March 26 -- They may refer to New Orleans as 'The Big Easy', but one look at TPC Louisiana and you know that names can often be misleading. PGA.com's John Kim talked with Luke Farabaugh, the PGA Head Professional of TPC Louisiana about this still new venue for the PGA Tour and the upcoming week's Zurich Classic.

The TPC Louisiana is both a beauty and a beast for the top players in the world. (WireImage.com)

PGA.com: Luke, your course is still a fairly new entry onto the PGA Tour. Can you tell us a little bit about it and what makes it special?

Farabaugh: It is a special course. It's a Pete Dye design that was cut out of a cypress swamp and it fits the land really well. It is a South Louisiana course and it has that distinctive flair to it. But what I think really makes this course special was that it was conceived, designed and built to host a Tour event. It can play very long (7400 yards) and it can be a very strong test for even the best players in the world. On the other hand, as a daily-fee venue, it's a course that is designed to host the golfing public the other 51 weeks of the year. When people come to New Orleans to visit and vacation, we invite them to come out to TPC Louisiana, I'm confident they'll like what they see.

PGA.com: It seems like you might have a tough spot on the PGA Tour schedule -- following the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the WGC-CA Championship at Doral. But you guys still get a very strong field. Can you explain that?

Farabaugh: This year is the strongest field we've ever had that I can recall and we're very excited. For one thing, we offer a great course and great hospitality and the players recognize that. But there is another strong factor certainly. I think that our place in the schedule is actually a great benefit now. We're two weeks prior to The Masters. With the new qualifying rules, we have players who are trying to gain entry, others who are trying to fine tune their games. Interestingly, because we are prior to the Masters this year and last year, we were after, we will have two champions representing our tournament at Augusta this year.

PGA.com: Speaking of champions, the tournament has a reputation for being a great place to jump start a career. The last three winers, and five of the last six, at the Zurich Classic were first-time winners on the PGA Tour. Is that coincidence or something else?

Farabaugh: I don't think it's mere coincidence. In past years, the playing field hasn't been as strong as this year and it provided a lot of new players a great chance to distinguish themselves. And also, the newness of the course means that more experienced players really have no significant advantage in knowing the layout.

PGA.com: Few people realize that the PGA Tour and the New Orleans area has one of the longest-running traditions of any city in the U.S. What type of golf market is the New Orleans area?

Farabaugh: It's an evolving market. For a long time, private club memberships really dominated the golf landscape here, but you are seeing some emergence of the daily-fee courses, particularly the high-end variety. The market is still recovering from Katrina damage that closed a number of courses, so as we rebound, we hope it's a bigger and better golf environment.

PGA.com: When I think of New Orleans, I think of great food, great music and big parties. So is 'great golf' now part of the marketing landscape?

Farabaugh: We hope so, that's what we're all about. We are working with the state of Louisiana and the PGA Tour to do just that, to make New Orleans a golf destination --- much in the same way that Las Vegas has parlayed entertainment, casinos and nightlife into a golf mecca as well. And we are similar in that we really do offer everything other than great high-end golf destinations, but with our presence and a potential other couple of courses on the way, I think we are off to a good start. It's a work in progress, but we're on our way.