of 220 employees will continue to work at the current site and doesn’t anticipate the majority of those moving until late 2021 or early 2022. The building owned by the PGA of America will be refurbished; the second in the complex is being leased and the lease will be allowed to expire.
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Waugh, a former CEO of Deutsche Bank who replaced former PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua in September, has lived in Palm Beach County for more than 30 years. A member of the PGA Board of Directors for the past three years, he was the point man on a committee that began reaching out to a dozen communities about two years ago to solicit proposals for a new headquarters after the decision was made that the organization had outgrown its current site.
“We narrowed it to five or six that we did more diligence on, and at the time Frisco jumped off the page,” Waugh said. “A large part of it was just what wasn’t available here, which was this raw piece of clay we can form into what we think can not only be our headquarters but a laboratory for golf, if you will.
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“We’re going to build two championship courses, a short course, hopefully the best practice facility on the planet, retail, some sort of Hall of Fame, and we think we’re going to attract some other incumbents in the business, whether it be equipment folks or whatever. We think over time this could end up being kind of the Silicon Valley of golf.”
Waugh said Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Beach County and even Florida Governor Rick Scott were involved in proposals that would keep the organization in the area.
Waugh lauded the efforts of Kelly Smallridge, President and CEO of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, who spearheaded the effort.
“To their credit, they did show us a few things,” he said. “It’s not that they weren’t workable, they just couldn’t compete with what we were able to do in Frisco.”
Smallridge said the PGA of America's exit “certainly is a loss to our county.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years in Palm Beach County and I could count on one hand the losses we’ve had of a corporate headquarters, because it really doesn’t happen very often.”
Located 20 minutes north of Dallas, Frisco, which bills itself as “Sports City USA,” boasts seven pro sports teams including the training facility of the Dallas Cowboys, FC Dallas of MLS, and the Texas Rangers’ Class AA affiliate.
“They didn’t have golf,” Waugh said, “so we were a very attractive brand for them. They have one part of the town that is undeveloped, so that’s where this proposal is coming from. Think of Florida 40, 50 years ago, when you had land west of PGA and that’s what you could do.
“(Palm Beach County) came up with a couple of interesting ideas that without this opportunity could have been the winning one. We weren’t looking to move, at all. But we were looking for something that we could create. And we thought this was in the best interests of our (29,000) members, and generationally was going to move the needle.
“You couldn’t create it in Palm Beach County to the same degree that we can there.”
Waugh said the PGA of America will demonstrate its ongoing commitment to Palm Beach County by making a “significant investment” in the building it owns down the road from PGA National Resort.
“This all started because our facilities are aged, so we’re going to make it a great home for the 100 or so folks who are going to stay here,” he said. “We want it to be world class and we’re starting to look at the plans for that.
“It’s not like we’re staying for a little while and then moving everybody to Frisco. It’s meant to be a permanent home here.”
Waugh said the organization will also open an office in New York to have closer contact with media and corporate entities.
PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, which is owned and operated by PGA of America, will continue to function and serve as the home of what is known as the Winter Series, competitive tournaments set up for club pros from the Northeast during the time their courses are closed.
“Frisco will have some of that once we have the courses up and running,” Waugh said. “But it’s going to take four years for us to get there; it’s not as though we’re moving tomorrow. At certain times of the year, the weather there isn’t what we have here, so you would expect we would still use the (Port St. Lucie) facilities in the appropriate times of the year.”
While the snow and ice storms that tend to hit central Texas in January and February may be a negative, Waugh said the location is a major positive.
“We’re going to be in the center of the country, so our members can get there in one flight,” he said. “The Central time zone helps on some things. But the East Coast will continue to be focused here and the Winter Series will continue here for all the obvious reasons.”
As for the expansive teaching facility in Port St. Lucie, Waugh said, “We’ll open a new one in Frisco and likely that one would either shift or shrink.”
Renowned golf course architect Gil Hanse, who did a reconstruction of the Blue Monster at Doral several years ago and also built the course at which the 2016 Olympics were staged in Rio de Janeiro, will oversee the construction of the course Waugh said is already being booked for future major events such as Ryder Cup and PGA Championships.
“Gil thinks he can build something special there, that there’s a lot of potential,” he said. “Permitting is going to take maybe nine months, then we begin from there, (so) I’m guessing two-and-a-half to three years.”
PGA of America and PGA National have had their ups-and-downs over the years, but Waugh called the relationship “great for a long time” and said he “absolutely” wants to continue that.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations, and we’re talking about building some new facility specific to what our needs are,” he said. “We expect that to be a very close ongoing relationship. We want to be a good neighbor and I want to make sure that we are.”
Bottom line, Waugh said, is that the mission of the PGA of America is to grow the game, and the combination of a state-of-the-art headquarters and championship courses gives the organization its best chance at success.
“To have this community of golf and having us as the anchor tenant … I don’t want to be saying that we’re all of golf, (but) if we’re the anchor tenant, it will attract a lot of other golf interests to the area, which could make it a kind of a think tank of golf, if you will, that will grow the game.
“It’s not going to happen because we say it is, and it’s not going to happen on Day 1. But hopefully 20 years from now, we’ll wake up and it will be something that’s really helped to advance the game.”
