Northern California to host '12 PGA Professional National Championship

Bayonet and Black Horse Golf Courses, a pair of challenging venues that overlook California’s famed Monterey Peninsula, have been selected to host the 45th PGA Professional National Championship presented by Club Car and Mercedes-Benz, June 24-27, 2012. It will mark the 11th time that The PGA of America’s showcase event for PGA Professionals will be contested in California, and first since 1996.

Bayonet and Black Horse Golf Courses, named in honor of two U.S. Army divisions, occupy property that was once part of the former Fort Ord military base near Seaside, Calif. The courses earned national recognition in 2010 when they hosted the Second Stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School and a U.S. Open qualifying event.

“The PGA of America is proud of its tradition of taking our PGA Professional National Championship to many of the best venues in the country,” said PGA of America President Allen Wronowski. “It is exciting that we will now have some of our finest playing PGA Professionals display their skills to a national audience with the backdrop of the spectacular Monterey Peninsula. We look forward to working with Bayonet and Black Horse’s staff in presenting the 45th PGA Professional National Championship to the country.”

Bayonet Golf Course features an uphill, dogleg right, 476-yard, par-4 ninth hole that exemplifies the course’s significant challenge following the Bates’ redesign, which included new Jacklin T1 bentgrass throughout both courses. Black Horse presents players with the challenging par-3 15th, which was created in its renovation and overlooks the bay to fit into one of the premier holes on the Monterey Peninsula. Golfweek named Bayonet and Black Horse to its roster of “Best New Courses of 2009” in the highly competitive renovation category.

“We are honored to be selected as the host of the 2012 PGA Professional National Championship, and we welcome the country’s premier PGA Professionals,” said Dick Fitzgerald, director for Seaside Resort Development, which operates Bayonet Black Horse. “By hosting the PGA Professional National Championship, Bayonet and Black Horse continues to cement its reputation as a home for professional championship golf and one of the great golf venues on the Monterey Peninsula.”

Bayonet Golf Course will host the final two National Championship rounds in 2012, which is due to be televised by Golf Channel.

Bayonet was designed by Gen. Robert B. McClure in 1954, redesigned by Gene Bates and opened in 2007. The course was named in honor of the Seventh Infantry Light Fighter Division (Bayonet Division). The par-72, 7,104-yard design, with its narrow corridors and steep bunkering, is considered one of the most difficult tests of golf on the Monterey Peninsula.

Black Horse Golf Course, a 1964 joint original design by Gen. McClure and Gen. Edwin Carnes, was named in honor of the 11th Cavalry Regiment (Black Horse), which was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey (1919-1940).

Carnes was the commanding general of Fort Ord from 1963 to 1965. Today, Black Horse is a 7,024-yard, par-72 layout that was renovated in 1998 by Chris Gray and redesigned by Bates in 2008. It features sweeping vistas of the Pacific Ocean and highlighted by fescue-framed fairways, bunker with distinctive, serrated edges and slick contoured greens.

The redesign of Bayonet and Black Horse Golf Courses began with the removal of the Kikuyu and poa annua, with Jacklin T1 Bentgrass, a strain that is superior in density and performance and will allow not only for better roll, but will harmonize with the state-of-the-industry drainage and irrigation systems installed on all 36 holes.

About The PGA Professional National Championship
Begun in 1968, The PGA Professional National Championship provides additional playing opportunities for PGA Professionals. In over four decades, it has become the showcase event for PGA Professionals, featuring some of the finest players in the Association. Formerly a 360-player field, and contested after the golf season had ended across much of the United States, the PGA Professional National Championship was first converted to a 156-player field from 1997-2005. The Championship now presents a 312-player field representing 41 PGA Sections competing at the peak of their games, and with its 20 top finishers earning a berth in the PGA Championship.

The 44th PGA Professional National Championship, presented by Club Car and Mercedes-Benz, offers a total purse of $550,000, and will be conducted June 26-29, 2011, at Hershey (Pa.) Country Club. The National Championship was first televised live by Golf Channel in 1997 to viewers across the U.S., Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Latin America, Malaysia, the Middle East, Scandinavia and Singapore. This year’s PGA Professional National Championship has a potential audience of 110 million. The PGA Professional National Championship has been conducted in 14 states in its previous 43 years: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

About The PGA of America
Celebrating its 95th year, The PGA of America has maintained a twofold mission of its founders: to establish and elevate the standards of the profession and to grow interest and participation in the game of golf.  By establishing and elevating the standards of the golf profession through world-class education, career services, marketing and research programs, The PGA enables its professionals to maximize their performance in their respective career paths and showcases them as experts in the game and in a multi-billion dollar golf industry. By creating and delivering dramatic world-class championships and exciting and enjoyable promotions that are viewed as the best of their class in the golf industry, The PGA of America elevates the public's interest in the game, the desire to play more golf, and ensures accessibility to the game for everyone, everywhere. The PGA of America brand represents the very best in golf.